Signalling Desistance? Crime Attitudes, Perceptions of Punishment, and Exposure to Criminogenic Models

Purpose To examine individual perceptions of the consequences of crime, the role of criminogenic models, and whether rational choice and criminal social capital are informative of desistance during emerging adulthood. Methods Data from the Incarcerated Serious and Violent Young Offender Study were used to examine the relationship between different aspects of rational choice theories of desistance, criminogenic environment, and offending trajectories measured between ages 12 and 30, calculated using semi-parametric group-based modeling. Offending trajectories were then modeled using multinomial logistic regression. Results Trajectory analyses identified three desistance trajectories and three non-desistance trajectories. The strongest predictors of desistance trajectories included variables that relate to rational choices that considered the consequences of crime. Conclusions Rational choice and life course perspectives on desistance as complementary, with sources of informal social control operating in a manner that, along with other factors, helps structure an individual's consideration of, and importance placed on, the consequences of crime.