Abstract
Young adult men (ages 18-24) who exit the juvenile justice system are at high risk for repeat offending. However, little is known qualitatively about the strategies that they use to navigate criminal influences, crime temptations, and the possibility of getting “caught.” To address this gap, the authors used narrative methods involving 30 in-depth qualitative interviews with 15 formerly incarcerated young men between the ages of 19 and 24. Coding and memoing were used to identify major themes and data patterns. Results indicated two distinct groups; one group engaged in a series of micro-level decision-making processes to navigate challenges in their everyday living environments, which helped to facilitate their gradual abstinence from crime. The second group was equally tested by contextual challenges, but they made decisions to minimize their criminal involvement to avoid the risk of repeat incarceration, which negatively influenced their desistance patterns. The results lend themselves to better understanding how decision making, internal motivation, and external factors can influence the desistance processes of transition-age urban young men.
Introduction
Young adults with histories of juvenile incarceration have high rates of school failure, unemployment, homelessness, and criminal recidivism (Osgood, Foster, & Courtney, 2010). Research has reported that between 75% and 90% of incarcerated juveniles are subsequently arrested as adults (Hamparian, Davis, Jacobson, & McGraw, 1985; Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor, 1995; Sampson & Laub, 1993; Trulson, Marquart, Mullings, & Caeti, 2005). These poor outcomes partially stem from the experience of juvenile incarceration itself, which can significantly disrupt a normative educational, vocational, and psychological trajectory (Chung, Little, & Steinberg, 2005). High recidivism rates may also be attributed to an accelerated entry into independent adulthood; one that can include parenthood and significant financial responsibilities before the age of 25 (Abrams & Franke, 2013; Uggen & Wakefield, 2005).
While much of the research on formerly incarcerated youth has drawn attention to the negative consequences associated with their confinement, a related body of scholarship has sought to uncover the specific factors that can facilitate the process of criminal desistance. Criminologists have identified a process of “aging out” of delinquency, which peaks around the age of legal adulthood (Moffitt, 1993). In addition to this aging out hypothesis, researchers have identified a set of internal (Giordano, Cernkovich, & Rudolph, 2002; Maruna, 2001) and external (LeBel, Burnett, Maruna, & Bushway, 2008; Panuccio, Christian, Martinez, & Sullivan, 2012; Todis, Bullis, Waintrup, Schultz, & D’Ambrosio, 2001) factors that can alter the criminal trajectories of youth offenders. Yet, despite this rich information, little is known about how young men of this specific age group actually navigate challenges to desistance in the context of their day-to-day lives.
In this qualitative study, we explored how 15 young adult men who were incarcerated as minors navigated their involvement in crime as young adults. Specifically, we examined their day-to-day decisions concerning criminal influences, crime temptations, and the possibility of getting “caught,” and how these decisions influenced their desistance patterns in early adulthood. Understanding how formerly incarcerated young adults navigate their friends, the police, and other potential barriers to remaining out of jail or prison can provide important theoretical and practical insights into the mechanisms underlying desistance from crime in the transition to adulthood period.
Literature Review
Formerly Incarcerated Youth in the Transition to Adulthood
The last decade has witnessed increasing interest in the concept of “emerging adulthood”—discursively defined as the time period between “adolescence” and “adulthood” (roughly 18-30 years of age; Arnett, 2000). In contrast to previous generations, young people are currently experiencing a delayed entry into adulthood that includes living at home longer, pursuing advanced educational degrees, and marrying and/or cohabitating at later ages (Furstenberg, 2010). Popular discourse concerning emerging adulthood suggests that young people can use this time period for extended soul searching and experimentation, thereby extending the privileges of youth to later ages (Zarrett & Eccles, 2006). Furthermore, it is imagined that during this time period, a young person will undergo a process of gradual independence from parents, take some potentially exciting and dangerous risks, and discover his or her emerging adult identity (Arnett, 2000).
In contrast to this popular depiction, formerly incarcerated youth do not necessarily experience the luxury of an extended adolescence. Rather, they are apt to face adulthood and its associated responsibilities much earlier than their same-age peers, often with fewer educational, social, and emotional tools to assist them in the process (Chung et al., 2005; Inderbitzen, 2009; Osgood et al., 2010; Osgood, Foster, Flanagan, & Ruth, 2005). Without a high school diploma or general educational development (GED) to guide them into college, and facing an absence of employment skills and a bleak low-skill labor market, formerly incarcerated youth are likely to struggle with the realities of adult responsibilities at a much earlier age than their more protected counterparts. As a result of these accumulated risks, these young people are highly vulnerable to homelessness, poverty, and repeated cycles of criminal activity and incarceration.
Theories of Criminal Desistance During the Transition to Adulthood
An extensive body of literature has theorized and studied criminal desistance among offenders in general. However, less is known about the process of desistance among transition-age young adults more specifically. Most scholars acknowledge that a large percentage of criminally involved youth curb their criminal activity in adulthood, and far fewer go on to become lifetime or persistent offenders (Laub & Sampson, 2003). Criminologists also generally agree that desistance for young adults is not a straightforward process, and instead involves multiple, overlapping factors related to internal characteristics, environmental context, and opportunities for change (Mulvey et al., 2004). The following is a brief explanation of current theories that can explain processes of desistance as they relate to transition-age young people. While this review is not exhaustive of all desistance theories, we seek to tie together literature pertaining to emerging adulthood most specifically.
