Theoretical Analysis
TropJ
ShoversStudyofPropertyOffenders.pptxShover’s Study of Property Offenders
Study: How ex-offenders exit crime
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Maturation effect—people age out of crime or crime rates go down as people age
Recidivism—repeat crime
Most studies in criminology focus on how people enter crime. This study is an examination of how people exit crime successfully. Obviously, rehabilitation comes from within. In the understanding of ex-offenders of property crimes, this is how they felt they had exited crime.
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Methods: interviews with 36 males who successfully exited crime (including snowball sampling, common in deviance research)
Qualitative interviews: their words
Mean: 3.1 felony convictions, 11.1 years incarcerated
Ordinary property offenders: (e.g., burglary, theft, etc.) they had received limited financial rewards from their criminal activities
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From the perspective of ex-convicts, what allowed them to successfully exit crime?
I) Temporal changes—subjective changes in definition of oneself and significant events or patterns of events in one’s life
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A) An Identity Shift
They took stock of their lives and accomplishments and realized that their criminality had been unproductive and that was unlikely to change. It was not a way to construct a future.
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One respondent, “I can handle it, if I have to serve time. But now I know how stupid I have been. And for me now to do something as stupid as I have done, and go back to serving time, it would drive me crazy…Because now like I told you, I see these things. I see myself. And I see how my path has been so wrong, when I thought I was being smart, or I thought I was being him, or I thought that was this or that. And it’s a dream.”
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B) Incommodious time (time had not served them well)
They began to see time as a diminishing and exhaustible resource and wanted to use their future time better.
Prison time is hard time.
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Asked if he was afraid of time, one respondent stated, “No, I’m not really afraid of it. I don’t know. I just don’t want to do it. It’s just knocking time out of my life….And they’re (i.e., the years) a lot more precious to me than when I was 25 or 30. I guess you get to the point where you think, well…You’re getting old, you’re getting ready to die and you’ve never really lived, or something. You don’t want to spend it in the joint, treading water.”
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Another respondent, “…And if I get one of them big numbers, now, here, I’m through booking, you know. I’m through booking. One of them big numbers, man would do me in, you know. And I couldn’t stand it.”
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C) Aspirations and Goals
They changed their goal. Economic success became less important and other things (family, steady work, and contentment) became more important.
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A respondent, “I don’t want to live that kind of life no more. I want peace. I want joy and harmony. I want to be with my children and grand children. I want to be with my mother. And when she passes on, I was in prison when my daddy died, I got to come home for five hours in handcuffs to see him and my mother passes on, and I want to be there with her.”
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Another respondent, “I’m satisfied, you know. There ain’t (sic) nobody can get me to do nothing (i.e., commit another crime). Not now. Not the way I’m going now. Every year, I go away on vacation. I got three weeks now. Next year I get four weeks. Yeah. So, I’m happy, you know, right now.”
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D) Tiredness
They saw the criminal justice system as bigger than them; a system that would eventually catch up with them, impose deprivations and wear them down.
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One respondent, “Being tired, you know. Just collapsing that’s all. I’d say age made me weak, made me tired, you know. That’s all.”
Another, “Because I know how the system is. The system is bigger than me.”
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II) Interpersonal contingencies: an objective change in one’s social relationships or networks
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A) Ties to another person: significant other
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One respondent, “When I reached the age of 35, it just seemed like my life wanted to change. I needed a change in life, and I was tired of going to jail. And I wanted to change my life and stay out here. And by meeting the woman that I met, it just turned my life completely around. When I met her it just seemed like something in my life had been fulfilled.”
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Another respondent, “I loved my wife; I love her still and she talked to me a lot And if it wouldn’t have been for her, no telling where I’d be at, cause I’d most likely had a gun in my hand and robbed a bank or something. Or, took something from somebody to get some food, you know. She helped me along.”
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B) Ties to a Job
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One respondent, upon getting a job, “The guy liked me from the jump. And that’s when I hooked up with him. And I went straight a long time without the intentions of going straight. That was one turning point in the latter part of my life.”
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Another, “When I got out (the second time)…I sold a suit and bought some tools, just the bare necessities of what I needed and I met a guy who carried me on the job. So, at that time, I could make some money. With this earning power, I didn’t have, I didn’t have to steal, so this was right down my alley.
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Question to ponder
What social policy do you think ex-convicts (of property offenses) in leaving crime behind successfully?
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