The role of partners and parents in young persistent offenders’ struggles to desist from crime
| Author | Ido Weijers |
| DOI | 10.1177/2066220320945123 |
| Published date | 01 August 2020 |
| Date | 01 August 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
945123EJP0010.1177/2066220320945123European Journal of ProbationWeijers
2020
Original Article
European Journal of Probation
2020, Vol. 12(2) 112 –128
The role of partners and
© The Author(s) 2020
parents in young persistent
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offenders’ struggles to desist
https://doi.org/10.1177/2066220320945123
DOI: 10.1177/2066220320945123
journals.sagepub.com/home/ejp
from crime
Ido Weijers
Universiteit Utrecht, Netherlands
Abstract
This article explores the role of partners and parents of young adult repeat offenders
in the process of desistance from crime. First, we conducted in-depth interviews with
22 young adults who had been involved in persistent criminal activity since adolescence
but had since stopped. Some, but by no means all of them, stated that their partner had
played an important role in this. In contrast, hardly any of them had any doubt about
the importance of their parents’ role. We then investigated whether the same views
were also found among young adult offenders where it was unclear whether or not
they had desisted from crime. Based on in-depth interviews with 21 young adults, we
conclude that this was indeed the case except for a minority who continued to offend.
This article throws new light on the role of both partners and parents in the process
of desisting from crime.
Keywords
Desistance, girlfriend, parents, young adult persistent offenders
Introduction
The aim of this article is to contribute to the growing body of research concerning the
experiences and motives of young adult repeat offenders in desisting from crime. It
focuses on the role of their partners and parents in this process. With respect to the role
of partners, the prevailing view in criminology has been that they can have a restraining
influence on habitual criminal behaviour (Bersani and Doherty, 2013; Bersani et al.,
2009; Farrall et al., 2009; Sampson et al., 2006; Theobald and Farrington, 2009).
However, there has been no such general agreement with respect to the role of the parents
of young adult offenders. Whereas the explanation put forward in criminology with
Corresponding author:
Ido Weijers, Universiteit Utrecht, Newtonlaan 231, 3584 BH Utrecht, Netherlands.
Email: i.weijers@uu.nl
Weijers
113
respect to adolescents starting to engage in criminal activity puts a great deal of empha-
sis on the family, when attempts are made to explain stopping offending parents are not
generally ascribed an important role. Despite this, the role of both these groups of players
deserves closer attention as we try to understand the process whereby young adult recidi-
vists desist from crime.
John Laub and Robert Sampson (2003) give a fine example of the crucial role that a
relationship can play in the process of desistance in their influential study Shared
Beginnings, Divergent Lives. Leon, who came from a large chaotic family, had by a
young age already committed a whole string of crimes. He met his girlfriend when they
were both 17; four years later they married. Looking back on his life 50 years later, Leon
says: ‘If I’d not met my wife at that time, I’d probably be dead.’ Laub and Sampson pre-
sented Leon as one of the many men for whom marriage proved to be the turning point
to living a decent life (Laub and Sampson, 2003: 118). This classic insight from crimi-
nology was confirmed in various later studies. Theobald and Farrington, for example,
concluded that marriage can be effective in promoting desistance among young adults.
They argue that breaking free from a criminal lifestyle can often be attributed to a strong
woman who demands that he behaves himself and obeys society’s rules (Theobald and
Farrington, 2009: 512).
