NCJ Number
215411
Journal
Criminology Volume: 44 Issue: 3 Dated: August 2006 Pages: 465-508
Date Published
August 2006
Length
44 pages
Annotation
This study followed 475 high-risk males from adolescence to age 32 and a subsample of 52 to age 70 in order to determine whether marriage changed their pattern of offending.
Abstract
The study found that being married was associated with a significant reduction in the probability that an individual would commit a crime, averaging approximately 35 percent across key models in both the full sample of 475 men from ages 17 to 32 and the 52 men examined from ages 17 to 70. The findings were robust and consistent with the hypothesis that marriage causally inhibited criminal behavior over the life course. Based on interviews with the men, this study argues that marriage has significant potential to change the behaviors and outlooks of men from disadvantaged backgrounds. Marriage offers opportunities for a relationship that provides social support and the meeting of previously unmet emotional needs. Also, daily routines become more structured and centered in the routines of family life instead of spending leisure time with peers. This new structure of responsibilities based in marriage and family provides a context for the development of a new noncriminal identity that strongly influences behavior. The main source of data was a long-term followup of the original subjects studied by Glueck and Glueck in "Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency" (1950). Over a 25-year period from 1940 to 1965, information was collected in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. The men were born between 1924 and 1932 and grew up in central Boston. In a followup study in 1994, the oldest subject was nearing 70, and the youngest was 61. The three sets of data collected were criminal records at both State and national levels, death records at the State and national levels, and interviews with a targeted subset of original delinquent subjects. Of the 230 men who were alive at the time of the followup study, researchers located reliable information on 181 men. 5 tables, 1 figure, and 89 references