Cutting Ties with Prior Places: Considering the Role that Residential Mobility Plays in Desistance from Crime and Substance Use During the Transition to Adulthood

• In Event: Turning Points and Typologies: Understanding Trajectories of Change in Criminal Behavior

Abstract

This study examines the role that residential mobility plays in desistance from crime and substance use. Getting out of town and moving away is an intuitive way to separate offenders from criminogenic environments, which in turn should reduce their offending. Yet, there is surprisingly little empirical work that evaluates the potential crime reducing effects of a residential move, especially a residential move made during the transition to adulthood. Using annual data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, I address this void by examining the effect of residential mobility (defined as a move between two U.S. counties) on desistance from crime and substance use during the transition to adulthood. The results from a series of random-effects models revealed that respondents experience immediate within-individual reductions in offending after moving, but with delinquency and substance use, the reductions were smaller and shorter lived; whereas, the reductions for arrest were larger and more sustained. Implications for theory and research on desistance are discussed.

Author

• Alex O. Widdowson, Florida State University