Exploring the Transition to Parenthood as a Pathway to Desistance

Rethinking Turning Points: Trajectories of Parenthood and Desistance

“…The italicised part of the quote implies that Jason perceived himself as second in the line of responsibility, but felt he had to step up because he perceived his partner as unable to fulfil her role. Other research has also shown that men's drug dependency is usually unaffected during their partner's pregnancy [1].…”

“…In many of these quantitative studies, however, both offending and parenthood are treated as binary-you either have children or you do not; there are reductions in your offending or there are not, without much consideration given to the interaction of the trajectory of parenthood with the trajectory of offending. Even studies that acknowledge that parenthood cannot be examined as a binary condition and attempt to separate the effect of pregnancy from being a parent and include contextual factor measures such as the number of children and commitment to being a parent are still left with unclear results that the quantitative data cannot explain [1]. While many quantitative studies review the qualitative literature, they do not take seriously the idea that desistance is an individual journey [30] and therefore may be difficult to capture using aggregated data.…”

“…Despite these nuances discussed in the literature on turning points and their alternatives, the desistance literature on turning points and hooks for change nevertheless focuses on on-off conditions and how they might facilitate desistance (see below). By focusing on one often cited turning point, parenthood, this article examines how we might conceptualise 'turning points' as trajectories, 1 with changes in the meaning and experiences of parenthood over time connected to both positive and negative changes in offending behaviour.…”

“…However, such studies tend not to differentiate between different stages of parenthood, which might impact on desistance differently. With the focus in most studies on the parenting experiences of mothers, fatherhood trajectories have been relatively neglected [20], given that fatherhood can also offer a much-needed positive identity to offending men [31] and the common finding that parenthood has different impacts for men and women [1,20,35]. While the pregnancy of their partner tends to have little impact on men's offending, the impact of fatherhood is mediated by the father's involvement and commitment to being a parent, opportunities for employment and the age when they first became a father, with teenage fathers more likely to persist [16,35].…”

Age Matters: Stopping Out, Going Back, and Criminal Desistance Based on Timing of Educational Return

“…Further support for gender specificity in the parenthood effect came from analyses of the Toledo Adolescent Relationship Study, wherein parenthood facilitated desistance for women, but not men, but the effect was further influenced by whether the pregnancy was wanted or not, as well as the socioeconomic status of the individual offender (i.e., wanted pregnancies facilitated crime reduction, and impoverished respondents were more likely to report experiencing unwanted births) (Giordano, Seffrin, Manning, & Longmore, 2011). In addition, results from the Pathways to Desistance Study support gender-specific desistance developments due to pregnancy and childbirth as elements of broader familial change (Abell, 2018). These discrepancies illustrate a need for additional gender-focused arguments within desistance theories and research, but specific empirical assessments of educational recommitment, degree completion, and desistance from crime have only recently been examined (Abeling-Judge, 2019), and this relationship requires deeper review to enhance gender-specific theoretical and practical arguments.…”