Aging out of crime
Several scholars have theorized that there are certain characteristics associated with chronological age that naturally reduce youths’ involvement in delinquent or criminal activity. Studies in this arena have found that both biological factors (i.e., impulse control, suppression of aggression, other) and behavioral traits (i.e., increased hopefulness, maturity, and reasoning) are associated with fewer offending behaviors (Monahan, Steinberg, Cauffman, & Mulvey, 2009). Other research has suggested that desistance from crime itself is a normative step toward adulthood (Massoglia & Uggen, 2010). Implicit in this theory is the idea that adulthood involves a process whereby young people become more focused, mature, and less desiring of a criminal lifestyle (Moffitt, 1993). Moreover, life course scholarship has identified multiple turning points that can shift young people’s criminal trajectories, including major life events such as marriage, parenthood, and employment (Elder, 1985; Sampson & Laub, 1993). Other research has emphasized that these new life roles can operate as “hooks” that formerly incarcerated individuals can latch onto in early adulthood (Giordano, Cernkovich & Rudolph, 2002). These hooks, while they are still predicated on internal motivation to change, provide the contexts and opportunities that enable them to accomplish their desistance goals.
Internal changes
Scholars have also highlighted the importance of subjective identity changes in influencing desistance patterns and have suggested that for any life events or aging processes to lead to sustained change, an identity shift must take place as well. Shadd Maruna’s (2001) study of criminal persisters and desisters found that successful desisters disassociated themselves from their offender identities and actively took on new identities as law-abiding individuals. Similarly, Abrams’s (2012) study of older adolescents exiting juvenile justice system found that youth who were motivated to desist from crime were more likely to envision themselves as having a nonoffending identity in the future; they also developed specific strategies to help them achieve this desired self. In addition to these internal components, studies have also found that young people with higher motivation levels and positive coping skills tend to be more successful with desistance (Hughes, 1998; Todis et al., 2001).
External context
Scholars have also argued that environmental context must be included in the study of criminal desistance. Similar to the relationship between neighborhood effects and juvenile delinquency (Copeland-Linder, Lambert, & Ialongo, 2010; Sampson & Groves, 1989; Zalot, Jones, Kincaid, & Smith, 2009), several studies have found that neighborhoods with high crime and poverty rates can contribute to criminally persistent behaviors (Grunwald, Lockwood, Harris, & Mennis, 2010; Kubrin & Stewart, 2006; Mennis & Harris, 2011). Research also suggests that social context can influence recidivism patterns, meaning that young people’s social networks, familial influences, and their ties with local institutions (such as churches or schools) can influence their reoffending patterns (Laub & Boonstoppel, 2012; Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls, 1997; Panuccio, Christian, Martinez & Sullivan, 2012).
Application to Emerging Adults
Existing literature has clearly outlined a set of internal and external factors that contribute to desistance among younger individuals. Yet fewer studies have focused on what the process of desistance actually looks like, including how young people navigate and make decisions about criminal activity in their daily living environments, and how these dynamics work together to produce particular desistance outcomes. Research around “knifing off” offers the most insight into this process, in that it captures how individuals who have been involved with crime gradually leave behind old behaviors, mind-sets, and people in favor of new ones that will support a positive self-change (Maruna & Roy, 2007). For individuals who feel motivated to change, “knifing off” provides a strategy for separating themselves from contrary external influences. In a similar vein, Abrams (2007) introduced the concept of “selective involvement” as a strategy that formerly confined youth can use to navigate negative peer networks. In particular, she found that young people in the process of reentry selectively pick and choose the peer situations they want to be around to maintain their ties to friends while also sticking to their goals around desistance.
Implicit in these understandings is the notion of decision making. Desistance research finds that making the decision to desist from crime represents a necessary step for behavioral change (Veysey, Martinez, & Christian, 2013). As Paternoster and Bushway (2009) theorized, “intentional self-change is understood to be more cognitive and internal, at least initially, with new social networks approached and mobilized subsequent the emergence of a new, conventional identity” (p. 1006). Yet even after one makes this internal decision to desist, maintaining nonoffending identities and behaviors requires active decision making on an ongoing basis; an area of study that arguably needs more study (Maruna, 1999; Paternoster & Bushway, 2009). For example, the choice to “selectively involve” oneself with certain friends, or to “knife off” naturally must be preceded by an internal decision-making process, followed by continuous negotiation of when and how to socialize with one’s peers (Abrams, 2007).
Coming to the decision to desist is a process in and of itself and can be influenced by a number of individual and contextual factors. For example, Haigh’s (2009) study involving criminally involved young people ages 14 to 24 found that for younger youth, the decision to abstain from crime was influenced by their peers, families, and external support systems. For older youth, however, this decision reflected internal thought processes involving their perceptions of the consequences of crime, and the lifestyle changes they needed to make to accompany their transition away from crime. This connection between perceptions and decision making was also found in Shapland and Bottoms’ (2011) study involving young male recidivists. In particular, they found that perceptions around the seriousness of a crime influenced the participants’ decisions to commit certain crimes; those who had made more strides toward desistance tended to perceive crime as more serious (and thus having more serious consequences) compared with their peers who continued to reoffend. All of these studies suggest that perceptions of perceived risk may play a role in how young people navigate decisions around crime.
In sum, prior research has provided important insights into the steps involved with criminal desistance for young adult men, yet more research is needed to understand the specific strategies young people use to arrive at and enact their goals for desistance, including how they negotiate day-to-day decisions around criminal activity, and how these decisions translate into actual behaviors. It is particularly important to understand how these processes unfold for formerly incarcerated youth during the transition to adulthood life stage; these young people in particular may have possibly outgrown some of their youthful behaviors, but because of their histories, they often lack essential tools and supports that would help them achieve markers of adulthood while sustaining a crime-free life. In addition, this is the time period when those who will “age out” of crime are likely to do so while others may take the road of becoming more persistent offenders (Moffitt, 1993).
Purpose of Present Study
This study seeks to better understand how formerly incarcerated men make decisions about crime, desistance, and situations that place them at risk for continued criminal activity. In doing so, we aim to provide greater insight into the strategies that young men use to navigate challenges to achieving a law-abiding lifestyle as they are situated within the risks and opportunities of their everyday social and interpersonal contexts. Moreover, we seek to build a greater theoretical understanding of how these decisions as well as external factors work together to influence patterns of desistance during this specific life stage.
