Desistance and Identity: Do Reflected Appraisals as a Delinquent Impede the Crime-Reducing Effects of the Adolescent-to-Adult Transition?

Abstract

Desistance from crime can occur at any age but is most likely to occur during the adolescence-to-adult transition. The purpose of this study was to determine whether one facet of a criminal identity (i.e., reflected appraisals as a delinquent) impedes future desistance in male youth making the transition from adolescence to adulthood, controlling for family structure, social influence, low self-control, prior delinquency, and age of delinquency onset. Longitudinal data furnished by 284 members of the Marion County Youth Study, all of whom were male and 98% of whom were White, each with histories of delinquency, were subjected to binary logistic regression analysis and causal mediation analysis. Results indicated that reflected appraisals correlated negatively with desistance and successfully mediated the inverse relationship between number of prior delinquent contacts and subsequent desistance from crime between the ages of 19 and 26. Considering the role reflected appraisals appear to play in the development of a criminal identity, it is speculated that targeting reflected appraisals as a delinquent should be of value in maximizing the number of juveniles who desist from crime during the adolescence-to-adult transition.