Effect of Marriage and Spousal Criminality on Recidivism

Abstract

The authors analyzed whether the effect of marriage on recidivism varied by spousal criminality. For this purpose, they used propensity score matching and full population data from Statistics Denmark on all unmarried and previously convicted men from birth cohorts 1965–1985 (N = 102,839). The results showed that marriage reduced recidivism compared to nonmarriage only when the spouse had no criminal record. Similarly, marriage to a nonconvicted spouse reduced recidivism significantly more than marriage to a convicted spouse. These findings not only underline how important marriage is for social integration but also stress the heterogeneous nature of the protective effects of marriage.

Marriage, In‐laws, and Crime: The Case of Delinquent Brothers‐in‐law*

“…There are remarkable differences between the life courses of these men. Especially stark is the difference between men who marry previously convicted women with high crime rates (also shown in previous research; e.g., Andersen, Andersen, and Skov, ) and men who marry into families with no convictions, who have low crime rates. In between these extremes are the age–crime curves of men who, in ascending order, have no brothers‐in‐law, have a convicted father‐in‐law, and have convicted brothers‐in‐law.…”

“…Researchers using empirical studies consistently find lower crime rates among married men (e.g., King, Massoglia, and MacMillan, ; Sampson, Laub, and Wimer, ). In fact, the outcomes of this research have shown that marriage is an especially important pathway for desistance from crime when the bonds between husband and wife are strong and the wife does not engage in delinquent behavior (e.g., Andersen, Andersen, and Skov, ; Laub, Nagin, and Sampson, ).…”

Demographic, Bio-Psychological and Socio-Economic Factors Associated with Recidivism at a Central Prison in Zimbabwe

“…This is in support of a position that marital status is associated with both incidence and outcome of recidivism [6]. A conclusion can then be reached from this study that lack of responsibility associated with being single could be a driving force to the singles continuing to reoffend.…”

How are social bonds to a romantic partner related to criminal offending?

“…Woodward et al (2002), on the other hand, find that while young people with a non-deviant romantic partner had a lower offending rate than those without a partner, those involved with a deviant romantic partner had the highest risk of offending (Woodward et al, 2002). Others show similar results, namely that an anti-social romantic partner makes desistance less likely (Andersen et al, 2015;Capaldi, 2008;Simons et al, 2002;Zoutewelle-Terovan et al, 2014b). Schellen et al (2012) find that this result only applies to men, with women experiencing a crime-reducing effect of being married regardless of their partner's criminal history (Schellen et al, 2012), whereas Monsbakken et al (2012) find the opposite, namely that mainly women's crime rates increase after marriage if their spouse offends.…”