Our specific research questions are as follows:
Method
The overarching purpose of this study was to explore decision making about criminal involvement among formerly incarcerated young adults in the context of the transition to adulthood period. To conduct this research, we utilized a narrative approach where we explored their life histories, including their families, schooling, reentry, desistance processes, and the transition to adulthood (Creswell, 2007). This approach was chosen based on the great potential for qualitative research to illuminate lived experience, examine subjective accounts of these experiences, and cull out similarities and differences between participants.
Sampling and Recruitment
Our sampling pool was a group of young men who had (at 1 or more times) been incarcerated at a juvenile probation camp for medium- to high-risk young men in Southern California. All of the interviewees had previously participated in a telephone survey (in the year prior to the interviews) that quantitatively examined the life outcomes of young people with incarceration histories. At the end of the survey, we asked the young men (n = 76) if they were willing to be contacted for further research opportunities; those who agreed provided us with their addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses. We then sent letters and emails to those who indicated interest in a further study, which provided a general description of the current study and contact information for the study team. Once contact was made, we described the study in more detail and asked if they wanted to participate.
We used purposive sampling methods to select the participants in this study, in that we wanted to include young men with one or more arrests in either the juvenile or adult systems since becoming an adult, as well as those who had not been arrested at all. 1 To determine this, we used the self-reported arrest history provided in the initial survey, and we inquired about their arrest history during our initial phone call. We also intentionally invited young men into the study who were diverse with regard to prior and current gang involvement and race as reported in the telephone survey. This strategy to inquire about subsequent arrests (since exiting juvenile camp) was used as an initial indicator of desistance for the purposes of varying our sample. However, in the process of conducting the interview, we found that an arrest history itself did not adequately portray where the young men were with regard to their desistance process. How we eventually categorized the participants is described in the analysis section.
The final sample included 15 young men who ranged in age from 19 to 24, with a mean age of 22. On average, they had been out of juvenile probation camp for 3.8 years (see Table 2). Their racial groups were as follows: Latino or Hispanic (n = 9), Black (n = 4), White (n = 1), and Filipino (n = 1). Eight of the young men reported being in work or school, and 6 of the young men reported current gang involvement. Table 1 provides an overview of the sample demographics, along with key variables that are relevant to their desistance and transition to adulthood experiences. Although not listed in this table, one should note that this group of young men predominantly lived in lower income, ethnic minority neighborhoods with high levels of poverty and crime. We explored their neighborhood dynamics (i.e., neighborhood hot spots, supports, and resources) to situate their desistance experiences within their neighborhood contexts. However, our analysis of these specific data is beyond the scope of this particular article.
Sample Characteristics.
Data Collection
Each participant participated in two semistructured interviews. The interviews took place within 1 to 2 months of each other, depending on participant and interviewer availability and scheduling. We conducted two interviews due to the length of each interview, the number of topics to be discussed, and to establish a greater sense of rapport with the participants. The interviews were semistructured using a list of Topic Guides to anchor the interviews in the study’s primary research questions; however, the conversation was free to flow without adherence to a particular sequencing of questions. The first interview focused on key life experiences and transitions, including family history, educational background, and criminal history. The second interview explored the participants’ experiences with the transition to adulthood and desistance from crime, including the challenges and successes they encountered during this time period, and the presence of desistance barriers and supports in their daily living environments.
The interviews took place in private settings at community sites, such as a library, or occasionally at the participants’ homes. Each interview took 1 to 2 hr and was digitally recorded for transcription and analysis. Participants received US$25 for the first interview and US$30 for completing a second interview. All of the participants signed an informed consent document that was approved by the Office for the Protection of Human Subjects at the sponsoring institution.
Data Analysis
All of the interviews (n = 30) were transcribed by the first author or by a graduate student research assistant and then coded using the assistance of Atlas.ti software. The software was used as a data management tool to assist in retrieving blocks of text and quotes. Coding was completed in a series of stages leading to within-case and cross-case analyses (Miles & Huberman, 1994). For the within-case analysis, we reviewed the interview transcripts and inductively developed a set of descriptive codes using an open coding strategy. Memoing was used after each interview to record our impressions of each participant’s experience with navigating crime. We also reviewed each case to identify important themes related to the research questions by outlining reoccurring words and phrases, and indigenous phrases used by the participants. These codes were then clustered into families (i.e., codes related to one another) and used to capture each participant’s life history, desistance profile, and transition to adulthood experiences. For the cross-case analysis, we used row by column matrices to look at patterns in the data across the participants. These matrices revealed two major groups, as presented in the results section.
Part of our data analysis included a restructuring of how we initially conceptualized the concept of desistance among the study participants. As stated, we purposively recruited participants based on their self-reported arrest histories (on the initial survey) since leaving juvenile probation camp to construct a sample that included young men with and without rearrest histories. However, after reviewing the participants’ narratives, codes, and memos, it became clear to us that rearrest information did not sufficiently describe the extent to which a participant was or was not still involved in crime, nor did it capture efforts they had taken to work toward desistance. For example, one young man who was no longer involved in crime was rearrested for missing an appointment with his probation officer while another was actively involved in crime but had not been caught by the authorities. Thus, rather than using self-reported rearrests as a marker of desistance, we used this revised conceptualization of desistance to group the young men together based on the steps they had taken to desist from crime at this point in their lives. Two distinct groups emerged: “On the Road to Desistance,” which included participants who were working toward desistance by actively taking steps to abstain from crime, and “Running in Circles,” which included participants who were struggling to avoid crime, criminal influences, and repeat contact with the law. This conceptualization of desistance, as an ongoing process that involves the gradual diminishing of criminal activity over time, is grounded in the literature as a valid method for measuring desistance (Kazemian, 2007).
