Extant theoretical work on desistance from crime has emphasized social processes such as involvement in adult social bonds or pro-social relationships, with very little attention given to individual subjective processes such as one's identity. The desistance theories of Sampson and Laub and Giordano seem to have reached the point of consensual acceptance in the field. Theoretical work within the past 5 years, however, have begun to stress the role of identity and human agency in the desistance process including Paternoster and Bushway's (2009) identity theory of desistance (ITD), which offers a rational choice perspective on how offenders quit crime. This paper provides a critical theoretical assessment of both the age-graded informal social control theory of desistance and the theory of cognitive and emotional transformation, illuminating the critical theoretical omissions and empirical inconsistencies in each. We suggest that the apparent consensus in the criminological literature regarding desistance theory may be premature and highlight the advantages provided by theories that emphasize the internal cognitive dimensions of change including the ITD. J Dev Life Course Criminology

Proactive policing, the strategic targeting of people or places to prevent crimes, is a well-studied tactic that is ubiquitous in modern law enforcement. A 2017 National Academies of Sciences report reviewed existing literature, entrenched in deterrence theory, and found evidence that proactive policing strategies can reduce crime. The existing literature, however, does not explore what the short and long-term effects of police contact are for young people who are subjected to high rates of contact with law enforcement as a result of proactive policing. Using four waves of longitudinal survey data from a sample of predominantly black and Latino boys in ninth and tenth grades, we find that adolescent boys who are stopped by police report more frequent engagement in delinquent behavior 6, 12, and 18 months later, independent of prior delinquency, a finding that is consistent with labeling and life course theories. We also find that psychological distress partially mediates this relationship, consistent with the often stated, but rarely measured, mechanism for adolescent criminality hypothesized by general strain theory. These findings advance the scientific understanding of crime and adolescent development while also raising policy questions about the efficacy of routine police stops of black and Latino youth. Police stops predict decrements in adolescents’ psychological well-being and may unintentionally increase their engagement in criminal behavior.

Researchers have linked police officers' concerns with appearing racist-a kind of stereotype threat-to racial disparities in the use of force. This study presents the first empirical test of the hypothesized psychological mechanism linking stereotype threat to police support for violence. We hypothesized that stereotype threat undermines officers' self-legitimacy, or the confidence they have in their inherent authority, encouraging overreliance on coercive policing to maintain control. Officers (n ϭ 784) from the patrol division of a large urban police force completed a survey in order to test this hypothesis. Respondents completed measures of stereotype threat, self-legitimacy, resistance to use of force policy, approval of unreasonable force, and endorsement of procedurally fair policing. Structural equation models showed that elevated stereotype threat was associated with lower self-legitimacy (␤ ϭ Ϫ.15), which in turn was associated with more resistance to restrictions on force (␤ ϭ Ϫ.17), greater approval of unreasonable force (␤ ϭ Ϫ.31), and lower endorsement of fair policing (␤ ϭ .57). These results reveal that concerns about appearing racist are actually associated with increased support for coercive policing-potentially further eroding public trust. Public Significance StatementThis study links police officers' concerns with appearing racist when interacting with community members to diminished confidence in their legitimate authority and greater support for coercive policing. In this respect, negative stereotypes of police officers can potentially undermine officer morale and public safety.

Using a mixed-race sample of male and female drug-involved offenders who were released from prison in the early 1990s and re-interviewed in 2009 through 2011, this article represents perhaps the first attempt to determine the utility of the identity theory of desistance (ITD) in explaining desistance in a contemporary cohort of adult drug-involved offenders. Supporting the ITD, interview narratives revealed that the vast majority of offenders who successfully desisted from crime and substance misuse had first transformed their offender identity into a non-offender identity. Although partnership and employment did not appear to be significant turning points per se for the majority of our respondents, rekindling relationships with extended family and finding living-wage employment did serve to solidify new prosocial identities once the transformation had occurred.

Theories of desistance from crime have emphasized social processes like involvement in adult social bonds or prosocial social relationships to the deliberate neglect of individual subjective processes such as one's identity. More recent theories, however, have stressed the role of identity and human agency in the desistance process. An important set of questions is whether identity theory adds anything to existing theories, and whether there is empirical evidence to suggest that such subjective processes are important. In this article, we provide an empirical assessment of individual subjective considerations in desistance by looking at the relationship between "good identities," intentional self-change, and desistance using survival time data from a sample of serious drug-troubled adult offenders released from prison whose arrest records are followed for almost a 20-year period. The implications of our findings for all brands of criminal desistance theory are discussed.