Predicting Future Recidivism From Changes in School Grades and Moral Agency

• Published date: 01 April 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00938548241226666
• Author: Glenn D. Walters
• Date: 01 April 2024

CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR, 2024, Vol. 51, No. 4, April 2024, 491 –509.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/00938548241226666

Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions

© 2024 International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology

491

PREDICTING FUTURE RECIDIVISM FROM

CHANGES IN SCHOOL GRADES AND MORAL

AGENCY

GLENN D. WALTERS

Kutztown University

The purpose of this study was to determine whether a change in school grades could serve as a turning point for delinquency,

and whether it did so by forming a reciprocal relationship with a change in moral agency. Separate samples of 3,558 (2,829

males, 729 females) and 3,559 (2,811 males, 748 females) low-to-moderate risk justice-involved youth from the same data

set served as participants in this study. Cross-lagging school grades and moral agency, while controlling for prior levels of

all predictor and outcome variables, two four-variable pathways were tested (grades → moral agency → grades → recidi-

vism; moral agency → grades → moral agency → recidivism). There were significant indirect effects in both pathways across

samples, although none of the four direct effects were significant. These findings support the notion that small changes in

behavior (grades) and cognition (moral agency) produce a chain reaction capable of predicting desistance from crime.

Keywords: moral agency; school grades; recidivism; reciprocal effects

Laub and Sampson (2003) view turning points as life events capable of producing desis-

tance through their ability to alter crime trajectories. For the purposes of this article, desis-

tance is defined as the process of ceasing engagement in criminal activities in someone with

prior involvement in significant criminality. In explaining the overall process by which turn-

ing points lead to desistance, the two scholars emphasize three causal elements or factors:

informal social control, structured routine activities, and human agency. Informal social con-

trol engenders desistance by providing the individual with a stake in conformity and increased

social capital through relationships that support conventionality. Structured routine activities

encourage desistance by organizing a person’s daily routine around productive activity,

thereby leaving less time for unstructured socializing with antisocial friends and associates.

Human agency is the third causal factor in Laub and Sampson’s age-graded model; this ele-

ment facilitates desistance by emphasizing informed decision-making, purposeful action, and

responsible living. These three factors, in combination, lead to turning points which serve as

the principal sources of crime desistance, according to Laub and Sampson.

AUTHORS’ NOTE: Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Glenn D. Walters,

Department of Criminal Justice, Kutztown University, Kutztown, PA, 19530; e-mail: walters@kutztown.edu.

1226666CJBXXX10.1177/00938548241226666Criminal Justice and BehaviorWalters / Predicting Future Recidivism From Changes

research-article2024

492 CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR

TURNING POINTS AND DESISTANCE

While a stable marriage, steady employment, and military service are not the only events

capable of serving as turning points for desistance, they are the ones highlighted in Sampson

and Laub’s (1993) original publication on turning points and in a more recent paper on the

subject written by these same two individuals (Sampson & Laub, 2016). Studies exploring

the relationship between these specific turning points and desistance, however, have pro-

duced mixed results. In a review of 58 studies on the relationship between marriage and

crime, Skardhamar et al. (2015) discovered that, despite finding an association between

marriage and crime, particularly when relationship quality was rated as good, there were no

studies that showed a direct causal connection between the two variables unbiased by selec-

tion factors. More recently, Thomas and colleagues (2023) determined that marriage/cohab-

itation was unrelated to within-person change in offending. With respect to employment,

Skardhamar and Savolainen (2014) identified a small group of offenders who became

employed during an active phase of their criminal career and experienced substantial reduc-

tions in criminal offending as a result, although this accounted for less than 2% of partici-

pants. Further analysis led the authors to conclude that employment should be construed a

consequence rather than a cause of desistance. Thomas et al. (2023) also examined the

connection between employment and desistance and obtained inconclusive results. In a

study on military service and criminal justice involvement, Teachman and Tedrow (2016)

determined that nonviolent crime, but not violent crime, decreased following a person’s

entry into the military.

Turning points other than marriage, employment, and military service have also been

examined in studies on desistance, some of which have produced mixed results. Using data

from the Pathways to Desistance study, Walters (2018) determined that college attendance

served as a turning point for crime desistance in some late adolescent youth. Kirk (2012)

likewise discovered that a change in residence served as a turning point, as indicated by a

drop in offending for several newly released prisoners forced to relocate as a result of

Hurricane Katrina. Studies on the effect of becoming a parent, on the other hand, have pro-

duced mostly negative results for the turning point hypothesis. Wojciechowski (2021), who

also used data from the Pathways to Desistance study, found that becoming a father in ado-

lescence served as a turning point for crime deceleration in some male members of the

Pathways study but that having multiple children led to crime acceleration. A decade earlier,

Corman et al. (2011) explored the relationship between fathering a child with severe health

problems and subsequent offending and discovered that fatherhood status under these con-

ditions led to increased rather than decreased levels of subsequent offending. These results,

taken as a whole, suggest that the major environmental events viewed by Laub and Sampson

(2003) and others as turning points for desistance do not always lead to desistance and can,

under some circumstances, lead to increased rather than decreased future offending.

AN ALTERNATE VIEW OF TURNING POINTS

To appreciate the role of turning points in the desistance process and determine the events

and experiences that warrant elevation to turning point status, we must consider several fac-

tors not ordinarily addressed by traditional turning point theory. One factor is the nature of

the events or experiences referred to as turning points. As previously stated, Laub and

Sampson (2003) focused on major life events in conceptualizing the turning point