Age and Chronic and Temporary Criminality: Associations With Implicit and Explicit Criminal Identities

• Published date: 01 April 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00938548231225256
• Author: Bonita M. Veysey,Luis M. Rivera
• Date: 01 April 2024

CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR, 2024, Vol. 51, No. 4, April 2024, 510 –527.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/00938548231225256

Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions

© 2024 International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology

510

AGE AND CHRONIC AND TEMPORARY

CRIMINALITY

Associations With Implicit and Explicit Criminal

Identities

BONITA M. VEYSEY

LUIS M. RIVERA

Rutgers University–Newark

This cross-disciplinary study investigates how and why age may be related to explicit and implicit criminal identity (ICI).

The current study replicates previous research and investigates the effect of an experimental manipulation of making crimi-

nality temporarily salient on implicit and explicit identity, and whether this effect is moderated by the age of the participant.

Study 1 replicated the results of the original study. Study 2 found that, among those in the control condition, older participants

had a stronger ICI than younger participants. However, younger participants in the experimental condition had a significantly

stronger ICI compared to younger participants in the control condition (and older participants in the experimental and control

conditions did not differ). When criminality was made salient, the strength of the ICI among younger participants was simi-

lar to that of older participants. These findings add to the discussion of the criminality onset, persistence, and desistance

across age groups.

Keywords: criminal behavior; psychology; criminal thinking; memory; criminal justice system

What we know about age-graded criminality focuses largely on offending rates by age

and on age-related activities and roles. Studies consistently demonstrate two find-

ings: (a) crime rates increase dramatically from late childhood through adolescence, peak in

late teens (between 15 and 19), and decline precipitously in the early 20s (Farrington, 1986;

see also Le Blanc, 2020; Loeber et al., 2012), and (b) for a small subset of individuals, crime

begins at an early age and persists across the life course (Moffitt, 1993; see also Piquero

AUTHORS’ NOTE: This research was partially supported by the Rutgers School of Criminal Justice and the

Rutgers Newark College of Arts and Sciences. We have no conflicts of interest to disclose. We are grateful to

the RISC Lab for their thoughtful comments on earlier drafts, Lab Tas for their efforts, and Claudia Pinzon for

her support with computer programming and data collection supervision. Correspondence concerning this

article should be addressed to Bonita M. Veysey, School of Criminal Justice, Rutgers University–Newark, 123

Washington Street, Newark, NJ 07102; e-mail: veysey@scj.rutgers.edu or Luis M. Rivera, Department of

Psychology, Rutgers University–Newark, Newark, NJ 07102; e-mail: luis@psychology.rutgers.edu

1225256CJBXXX10.1177/00938548231225256Criminal Justice and BehaviorVeysey, Rivera / Age and Chronic and Temporary Criminality

research-article2024

Veysey, Rivera / AGE AND CHRONIC AND TEMPORARY CRIMINALITY 511

et al., 2012). Criminologists have investigated both the consistency of the age-crime curve

over time and place and suggested various explanations for its persistent pattern as well as

the deviations from the pattern (for a full discussion, see Laub & Sampson, 2003).

At the heart of the age-crime relation is the transition from adolescence to adulthood. In

one of the most comprehensive reviews, Thornberry and colleagues (2013) discuss the many

theoretical explanations for the onset of juvenile offending/delinquency, desistance from

offending (general and age-related), and late-onset offending. The steep increase in juvenile

offending during adolescence and the precipitous drop in offending in early adulthood are

variously explained by biological, developmental, cognitive, and social processes (Thornberry

et al., 2013). Among these explanations is also a subset of cognitions focused on identity and

self-perception. Criminal identity, in particular, has emerged as one important construct in

both the explanation of criminal behavior (Asencio & Burke, 2011; Boduszek et al., 2013;

Brezina & Topalli, 2012; Shover, 1996; Walters, 2003) and desistance (Christian et al., 2009;

Giordano et al., 2002; Maruna, 2001; Paternoster & Bushway, 2009).

The definitions and measures of criminal identity vary and include: perspectives on self

and self-descriptions (Christian et al., 2009; Fielding & Fielding, 2000; Paternoster &

Bushway, 2009), role as criminal (Brezina & Topalli, 2012; Shover, 1996), criminal self-

concept with responses to specific roles (e.g., booster, robber, player; Hochstetler et al.,

2007), criminal self-view (e.g., scale of law-abiding to unlawful; Asencio & Burke, 2011;

Asencio, 2011; also see Veysey & Rivera, 2017), and social criminal identity measured

using an adaptation of Cameron’s (2004) 12-item social identity scale (Boduszek et al.,

2012; Walters, 2003; Walters & Geyer, 2004). It is important to note that these measures

have been collected on people who are actively involved in criminal behavior or have been

or are currently under correctional supervision.

Because these measures of criminal identity explain criminal behavior and experience,

criminal identity should theoretically parallel the age-crime curve. While individuals are

actively engaged in criminal behavior, spend time with criminal peers, and/or have been

under correctional supervision, they are likely to acknowledge a criminal identity (for a

theoretical model, see Boduszek & Hyland, 2011; Cameron, 2004). When these same indi-

viduals desist from active participation and take on pro-social identities, they are more

likely to explicitly reject criminal labels and self-definitions (Paternoster & Bushway,

2009). What is not well understood, however, is how and under what circumstances crimi-

nal identity is manifested implicitly (i.e., automatically, with no or minimal awareness)1 and

how this might be related to age (Veysey & Rivera, 2017). The main goal of the present

research is to test the roles of explicit criminal identity (ECI) versus implicit criminal iden-

tity (ICI) in age–crime relations. Replicating and extending our earlier study (Veysey &

Rivera, 2017), this research, comprised of two studies, investigates (a) if and how the rela-

tion between personal criminal behavior experience and ECI and ICI is moderated by age

in a nationally representative sample, and (b) if and how the relation between experimen-

tally manipulated criminality salience and ECI and ICI is moderated by age in a criminal

justice involved sample.

SOCIAL IDENTITY

Identity is comprised of the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral attachments to social

groups (i.e., social identity) and the idiosyncratic differences that create a unique sense of