ABSTRACT
This paper aims to understand whether aspirations and ideas of a “good life” contribute to explaining serious delinquent behavior amongst young men in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. The study involved survey administration to two groups of young males, one of them serving a prison sentence for organized criminal activity in Ciudad Juárez (n = 180), and a comparison sample of young men with no criminal record (n = 180). Twenty in-depth interviews were conducted with respondents in the offender sample. The study revealed initial evidence of common aspirations across respondents in both samples and found similarities in ideas of what constitutes a good life. However, the findings also revealed that offenders were more materially inclined and used illicit substances than the non-offender sample. Furthermore, the offender sample also exhibited greater tendency toward altruistic expenditures and care for families than the comparison group.
