Prosocial Identities and Youth Violence

• Published date: 01 February 2019
• Date: 01 February 2019
• DOI: 10.1177/0022427818796552
• Author: Chongmin Na,Ray Paternoster
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Prosocial Identities

and Youth Violence

Chongmin Na

1

and Ray Paternoster

y,2

Abstract

Objective: Despite a recentsurge of interest in theimportant role that identity

change plays in the desistance process, much of the empirical work has been

qualitative and conducted with small samples, usually of serious adult offen-

ders. Drawing on a nationally representative sample of adolescents in South

Korea, this studyexplores how the development of their prosocial identity is

related to their own social bond and network and collectively how this

process relates to a downward trend in violent behavior. Method: Negative

binomial random effects models were estimated to assess the within-

individual effects of the proposed predictor and mediators on the outcome

variable. Then, longitudinal path analyses were conducted to explore the

overall and specific mediation processes. Conclusion: First, there is an inverse

relationship between prosocial identity and violent behavior across time.

Second, our own identity of self might not be entirely a social construction

based on others’appraisals but is intimately connectedto the actions that we

intentionallytake. Third, positive effectsof a prosocial identity on subsequent

violence are mediated primarily by the avoidance of association with delin-

quent peers. Theoretical implications and limitations are discussed.

1

Department of Criminal Justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY, New York City,

NY, USA

2

University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

y

Deceased

Corresponding Author:

Chongmin Na, Department of Criminal Justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY,

524 West 59th Street, New York City, NY 10019, USA.

Email: cna@jjay.cuny.edu

Journal of Research in Crime and

Delinquency

2019, Vol. 56(1) 84-128

ªThe Author(s) 2018

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DOI: 10.1177/0022427818796552

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Keywords

identities, violence, desistance

Over the past 20 years, criminologists have witnessed a surge in theoretical

attempts and empirical work explicating the process of desistance from

crime among serious adult offenders. Some of these theories lean toward

the importance of structural factors, emphasizing the significance of assum-

ing conventional social roles like full-time employee and/or spouse (Laub

and Sampson 2003). In theories of this type, desistance comes about almost

without the conscious effort and intention of offenders when the routine

activities consequent to new social roles subject their occupants to greater

informal social control than what existed in the past. Other theories lean in

somewhat the opposite direction, suggesting that desistance is heavily

dependent upon human agency and the intentional efforts of offenders to

commit themselves to a new identi ty and a new direction for their lif e

(Maruna 2001; Paternoster and Bushway 2009; Vaughan 2007). Still other

theories are a somewhat ambiguous mixture of structural and agentic the-

ories, positing that desistance involves a combination of objective (struc-

tural roles) and subjective (identity and agency) factors, without a clear

delineation as to the causal ordering or relative importance of the two

(Farrall 2005; Giordano, Cernkovich, and Rudolph 2002; Giordano,

Schroeder, and Cernkovich 2007; Soyer 2014).

It is our opinion that the rising tide of desistance theorizing is beginning

to favor the primacy of identity changes coupled with intentional agentic

moves toward a prosocial life. There has been a spate of recent theorizing,

conceptualizing, and empiric al work on the important role th at identity

change plays in the criminal desistance pro cess. Much of the empirical

work on identity change and desistance, however, has been qualitative

1

and

conducted with small samples, usually of serious adult offenders (Aresti,

Eatough, and Brooks-Gordon 2010; Bachman et al. 2016; Healy 2013;

2014; Kerrison, Bachman, and Paternoster 2016; LeBel et al. 2008; Na,

Paternoster, and Bachman 2015; Opsal 2012; Paternoster et al. 2016; Rad-

cliffe and Hunter 2016; Soyer 2014; Stevens 2012; Stone 2016). The

research base in support of identity theory, therefore, is fairly thin and of

limited scope. Our purpose is to add to the literature on identity change and

movement in a prosocial direction, drawing on longitudinal data from a

nationally representative sample of adolescents in South Korea (the Korean

Youth Panel Survey [KYPS]).

Na and Paternoster 85

Despite the inherent ambiguity in its conceptualization and operationa-

lization, criminologists have thought of desistance as solely taking place

among serious adult offenders who “reach some reasonable threshold of

frequent and serious criminal offending” (Laub and Sa mpson 2001:10).

Accordingly, many researchers generally assume that a population of indi-

viduals who have offended at least once in the past (usually identified by

official measures) is eligible for the study of desistance (Brame, Bushway,

and Paternoster 2003). More recently, however, other researchers (e.g.,

Massoglia and Uggen 2007, 2010) have asserted that desistance research

needs to be extended beyond officially labeled adult offenders to include a

broader and more representative community sample (including adolescents)

to provide a general model of desistance or cessation of offending behavior.

This is because self-report surveys suggest that almost all adolescents

engage in some form of offending behaviors, and most of them successfully

escape formal arrest and sanctions. In this vein, an empirical exploration of

“behavioral” desistance in addition to “official” desistance is crucial in the

current sample of Korean adolescents because their viol ent behaviors—

although explicitly illegal—are unlikely to be sufficiently serious enough

to attract the attention of officials. In addition, these types of behaviors are

committed mostly against other adolescents, and victims tend not to file a

formal complaint to the police. Even when adolescent offenders are

detected by the police, the common practice and shared norms of the Kor-

ean society have been to resolve the issues within family or schools under

the influence of strong collectivist and patriarchal cultures.

Our effort here is directed at expanding the scope of desistance literature

to account for not just the recidivism of officially labeled offenders but also

the behavioral pattern of moving away from violent behaviors among the

general youth population. The fact that the age–crime curve dips downward

in late adolescence—when most adolescent-limited offenders do not expe-

rience “turning points” (Sampson and Laub 1993) or “hooks for change”

(Giordano et al. 2002)—suggests that this period in one’s life is important

for examining desistance processes (Massoglia and Uggen 2007), especially

if we understand desistance as a gradual process of decreasing offending

behavior to termination, as well as maintaining the continued state of non-

offending (Bushway et al. 2001: Laub and Sampson 2003). Although it has

been well recognized and accepted in criminological literature that only a

few are committed to their offending careers, whereas the vast majority of

delinquents “drift” back to convention after experimenting with some

delinquency through a process of “aging” or “maturational reform” (e.g.,

Gottfredson and Hirschi 1990; Matza 1964; Moffit 1993), we still do not

86 Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 56(1)