| A number of researchers have claimed that certain life events such as marriage, employment, and entry into the military are linked to desistance from crime- Debate remains, however, about the exact causal mechanisms accounting for this desistance. The age/crime relationship clearly is intertwined with this question. Using an extension of the deterrence doctrine suggested by Grasmick and colleagues that includes informal sanction threats in the forms of shame and embarrassment, as well as formal sanction threats, we explore age-graded changes in individuals' perceptions of the certainty and severity of sanctions when contemplating illegal behavior- We attempt to determine whether marriage, employment, education, or parenthood mediate the relationships between age and perceived threats of sanction. Consistent with previous research, we do find that the perceptions of shame and embarrassment, as well as legal sanctions, mediate the effect of age on crirne. However, the covariates of employment, marriage, education, and parenthood do not mediate the bivariate relationship between age and the sanction threat measures.
|
Updated 05/20/2006