Testing a Rational Choice Model of "Desistance:" Decomposing Changing Expectations and Changing Utilities

• In Event: Offending Decisions in Social and Legal Context:

Abstract

Although scholars have theorized about the role of “choice” in the desistance process (Paternoster et al., 2015), mostly absent in the life course literature is a formal consideration of the rational decision making processes that underpin changes in offending over time. We argue that desistance can be understood through a rational choice framework in two ways. First, subjective expectations of offending can change over time, such that the perceptions of rewards decrease and perceptions of cost increase. Second, the marginal (dis)utility that derives from the expectations may change in a manner that promotes desistance (e.g., preferences for risk, costs, and rewards change from adolescence to adulthood). In this study we examine changes in offending from adolescence to young adulthood among a subset of individuals from the Pathways to Desistance Study (N = 601) and employ a non-linear decomposition model to partition the differences in offending attributable to changes in subjective expectations (E) and changes in the marginal utility (β). The results suggest that both have direct and independent effects on changes in offending overtime, with the latter accounting for a larger portion of the decline.

Authors

• Kyle Thomas, University of Missouri - St. Louis

• Matt Vogel, University of Missouri - St. Louis