ABSTRACT
Theoretical insight into desistance from crime was greatly advanced by the important work of Sampson and Laub and their idea that pro-social "turning points" like jobs and marriages are critical in the desistance process. The two most prominent theoretical explanations of criminal desistance currently in the field are the age-graded theory of informal social control by Sampson and Laub, and the theory of cognitive and emotional transformations by Giordano and her colleagues. This chapter provides a discussion of each of these two theories of desistance and how they fall short of fully incorporating an important role for human agency. Although both theories have provided crucial insight into how criminal desistance occurs, and both acknowledge the importance of human agency, the actual presence of agency in both is anemic. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how another theory—Paternoster and Bushway's identity theory—more fully brings human agency into the desistance process.