Table 2 provides an overview of the two primary groups based on the definition of desistance used for this study, alongside the participants’ time since exit from juvenile probation camp and their self-reported recidivism histories.
Sample by Group and Criminal History.
Results
All of the participants had reached a point in their late adolescence or early adulthood when they felt motivated toward criminal desistance. However, they differed in their visions of what a crime-free lifestyle actually looked like, and in their methods for enacting these visions in their everyday lives.
Group 1, which we refer to as “On the Road to Desistance” was comprised of seven young men who were not involved in any criminal activity at the time of the study. They did not all decide to desist immediately after leaving juvenile probation camp. In fact, three of these participants had been rearrested since exiting camp: One gentleman spent a weekend in adult jail after missing an appointment with his probation officer; one young man served time in adult jail for an assault charge, but decided to stop committing crime after his release; and one experienced ongoing substance-abuse parole violations before finally achieving sobriety. However, as they transitioned into adulthood, all members of this group decided to intentionally pursue a crime-free lifestyle, which is a key component of desistance (Paternoster & Bushway, 2009; Veysey et al., 2013). All were currently abstaining from crime during the time period we met with them, yet they continued to face situations that challenged their resolve to stay out of trouble. In this way, these young men were still in an ongoing process of achieving desistance, which is why the term “on the road to desistance” best captures their experiences.
Group 2, which we call “Running in Circles,” included eight young men whose experiences with desistance can be characterized by a series of starts, missteps, and relapses into old behaviors as they entered early adulthood. Nearly everyone in the group acknowledged that they wanted to avoid returning to jail, and they expressed an ultimate desire to reduce or possibly eliminate their involvement in crime. However, they also explained that they were not ready, and in some cases, felt unable to completely disengage from their former lifestyles. For these young men, desistance was more akin to “selective involvement” in crime (Abrams, 2007); a process of choices that would minimize their risk of getting caught and enable them to perhaps end up with a crime-free lifestyle in the long run. They often made attempts to distance themselves from situations that posed criminal temptations, which typically involved committing crimes only when economically necessary, making some effort to avoid situations that would tempt them to reoffend, or minimizing their criminal involvement while trying to avoid further contact with the law. Desistance theory suggests that motivation is a precondition of terminating offending (Maruna, 2001). In this sense, these young men lacked the internal motivation needed to change their lives and to terminate offending, rendering them in a category distinct from Group 1.
In the next section, we describe three primary barriers that participants in both groups identified as significant in the course of their transition to adulthood journeys and their will to avoid reincarceration. We describe how each group navigated these barriers, including how a set of internal thought processes, self-perceptions, and environmental opportunities and constraints worked together to influence the decisions they made around crime.
Changing Appearance
The theme of changing appearance emerged as a significant part of the participants’ desistance experiences, especially for those with gang affiliations. Specifically, the participants spoke in detail about the strategic decisions they had to make regarding their clothing, hairstyles, and tattoos. Their decision making with these aspects of their appearance did not occur at one particular moment, but instead was recurrent at different points in time along their desistance journeys.
As a group, the “On the Road to Desistance” participants were more willing to change aspects of their appearance. Most had made the decision to cut their criminal ties either while they were incarcerated in juvenile probation camp or for some, in adult jail or prison, or shortly after they returned home. They mentally readied themselves to make lifestyle changes by making plans to pursue legal forms of employment and/or school. However, at a certain point, most came to the realization that while these internal changes were important, changing their outward appearance represented an equally critical step in their transition.
For example, Oscar had a lengthy history of gang involvement, delinquent activity, and juvenile incarceration; by age 16 he was serving time at a juvenile probation camp while awaiting an adult court case for a murder charge. He was eventually acquitted, but the impact of that incident resulted in him deciding to leave his gang. After leaving camp, Oscar made a series of decisions to help enact the lifestyle changes he wanted to make. First, he completely cut ties with his gang. He also made a conscious effort to shed his internal identity as a gang member, including changing the way he talked so that he more closely reflected someone who appeared “normal” and not gang affiliated. He worked hard to get a job, enroll in school, and build a support network of formerly incarcerated individuals, positive friends, and mentors. Yet, after a period of time, he realized that his outward appearance still projected a negative image to those around him, such as the police and other gang members. He then took deliberate action to alter his appearance. He grew his hair longer because he thought that having a bald head made him look more like a criminal, and he put serious thought into changing specific aspects of his clothing, which he described in the following excerpt:
Yeah and I had to start accepting myself in these kind of clothes because it was hard for me to. Those look like nice clothes. Just normal clothes I guess. What would you be wearing? White T-shirt and probably some dickies or something. And that was your whole wardrobe? Yeah I would wear black dickies or tan dickies or blue maybe. A T-shirt but not a button-down shirt. Possibly a button-down shirt. It would probably be a dickies suit or a T-shirt and the T-shirt will go either black or any dark colors or white. And your shoes? Those are probably the two biggest (the shoes) and your belt. The belt will probably be more significant than anything. A guy can be from a Crip gang and wearing all red and you pull up his shirt and he’s wearing a blue belt. The blue belt and shoe laces will tell you exactly where someone’s from. Whether he is a Crip or whether he is a Blood. Not so much in the Mexican gang world but in the Black gang world. Nine out of 10 times you lift up someone’s shirt and you see the colored belt, that’s where they are from.
