Disrupting Desistance? Minor Criminal Justice Contact and the Age Crime Curve

• In Event: Life-Course Transitions and Desistance from Crime

Abstract

The consistency with which the age-crime curve has been replicated across time, space and sample signifies it as a brute fact in criminology. One facet of this curve is the decline in crime in young adulthood. Research focusing on desistance has been dominated by studies of factors that accelerate the reduction in offending. Less is know about the factors that may hinder desistance within the general population. Drawing on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, we examine the age distribution of deviant behaviors (e.g., self-reported offending, substance use, sexual partners) stratified by criminal justice system involvement. Controlling for a host of background factors, we examine whether the age crime curve differs for justice-involved youth and non-justice-involved youth. Whereas research finds that incarceration can detrimentally impact offending among high-risk samples, testing for detriments of criminal justice system interaction is equally important among low-risk individuals who are most apt to naturally desist. This research asks: Do minor interactions with the criminal justice system hold the potential to alter offending trajectories?

Authors

• Bianca Bersani, University of Massachusetts Boston

• Elaine Eggleston Doherty, University of Missouri-St. Louis