Desistance in the Transition to Adulthood: The Roles of Marriage, Military, and Gender

Abstract

Research is needed on desistance from crime comparatively by gender. This research uses a national longitudinal sample of youth transitioning to adulthood. Drawing on Sampson and Laub's Age-Graded Theory of Informal Social Control, social bonds found in marriage and military involvement are examined to determine if they decrease delinquency over time. The results for the full sample revealed that marriage but not military involvement led to desistance. However, gender sub-sample analyses further showed military enlistment led females, but not males, to desist from crime. Implications and future research aims are discussed.

Acknowledgments

This article was previously presented at the 2011 Southwestern Social Science Association meeting. The authors thank the anonymous reviewers, Craig Forsyth, and Alex Piquero for helpful comments on this article.

This research uses data from Add Health, a program project directed by Kathleen Mullan Harris and designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Information on how to obtain the Add Health data files is available on the Add Health website (http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth). No direct support was received from grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis.

Notes

***p < .001, **p < .01, *p < .05 †p < .10 (two-tailed) Reference Categories.

^a Male.

^b Two Biological Parents.

^c White.

***p < .001, **p < .01, *p < .05, †p < .10 (two-tailed) reference categories.

^a Two biological parents.

^b White.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jessica Craig

JESSICA CRAIG is a doctoral student at the University of Texas at Dallas. Her research interests include delinquency and life course criminology.

Holly Foster

HOLLY FOSTER is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Texas A&M University. Her work examines parental incarceration effects on children, and delinquency and depression in emerging adulthood. She has recently published research in the Journal of Criminal Justice, Law & Society Review, Women & Criminal Justice, and the Sociology of Education.