John, a 19-year-old former gang member, articulated a similar story concerning his appearance. John was incarcerated for gang-related activities at age 17, but he made the decision to leave his gang while serving his sentence. After leaving camp, John spent the next year “hiding out” from enemies and from members of his own gang who he felt might try to physically harm him because of his decision to defect. During this time, he made sincere efforts to start a new life, including moving out of state and marrying his childhood sweetheart. Yet, despite these tentative steps to establish himself as a law-abiding young adult, it gradually dawned on him that his appearance was holding him back from fully reintegrating into society. In particular, he realized that it was hindering his ability to find a job. He describes how he arrived at this conclusion:
I tried to get a job. It didn’t really work. I mean, I had the tattoos on my face. And I wasn’t like, it wasn’t like I was out of the gang for that long. So a lot of my tendencies were still like gang, like the way I dressed, and the way I acted. The way I talked too. Kind of ’hood almost. So it was hard to get a job out there ’cause everybody kind of looked at me like, “you’re just a fuckin thug.” So I didn’t end up getting a job out there.
Following this realization, John made a conscious decision to grow out his hair and hide his tattoos by wearing long shirts for job interviews. In addition to helping him secure employment, making these changes helped him to feel safer in many settings because he no longer resembled a gang member. This strategy proved to be particularly useful for him when he and his wife lost their housing and had to temporarily move back to his old neighborhood. Because he knew that he had to stay out of the radar of old gang associates, he was very conscious of his need to look, act, and speak in a way that would make him unrecognizable to others.
John’s and Oscar’s experiences, representative of the “On the Road to Desistance Group,” illustrate the complex level of thinking and self-reflection that is involved with the decision to desist from crime. A person may be clearly motivated to change, and can take specific steps to move his or her life in a positive direction. However, part of this change process entails taking great consideration to ensure that one’s outward appearance reflects his or her internal desires.
Participants from the “Running in Circles” group voiced similar concerns about barriers associated with their appearance. However, their inability or unwillingness to completely avoid criminal activity influenced how they responded to these barriers. Carlos, for instance, was a 20-year-old Latino young man who was repeatedly arrested and incarcerated as a juvenile and as a young adult for probation violations related to gang activity and drug use. He was last released from jail just a few months prior to our first interview with him, and had just started a 3-year probation term. Carlos believed that he was trying to desist from crime, despite his continued participation in gang activities and gang-related friendships, because he was making decisions to gradually disengage himself from some illegal actions, particularly those that were more likely to get him in trouble with the police. He explained,
So from being busted, I don’t regret nothing. It just makes me think differently, and in a way smarter, not to be doing stupid stuff. Like I don’t write on the walls no more . . . I haven’t touched a spray can since ’cause to me that’s a waste of time. It’s petty you know? I try to dress a little differently.
Carlos was very aware that his physical appearance made it difficult for him to hide or shed his identity as a gang member. He spoke extensively about his experience that having a shaved head made him look like a “gang banger” to the police and to other young people in his neighborhood. During the times when he was most serious about staying out of trouble, he countered this image by growing his hair out and pulling it away from his face, and by wearing glasses so that he looked less suspicious and noticeable to other people. However, he was reluctant to maintain these changes, and he described being very conflicted about the extent to which he was willing to permanently change his appearance, which he felt was central to his identity. He was particularly reflective about making changes to his hair, which he explained as follows:
So why not grow your hair out? I don’t know. I don’t feel right when it’s out. I feel, I don’t know. People are always telling me it makes me look older, so I just cut it. But if you do, that would save you some harassment. It’s not worth it to you? Yeah, I mean. I let it grow out when I go to school or something, I’ll let it grow out. But I don’t have to do nothing right now. I don’t have a job. I kinda like being bald, not to lie.
Carlos was similarly conflicted about removing his tattoos, especially the one that was located on his face, even though he acknowledged that having a gang-related tattoo in such a visible area hampered his ability to obtain employment and to distance himself from his gang. He mentioned that he had received laser treatment to remove his facial marks and other tattoos at one point in time. However, he retattooed his face 1 year later, and he was hesitant about having this mark removed a second time. His overall struggle with deciding how to handle his external appearance reflected his larger internal struggle in determining whether or not he truly wanted to desist from crime. This experience typified the struggles and decision-making processes of the “Running in Circles” group.
Greg from the “Running in Circles” group was also reluctant to remove his tattoos. He was a 23-year-old White young man who was charged with attempted murder at age 17 for injuring someone during a fight. He was eventually found not guilty in court and was released from juvenile probation camp at age 18. He had not been rearrested since that time but he admitted to some continued illegal activity, namely, selling and using drugs. Though he had never been involved in an organized gang, he perceived himself as an outlier among young men his age. Throughout his interviews, he consistently referenced the idea that he was not “normal” and did not have the desires to work a “9 to 5” job or “settle down” in the way that other guys his age did. Greg had tattoos on his hands and was very aware that these marks limited his prospects of obtaining certain jobs and contributed to some degree of harassment from police. Yet he explained during his interviews that he had no intention of removing these marks from his body.
Greg and Carlos underwent a similar intentional sort of decision-making process as the “On the Road to Desistance” participants, but their refusal to remove their outward markings clearly represented a concrete barrier to getting a job, which in turn negatively affected their economic stability as young adults. Without stable employment, neither could afford to live independently and instead they relied on friends for their housing and basic living needs. Their inability to establish some type of independence as young adults placed them at risk of having to resort to illegal activity for economic survival and intensified their feelings of marginalization from the larger community.
Feeling Marked
“Feeling marked” was another significant theme for these young men, which they experienced as being frequently targeted for violence or harassment by the police, by enemies, and in some cases, by old friends in the neighborhoods where they lived and worked. This feeling differed from the general stigma they felt because of their appearance and had more to do with their actual experiences of being profiled in their everyday environments, which carried its own set of consequences. Both groups felt burdened by the effects of “feeling marked” in their everyday lives but, ultimately, they differed in the strategies they used to contend with this stressor.
