Elsevier

Journal of Criminal Justice

Volume 38, Issue 6, November–December 2010, Pages 1113-1121
Journal of Criminal Justice

General strain theory, persistence, and desistance among young adult males

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2010.08.003Get rights and content

Abstract

Purpose

Despite the surge in scholarly activity investigating the criminal career, relatively less attention has been devoted to the issue of criminal desistance versus persistence (until recently). The present study contributed to our understanding of this process by exploring the suitability of General Strain Theory (GST) for predicting changes in criminal activity across time.

Methods

Data from a longitudinal study of males in South Florida are examined using robust regression analyses.

Results

The core GST relationship, that changes in strain should predict changes in criminal activity, was supported, even after controlling for important adult social roles such as marriage, labor force participation, and education. While no support for the proposition that changes in self-esteem and social support moderate the strain-criminal desistance association was evinced, evidence was found that angry disposition, a measure of negative emotionality, moderated the association between change in chronic stressors and change in criminal activity.

Conclusions

While exploratory in nature, these findings demonstrate the utility of employing GST principles in studies of criminal desistance.

Research Highlights

►Present study represents one of the first applications of General Strain Theory to the issue of criminal desistance ►Change scores representing exposure to recent life events and chronic stressors are both found to predict changes in self-reported criminal activity ►An indicator of negative emotionality, angry disposition, is found to moderate the association between changes in chronic strains and changes in self-reported criminal activity

Introduction

Research examining the criminal career has grown dramatically during the past quarter century. Developmental and life course theories have focused on the transitions, experiences, and changes that occur during young adulthood that help explain the dimensions of participation, frequency, seriousness, persistence and career length of criminal activity during adulthood. And while a voluminous research exists exploring these issues, the dimension of criminal desistance, while emerging as an important dimension to study, has been “downplayed or over-looked” (Gunnison & Mazerolle, 2007, p. 231) until recently. Indeed, a number of scholars have taken note of the dearth of understanding about the causal processes that lead one to reduce or discontinue their criminal activity (Kazemian, 2007, Laub and Sampson, 2001, Piquero et al., 2003), although interest in understanding desistance is clearly increasing.

Despite this increased focus on understanding the desistance process, Piquero, Farrington, and Blumstein note in their review of criminal career research that, “more needs to be done to identify the effect of various events and experiences that lead persons into and out of crime” (2003, p. 392). One such explanation that is well situated to address that question but has yet to be fully utilized is Agnew's general strain theory (GST). Since its introduction by Agnew (1992), the merits of GST as an explanation of crime and delinquency have been well established. A voluminous number of published articles have found support for many of its basic principles, including the core notion that cumulative and increased exposure to strains serves as a risk factor for crime and delinquency (Agnew and Brezina, 1997, Aseltine et al., 2000, Brezina, 1998, Brezina, 1999, Broidy, 2001, Eitle and Turner, 2002, Hoffman and Cerbone, 1999, Hoffman and Miller, 1998, Mazerolle, 1998, Mazerolle and Maahs, 2000, Mazerolle and Piquero, 1997, Mazerolle and Piquero, 1998, Mazerolle et al., 2000, Paternoster and Mazerolle, 1994). And while some components of the model have not enjoyed a preponderance of support from extant studies (e.g., the notion that several factors may moderate the strain-crime/deviance relationship [Agnew, Brezina, Wright, & Cullen, 2002, p. 43]), the impact of GST on criminological scholarship is truly noteworthy.

Despite this history, the utility in applying GST to issues central to developmental criminology has yet to be tested. While Agnew (1997, p. 101) acknowledged that such approaches to explaining crime have been dominated (on the sociological front) by social learning and social control theories, there are compelling arguments, forwarded by Agnew (2006), that GST is aptly suited to contribute to our understanding of the process of desistance versus persistence. This study used data from a longitudinal study of youth in South Florida to examine whether GST can indeed contribute to our understanding of desistance and persistence in crime.

Section snippets

Background

In response to studies that had failed to support traditional strain theory's core proposition that the inability to achieve desired goals such as middle-class status or economic success would motivate adolescents to engage in delinquency, Agnew (1992) extended classic strain theory by focusing on other possible sources of strain (defined as events or conditions that are disliked by individuals [Agnew, 2006, p. 4]). Instead of one general strain-producing source, Agnew identified three major

Data

The sample used to gather the data analyzed in the present study is drawn from a longitudinal study of adolescents attending Miami-Dade public schools (Vega & Gil, 1998). The initial study was designed to assess risk and protective factors associated with male adolescent substance use and deviance. In the original study, all 48 of the county's middle schools and all 25 high schools participated (as did alternative schools). The original study was a three wave panel study that initially surveyed

Results

Table 1 presents the summary statistics for the variables included in the analyses. What is not told by the reported statistics, however, is the fact that most respondents are reporting that they did not commit a crime in the past month (in time 5): only 7.72 percent of the respondents report having committed at least one crime in the past month. Relatively to the percentage of respondents who reported that they had committed at least one crime in the past month in wave 4, 31.79 percent, it is

Discussion

The present study expanded on research that has sought to continue to expand our understanding of criminal desistance and persistence among young adults by utilizing General Strain Theory principles. Although criminal desistance is a core concept of life course criminology, there has been a surprising dearth of scholarship examining the factors that distinguish between those who continue to engage in crime during adulthood and those that do not (Laub and Sampson, 2001, Maruna, 2001). In

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