Citation
Ziegler, Jessica A.; Kuhl, Danielle C.; Swisher, Raymond R.; & Chavez, Jorge M. (2015). Parenthood residency status and criminal desistance across neighborhood contexts. Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology. Washington, DC.Abstract
Research on desistance often focuses on serious offenders and marriage or employment as pivotal turning points, to the neglect of parenthood. The few studies that examine parenthood have been qualitative or are restricted to certain geographic areas. Further, scholarship has not fully explored the importance of residency status or patterns of desistance for non-disadvantaged groups, nor examined distinctions between temporary or long-term desistance. Using a sample of respondents from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), we examine the relationship between parenthood residency status and both non-violent and violent desistance across levels of neighborhood poverty. Multinomial logistic regression results illustrate, for the full sample, that resident parents have higher levels of temporary and long-term non-violent desistance. When stratifying by neighborhood poverty, resident parents from low-poverty neighborhoods have higher levels of temporary non-violent desistance. Resident parents from high-poverty neighborhoods have increased levels of temporary non-violent and violent desistance. Lastly, non-resident parents from high-poverty contexts have increased temporary non-violent desistance. Thus, it is at the high and low ends of the poverty spectrum that residency matters most. Findings demonstrate that parenthood has different meanings for desistance, depending on its duration, residency status, and neighborhood context.Reference Type
Conference proceedingBook Title
Annual Meeting of the American Society of CriminologyAuthor(s)
Ziegler, Jessica A.Kuhl, Danielle C.
Swisher, Raymond R.
Chavez, Jorge M.