The “Running in Circles” participants all had some ties to a criminal lifestyle in that they were either actively or occasionally involved in illegal activity. For this reason, they were more likely to come into contact with the police in their neighborhoods. They were also more apt to believe that being marked posed a concrete barrier to staying out of jail because the police would apprehend them by virtue of mere suspicion. For example, Peter was a 23-year-old Pilipino male who had spent much of his adolescence incarcerated for assaults, weapons charges, and drug-related parole violations. Peter was still actively involved with his gang at the time of the study although he explained he had toned down his activities because he wanted to avoid adult jail time. Although he had moved away from his old territory, he admitted that he committed crimes on occasion for money. At the time of his interview, he was facing criminal charges for two separate offenses.
Peter spoke at length about his experiences of harassment from local law enforcement because of his status as a known gang member. He felt that the constant presence of the police contributed to his recidivism pattern in that contact with them usually resulted in a probation violation. His strategy for avoiding these situations was to think strategically about how often he should visit his old neighborhood. He explained that living outside of his gang territory enabled him to scale back his activities and behaviors when he wanted to avoid police contact, or when he was simply more serious about wanting to stay out of trouble. In his words, this allowed him to “Not be on the streets too much, stay indoors as much as possible, not put myself out there.” Thus, he experienced a certain level of freedom in choosing when to be involved with the gang and when to get away.
Mike, a 24-year-old Black male from this same group shared similar instances of being marked by the police. Mike became involved in crime at the early age of 10 for reasons related to poverty and parental drug abuse. His behavior progressed into adolescence and early adulthood, when he was frequently incarcerated for stealing. Mike did not explicitly state that he was still involved in criminal activity; however, he implied that he had a need to do so to survive. Though he had never been involved in a gang, Mike often felt targeted by the police. He explained that regardless of what part of the city he travelled in, the police profiled him as “suspicious.” Although he was reluctant to describe this treatment as racism, he said that he felt targeted as a Black man in every part of the city he visited, even if he was not doing anything illegal. He tried to explain this experience:
What makes the police so suspicious of you in particular? Just how I look, how I dress. Which is what? I don’t know, I guess how I look Is it racism? Yeah. I don’t think it’s just really like racism, it’s just I am Black and “he might be up to something.” That’s not racism? No, I don’t know. It’s kind of racism. I don’t know it’s just because of how I look.
Mike did not like being targeted by the police, yet he accepted these experiences as a part of what goes on in his neighborhood—and to some extent, as a routine part of being a young man of color in any neighborhood. He may have also felt disempowered to do anything about the problem because unlike Peter, who had the privilege of changing his location to escape police detection, it was not an option for him to simply change his race. However, his perception that the police would likely pull him over because of his race encouraged him at times to lessen his involvement in crime, or to take greater precautions to ensure that he did not get caught. The former strategy represented a potential step toward desistance, but his reliance on the latter strategy prevented him from fully walking down this path.
The “On the Road to Desistance” participants also shared instances of being marked by the police. However, they did not share a wholly negative outlook about the harassment they experienced, nor did they feel pressured to develop extensive strategies to deal with the problem. Rather, some expressed that if they weren’t up to “no good” then they didn’t have to worry about the police. These participants were more apt to feel marked by gang associates who were upset with them for leaving the gang, or by enemies who still had the “go ahead” to target them with violence. Gabriel, for example, was a 24-year-old Latino former gang member who had been incarcerated twice as a juvenile. At the age of 17, he narrowly missed serving time in adult prison for a drug-related crime. After this incident, he decided to leave his gang, stop selling drugs, and completely change the course of his life. He had been incarcerated only once since leaving his gang for a minor probation violation.
Although Gabriel had been out of his gang for a few years when interviewed, he still felt vulnerable to former enemies who could potentially threaten his safety. Accordingly, he was very strategic about his daily travels, which included not ever driving down “little” streets and instead sticking to main roads. He also explained how he made a conscious decision to do most of his shopping and socializing in areas that were far away from his current residence. Putting this much thought into his daily activities was stressful for him and his wife as he explained in the excerpt below.
They still, there are still places that I can’t walk. There are still places that I can’t pass through. There are still people that I avoid even though I have changed my life. And my wife she turns around and she looks at me like, “But you’re not in it no more.” Just because I’m not in it and I’m not a part of it, doesn’t mean that they still don’t like me.
John, from this same group, also felt marked by gang enemies and by members of his own gang because of his abrupt departure from the group. Despite the physical distance he had put between himself and his old life, John was still acutely aware that trouble could find him at any point, as he learned when he was spotted by one of his old gang associates one day while at work. The following excerpt highlights the intense fear he felt during this encounter as he tried to figure out how to dodge the real threat of harm.
And I don’t think he saw me at first, but I totally made it awkward because I turned my back completely and was facing this way, while he was talking to the other guy. And so my back was to him the whole time and I was like just trying to keep my face away from him. And I was able to hear them talking, so I was able to hear when they started walking this way. So each time he took a step, I would start turning myself like this so he couldn’t see me . . . And I started running to the back of the store, and I looked over. And as soon as I looked over, he was staring at me the whole time.
This dangerous encounter made John even more hypervigilant about his surroundings from that point forward. He was mindful of not being alone in public spaces such as bus stops and parking lots, and he constantly scanned his environment for people who might recognize him. Both John’s and Gabriel’s accounts of living in a state of fear of being targeted by people from their former lives highlight some of the extreme challenges and decisions involved with survival even after one has made the decision to desist from crime.
Associations With Others
Navigating peer associations was an ongoing process for all of the participants in that they were highly aware that the people around them could either help or hurt their efforts to stay out of trouble and/or avoid police contact. Participants in both groups shared some commonalities in terms of how they chose to navigate their peer networks. Generally, their decisions hinged on their desistance goals and on the availability of external supports to help them as they transitioned into adulthood.
