A Longitudinal and Intersectional Analysis of Risk-Taking

• In Event: New Insights from the Roads to Desistance Study: Health, Risk, Religion, Victimization, and Criminal Careers

Abstract

Sensation seeking and impulsivity measures have long been established as correlates of criminal behavior. These characteristics align with a neurobiological understanding of the age-crime curve, where offending rises in adolescence and declines in adulthood (Moffitt, 1993; Steinberg et al., 2008). Life-course criminology emphasizes the role of institutional transitions in desistance. What remains unclear is how risk-taking behaviors are embedded in social processes and shaped by structural and agentic constraints. The current study analyzes the Roads to Desistance study to explore intersectional differences in risk-taking behaviors. Multilevel models are used to examine variation in sensation seeking and impulsivity within and between intersectional groups over time. Policy implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Author

• Mariah Robles, University of New Haven