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theses

Using Pathways to Desistance (PtD) data, a longitudinal study of active youth offenders, the current study tests whether voluntary participation in a variety of programs – job training, mental health, and substance abuse, may be considered as a signal of an individual’s underlying intentions to desist from crime. Informed by a recent proposition by Bushway and Apel (2012) in the criminological literature, and the extant research on signaling stemming from the theory’s original proposition by Spence (1973), this analysis develops and tests a series of hypotheses consistent with either A) a signaling explanation for voluntary program participation or, B) a human capital explanation for the effects of program participation, regardless of its (in)voluntary nature. In order to adequately test these hypotheses against a suitable comparison group, a synthesized control group is created that is composed of randomly selected non-participants, with the time periods of their “participation” also being randomly selected. Results suggest that voluntary program participation is a very weak signal of intentions to desist. Specifically, no strong differences exist between voluntary participants and the randomly selected control group with respect to attitudes associated with desistance pre- and post-program participation, though patterns in coefficient estimates suggest very mild, but insignificant differences in some attitudinal scales. Further, with respect to criminal behavior, analyses for offending frequency and offending diversity both suggest weak, insignificant differences between groups, even when model over-specification is corrected for. Therefore, voluntary program participation is, at its best, a weak, unfit signal of intentions to desist. Implications of these results are discussed with respect to future work on signals of desistance.

ETD_7446

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Samuel E. DeWitt

doi:10.7282/T3TQ63WZ

ETD doctoral

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