A few of the young men from the “On the Road to Desistance” group strategically limited their associations to a few close friends and family members who were not involved in any criminal activity. However, the majority of the participants in both groups maintained associations that included people who were and were not involved in crime. To offset the potential negative influences of these friendships, they were selective in choosing when to be around these individuals and how to rely on them for help. Shawn’s navigation strategies reflected how many participants dealt with their peer associations. Shawn was a 22-year-old Black young man who did not experience any major problems with the law until the age of 17, when he was incarcerated for felony theft. He was released from juvenile camp at age 19 and had not been in any trouble since that time. Shawn’s peer network included young men like him who were gainfully employed, as well as some childhood friends who were involved in crime. He recognized that certain friends could be in his life for social reasons; however, he made very intentional decisions about the role they played in his life. In this way, he was quite conscious about not allowing anyone to deter him from reaching the goals he had set for himself as a young adult. He explained his thinking:
If you kickin’ it with people that’s just trying to rob, or doing things like that, you might not necessarily be trying to do it either, but it get in your head and you be thinking those things, and then before you know it, you kinda doing those things . . . that’s why I try to keep my circle tight, and people that are a little bit on the rowdy side, it’s like you’re still my friend or whatever, so it’s like hey whassup, but I’m not gonna stay too long. I’m gonna go do my thing.
Shawn’s strategy of keeping one’s old friendships but maintaining a necessary distance seemed to work well for many of the Group 1 participants for two reasons. First, each of the young men in this group had made a clear decision to desist from crime; though they may have had some friends around them who did not share these goals, they were careful not to spend too much time with negative influences. Second, most of them shared a perception of adulthood that included not getting into trouble and being “responsible,” which meant earning a legal income and establishing some foundation for their future. This perception encouraged them to establish lifestyles that were consistent with this vision.
The “Running in Circles” participants expressed being economically reliant on crime, and they struggled more with their decisions about how to deal with friends who were criminally involved. In contrast to the other group, many perceived their families and/or significant others as being unable or unwilling to support them in the way that they needed. As a result, these young men were more likely to rely on their criminally associated networks.
The life experience of Tyrone, a 20-year-old Black male illustrates this point. Tyrone encountered numerous difficulties as a teenager due to his experiences in the foster care system. He spent his entire adolescence and early adulthood residing in multiple group home placements, and he was in and out of juvenile and adult jail for petty crimes such as selling drugs and stealing. At the time of the study, Tyrone had been out of jail for 2 years and had a genuine desire to avoid further contact with the law. However, he struggled to find stable housing, to find employment, and to complete his GED, all of which could have helped him to meet his desistance goals.
Tyrone referenced having an extensive informal support network in his life consisting of people who would let him sleep on their couches when needed, or who would help him find ways to make money. He also explained that over the years, many of his associates had gotten him involved with selling drugs, gangs, and even prostitution at one point. He was reluctant to describe these people as friends, however, despite the fact that they had played a critical role in his survival. Rather, he saw their role in his life simply as a means to an economic end. Interestingly, Tyrone did not see these interactions with these individuals or his subsequent criminal activity as inconsistent with his goals. Rather, he saw himself as actively working toward a crime-free lifestyle, starting by avoiding any crimes that would earn him a felony charge if he were to get caught. Accordingly, he viewed his infrequent criminal acts as necessary, but ultimately consistent with his overall desistance goals.
Mike from this group shared a similar outlook on his criminal associations. He was similar to Tyrone in that his involvement in crime had always been tied to a need for money, but he felt more conflicted about the ways in which his friendship networks negatively affected his desistance efforts. On one hand, he recognized that the people around him were not positive influences, but on the other hand, his family was unable to help him with his daily living needs. Thus, he was very dependent upon these friends because they provided him with support that was crucial for his survival. He talked about this dilemma when discussing the possibility of moving outside of the city:
Yeah, I thought about leaving, but I ain’t got nowhere to go, so it’s like, this is where I’m at. This is what I know. These are the people that I know. If I leave here, it’s like it’s hard for me here, so if I go somewhere else it’s gonna be even harder.
Both Mike and Tyrone’s willingness to maintain associations with people who kept them involved in crime paralleled their larger struggles with the transition to adulthood. The lack of educational attainment or a substantive work history limited their prospects of independent living, which led them to rely on crime to meet their basic living needs. Mike was residing with his grandmother when we met him, while Tyrone had just settled into a transitional housing facility after weeks of “couch surfing” in the homes of various acquaintances. Although they both expressed an ultimate desire to desist from crime, they did not see how they could sustain themselves without participating in crime, which often meant interacting with criminally involved associates. This dilemma sheds light on why both held onto the belief that they were in their own way taking steps toward desistance; they perceived themselves as making the best of a bad situation while still trying to maintain some hope for the future.
Discussion
Using life history narratives and in-depth interviews, we sought to better understand how a group of transition-age formerly incarcerated young men made decisions about involvement in crime, criminal associations, and risk of contact with law enforcement (whether warranted or not) in their everyday living environments. While prior theory has supported the idea that internal motivation and identity shifts precede desistance (Paternoster & Bushway, 2009), we are aware that motivation also has to be enacted within the constraints of one’s environment. Overall, our major findings indicated that these micro-level decisions, which are intrinsically related to internal motivation, can facilitate positive behavioral changes and choices leading to desistance. The “On the Road to Desistance” group located their motivation to desist from crime during their early adulthood, and they made a series of choices in their day-to-day lives that helped them to reach this goal. The strategies they used to navigate the risks inherent in their environment helped them to avoid relapsing into old criminal behaviors and encouraged them to pursue constructive life activities. The second group may have viewed desistance as an ultimate goal, but they were mostly concerned in their present lives with staying out of trouble with the law. Thus, they found themselves “running in circles” around desistance, meaning that they were indeed more prone to be hiding from the police or in and out of jail.
