The Life Course, Cumulative Disadvantage, and the Transition to Adulthood: Considering How Drug Law Reform Affects Pathways to Legal System Contact and Consequences for Young Adults

• In Event: Research from Emerging Scholars in Developmental and Life-Course Criminology I

Abstract

Objective: Guided by life course theories of cumulative disadvantage, this presentation provides preliminary findings from an ongoing mixed methods study of the impact of recreational marijuana legalization in New Jersey for young adults’ legal system contact and consequences. It identifies the occurrence of these changes when experienced during the transition to adulthood and their significance for individuals’ future social development, socioeconomic attainment, and other related outcomes.

Data/Methods: The analysis uses survey data collected from young adult (ages 18-25) residents of New Jersey with a history of arrest for a marijuana offense. Bivariate and multivariable analyses indicate self-reported changes in legal system contact and consequences within the first three years of legalization.

Results: Preliminary findings reveal if and how legalization has changed young adults’ system involvement across dimensions of interactions with police, perceptions of police and system legitimacy, and receipt of record expungement.

Discussion/Implications: Results demonstrate the immediate ways that marijuana legalization has altered the landscape of possible pathways to legal system contact during the transition to adulthood. Broadly, findings indicate the potential of such drug law reforms to alter the likelihood of early timed system contacts and their correlated implications for cumulative disadvantage processes.

Author

• Kathleen Powell, Drexel University