NCJ Number
205083
Date Published
2004
Length
26 pages
Annotation
This chapter explores the most salient of the research findings on reasons for crime desistance, with attention to desistance in relation to social capital, which is an emerging concept in criminology.
Abstract
Several studies have shown the relationship between employment and crime desistance, and other studies have found that individuals cease criminal behavior at about the same time they form significant life partnerships. These findings suggest that the experiences and activities of employment and intimate relationships counteract impulses to commit crime. The term "social capital" has been used by criminologists to capture this factor in crime desistance. Hagan and McCarthy (1997:229) have stated that social capital "originates in socially structured relations between individuals, in families and in aggregations of individuals in neighborhoods, churches, schools, etc. These relations facilitate social action by generating a knowledge and sense of obligation, expectations, trustworthiness, information channels, norms, and sanctions." This chapter raises the question as to whether employment and good familial relationships are the outcomes of social capital or the precursors of it. It concludes that the answer lies not in conceptualizing good family relationships and employment as either the precursors or the outcomes of social capital, but rather as both the precursors and the outcomes. Consequently, social capital, as understood in this chapter, is both an "enabling" feature of an individual's life, as well as a feature of that which "is enabled." In testing this concept, this chapter reports on a study that analyzed the processes that occurred during probation orders that were either conducive to desistance or that contributed to the persistence of crime. The study found that the vast majority of instances of the activation of social capital for probationers were related to the probationers' family, particularly their families of origin. Because the sample consisted entirely of individuals ages 17 to 35 at the outset of their probation orders, many of the sample were still dependent upon their families of origin to some degree. Probation officers were instrumental in facilitating access to family social capital. This included direct appeals to family members to engage in actions that would assist the probationer in developing positive behaviors and values. The chapter concludes with suggestions for ways in which probation supervision can facilitate a probationer's access to social capital, primarily by addressing barriers to employment and to constructive interaction with family members and other significant others in the probationer's life. 1 table, 9 notes, and 78 references