Marriage and crime over the life course: the criminal careers of convicts and their spouses

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to gain more insight into the relationship between marriage and crime. Marriage has been identified as one of the most important crime-reducing life course events that offenders can experience as adults. By focusing on the "good marriage effect", earlier studies seem to have forgotten the possible downsides of social bonds. The current study improves upon earlier research in several ways. First, it does not only investigate the impact of marriage on crime, but also studies the reverse life course event: the impact of divorce on crime. Second, it studies selection into marriage and divorce, that is, the impact of criminal behavior on marriage formation and marital dissolution. Third, it does not only focus on individual criminal careers, but also takes into account the criminal careers of offenders' spouses. In this dissertation, current theories in the field of life course criminology are extended with insights from family sociology. Use is made of a unique longitudinal dataset: the Criminal Career and Life Course Study (CCLS). The CCLS is the first study that contains longitudinal data on the long-term criminal careers of both offenders and ther spouses. The results show that offenders are less likely to marry, more likely to marry criminal spouses, and more likely to divorce - especially if the spouse is involved in crime as well. As a result, offenders are less likely to experience any (long-term) protective effects of marriage.