| Gottfredson and Hirschi's (1990) general theory of crime suggests that while criminality largely remains stable over the life course, criminal behavior is largely restricted to adolescence and young adulthood. This paper attempts to make sense of paradox by reviewing the findings of two studies on personality, crime and desistance. The personality characteristics of two samples of desisting ex-offenders (N=60), suggest that such persons resemble active offenders (N=50) more than non-offenders (N=200) in their dispositional personality traits (like low self-control). However, desisting ex-offenders differed significantly from persisting ex-offenders on measures of more dynamic domains of personality, such as measures of their motives, goals, self-beliefs, and life perspectives. The authors suggest that "criminality" or criminal propensity might be best understood as involving these other aspects of the self. |
Updated 05/20/2006