Anticipating effects of marriage? Examining pre- and post-marital patterns of criminal offending

While an increasing amount of studies find marriage to be associated with reduced criminal behaviour, hardly any studies investigated the precise pre- an d post-marital patterns of change in criminal offending. In this study, we test contrasting hypot heses on the timing of change in offending, derived from theories on the causal mechanisms behind the a ssociation between marriage and offending. Maturation theories ascribe desistance from offendi ng to the aging of the individual, denying any independent effect of life course transitions. In c ontrast, age-graded social control theory argues th at marriage, and especially a good quality marriage, c an constitute a turning point in the offender’s criminal career, resulting in desistance. Cognitive theories of desistance see marriage as a hook for change, reinforcing a process of cognitive change t hat starts well before marriage. One step further i s the view that desistance from crime and marriage ar e both a consequence from the desire to settle down, and that the association between the two is a consequence of selection (only those who desist from crime get married). We use person-year data re trieved from criminal records and population registers on a sample of offenders convicted in the Netherlands in 1977. We examine changes in the chance of offending in the years surrounding the ye ar of marriage by conducting logistic multilevel analyses (person-years nested in persons). The find ings show a show a sharp decline in offending in the 5 years before marriage. After marriage this de cline continues, but is less steep. These findings may support cognitive theories of desistance, but m ight also reflect the effects of cohabitation befor e marriage. Our analyses take into account divorce, a nd we also investigate effects of parenthood and of marrying a criminal vs. a non-criminal spouse.