This notion that desistance involves a series of constant, and often stressful, decision-making steps helps broaden our understanding of what the desistance journey actually looks like for young men of this particular age group; one that is pivotal for determining who will be persistent “offenders” in the life course. Extant literature clearly argues that desistance is a gradual process that can be navigated through strategies related to identity scripts, knifing off, and decision making around crime (Abrams, 2007; Maruna, 1999, 2001; Maruna & Roy, 2007). Desistance is not always a linear process and often includes some notion of “zigzagging” (Maruna, 2001). Our study supports and adds to these ideas by illustrating how micro-level decision making influences the desistance process on a day-to-day basis. Particularly apparent in Group 1, these decision-making strategies allow young people who are confronted with daily challenges in various life domains the opportunity to enact their intrinsic desire to desist—even in the face of tremendous obstacles. Furthermore, as we saw with young men in both groups, their decision making also served as a way for them to knife off from situations that tempted them to reengage in crime. This finding helps to further our understanding of how individuals actually knife off from crime within their specific environments (Maruna & Roy, 2007). Our results further support research highlighting the relationship between perceptions and decision making around crime (Haigh, 2009; Iselin, Mulvey, Loughran, Chung, & Schubert, 2012). For our study participants, perceptions about desistance barriers, consequences of crime, and possible alternatives to criminal activity greatly influenced their decision-making patterns.
Our study also informs the body of knowledge around criminal desistance for transition-age young men specifically. First, the narratives revealed how issues related to changing appearance, feeling marked, and associations with others represented significant challenges to remaining free from incarceration. This finding was particularly interesting in that much of the literature base discusses the importance of desistance barriers pertinent to domains such as education, work, or mental health/substance abuse in early adulthood. The young men we interviewed did struggle in these areas; however, they equally struggled in their decision making around the more routine aspects of their lives. Furthermore, overcoming some of these more commonly known barriers did not in and of itself propel these young people toward desistance. There were young men in both groups who had jobs or attended school in early adulthood, and while engagement in these activities was clearly helpful, it did not completely prevent them from experiencing rearrests or encounters with law enforcement. Instead, what helped to facilitate their progression away from crime and into some sort of stability as young adults was their day-to-day decisions such as changing their hairstyle or travelling down a set of different roads. It was these everyday decisions, coupled with internal motivation to change, which differentiated the two groups. This illustration of these day-to-day experiences, decisions, and negotiations is our unique contribution to the literature.
Finally, our study findings raise a broader set of questions around when desistance actually occurs and at what point a person can be considered a criminal “desister.” Our study methodology did not allow us to track our participants’ behaviors as they actually unfolded, so to some extent we cannot accurately pinpoint when exactly criminal desistance or persistence occurred in the life course. However, the data did provide insight into the process of desistance via examples of the steps young people can take toward desistance, even if they have not yet reached a point of complete abstinence. Furthermore, our findings highlight how deliberate in thought the process of desistance is. For the young men in this study, lifestyle changes did not just happen without some very conscious decision making and careful consideration of the detailed aspects of their lives. Comparing the experiences of the two groups also gives us a glimpse into the different stages individuals may go through while trying to desist. In other words, the young man in Group 1 who has stopped all criminal activity may very well have started this process when he was more like a member of Group 2: someone who first decided to visit his gang neighborhood less frequently or to stop committing certain types of crimes to avoid trouble with law enforcement.
Limitations
A major limitation of this study is that we captured a snapshot view of these young men that clearly does not reflect the final story of where they will ultimately land along the desistance spectrum. Our methodology does not allow us to definitively say that the Group 1 participants are lifelong desisters, and conversely, that the Group 2 participants will never reach that point. Understanding this limitation, these findings still contribute to an overall understanding of desistance. First, we do this by highlighting how the very term itself is nuanced and difficult to measure because behaviors are always changing. Furthermore, as our narratives revealed, missteps along the desistance journey (i.e., rearrests, engaging in delinquent behaviors) are not necessarily indicative of the progress someone is making toward positive self-improvement. Future studies might explore different ways of categorizing the notion of desistance itself, as the terms “desister,” “nondesister,” or “persister” may not accurately reflect one’s intent to change and the decisions he or she makes to support these efforts.
Moreover, the retrospective nature of this study means that it is difficult to ascertain all of the factors that drove the young men’s decisions and activities around crime. It is also uncertain whether some participants would have naturally “aged out” of crime even without the conscious decision making that we discovered in this article. Furthermore, it is important to note that although our analysis did define two different groups, there was still plenty in common between them, such as fits and starts, and problems related to securing economic self-sufficiency. To that point, it should be noted that despite the individual success stories, the group as a whole had not “made it” in the sense of having stable jobs, housing, and family lives. More often, they were encountering struggles in their transition to adulthood that to some extent left them marginalized and vulnerable to future life difficulties. While we tried to make clear that all of the young men experienced hardships, our analysis focused on differences and may have eclipsed some of the more pronounced commonalities between all of these young men.
These study findings have the potential for bias in that all of the young men had volunteered to receive reentry support when they exited juvenile probation camp, making them perhaps more inclined than others from the same backgrounds or environments to want to be successful. Furthermore, the fact that they were reachable several years following their exit from juvenile probation camp may indicate some bias—They were reachable through contact information they had provided at least 1 year prior, and they were not incarcerated or deceased. All of these factors possibly indicate that even given their hardships, they were experiencing greater life successes compared with their counterparts who we were not able to locate.
Conclusion
This study highlighted the life experiences of formerly incarcerated young men who were in the process of navigating the challenges associated with young adulthood and ultimately, to remain free from incarceration. Although some had sustained longer periods of time in their lives without any criminal activity, each of these young men were in some way struggling as young adults to move away from their criminal pasts and establish stability as young adults. Our goal was to showcase these dual journeys of desistance and transitioning to adulthood, and highlight what the multiple pathways toward criminal abstinence might look like in terms of daily living experiences and challenges. Furthermore, we hoped to draw attention to the fact that even when young people encounter obstacles to desistance in early adulthood, there are practical strategies they can utilize to help them move forward.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.