This ‘marriage effect’ is, however, open to question both empirically and conceptu-
ally, especially as far as young offenders are concerned. Unlike Theobald and Farrington
and others, some scholars have found no evidence for an effect of marriage on offending
(Lyngstad and Skardhamaer, 2013), while others found very mixed results for cohabita-
tion (Forrest, 2014; Larson et al., 2016; Siennick et al., 2014). There is also evidence that
the effect of a partner on offending depends on the strength of the marital bond (Rhule-
Louie and McMahon, 2007) and/ or partnership stage (Gottlieb and Sugie, 2018) and that
only prosocial partners will have a positive effect (Van Schellen et al., 2012). It is also
questionable whether this approach does not overemphasize the idea that a person who
had been involved in criminal activity and then stops is someone who has little agency
when it comes to changing his life (Copp et al., 2019; Giordano et al., 2007). An entirely
different kind of question concerns what love and relationships mean now at the begin-
ning of the 21st century. Do they play the same critical role as that which Laub and
Sampson, Theobald and Farrington and other authors found for their populations? After
all, Leon and the other respondents of Sampson and Laub got mixed up in crime as ado-
lescents in the 1930s. The respondents in the research conducted by Theobald and
Farrington were born in the early 1950s and got involved in criminal activities from the
mid-1960s. Given the distance in time, the question needs to be asked what these find-
ings have to say about young men who were not even born then, indeed who only became
adults early in the 21st century (King et al., 2007: 58; Savolainen, 2009: 285; Ziegler
et al., 2017: 33).
The period since the turn of the century has been marked by a strong trend toward
individualism. There has been a distinct focus on personal development coupled with
more doubt and uncertainty about love and romantic relationships and what form they
should take (Andersson and Philipov, 2002; Lesthaeghe, 2010; Plug et al., 2003). Even
when a relationship seems to be secure, various traditional steps in the relationship, such
as living together, getting married and starting a family, are often postponed much longer
114
European Journal of Probation 12(2)
(Meeus and Dekovic, 1995). Fewer young adults get married or they marry later; cohabi-
tation is more popular and is commonly seen as an expression of an aspiration to hold on
to one’s own identity for longer. Does this trend toward individualism still give partners
scope to ‘monitor’ delinquent and risk-taking behaviour? (Savolainen, 2009: 286). Is it
not likely that the ‘good marriage effect’ is becoming less self-evident, because the
mutual control has generally become less strict – partners keep their own friendship
groups and arrangements – and because cohabiting couples are more likely to separate
when one partner is confronted with behaviour which disturbs them and does not fit in
with their desired lifestyle? Furthermore, would this trend not be more likely to have a
negative effect, reducing the chance of those on the margins of society curbing their
delinquent behaviour, as young offenders, addicts and other at-risk young people in par-
ticular have less prospect of a steady long-term relationship that could have some form
of ‘monitoring’ impact on criminal behaviour?
With respect to the role that parents play in their offspring’s criminality, the research
findings seem to point in the opposite direction. In contrast with the emphasis on the
family in the explanations for adolescents starting to engage in criminal behaviour (e.g.
Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990; Patterson, 1982), the family has not generally been
ascribed an important role in the explanations for desisting. This can be seen in, for
example, the age-graded theory of informal social control of Sampson and Laub that may
be considered the dominant explanation of desistance at the present time. They devel-
oped an alternative version of social control theory that puts a great deal of emphasis on
changing social ties in different life phases, that is in childhood, adolescence and adult-
hood. However, when it comes to the role that these ties can play in desistance by juve-
nile and young adult recidivists, they place little emphasis on the specific dynamic of the
ties between these young people and their parents, stressing instead the role of education,
work and marriage (Sampson and Laub, 1993: 244–245).
Adolescence and developmental psychology studies have shown, however, that chil-
dren distance themselves from their parents in adolescence, become more secretive, and
take less heed of their advice and opinions, resulting in a weakening of the parental bond
(Keijsers et al., 2012), but that in early adulthood bonds with parents generally grow
stronger again. After a period of exploration and distancing from parents, in most cases
they come to occupy an important place in the lives of young adults who start to take
more notice of their parents’ opinions again (Schroeder et al., 2010). Is this observation
not likely to apply equally to young adult repeat offenders, as pointed out by, for instance,
Stephen Farrall and Adam Calverley (2004)?
To get a clear picture of how young persistent offenders experience the process of
giving up the criminal lifestyle and what role they feel their partners and parents have in
this, we set up two phases of interviews. The first phase involved a small-scale, qualita-
tive exploration of this issue with a group of young adults who had got heavily involved
in criminality at a young age but, according to our informants, had since stepped away
from that way of life. We...
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