ABSTRACT
Two logically complementary constructions of the theoretical link between age and crime desistance have been offered. This chapter draws primarily from ethnographic investigations to construct an individual-level model linking age, degree of past success at legitimate and criminal pursuits, expectations about the likely payoffs from criminal and noncriminal behavior, estimates of legal risk, and crime desistance. It examines the model using longitudinal data from a sample of serious offenders. The chapter suggests theoretically that increasing age and past performance in straight and criminal pursuits determine the offender's differential expectations. It includes the regression results for criminal expectations. It shows that age, criminal financial success, and confinement avoidance are significant predictors of criminal expectations. These statistical relationships are in the predicted directions, thus confirming the negative effect of age on expectations of criminal success. They also confirm that success at crime increases criminal expectations.
