Читать книгу The Invisible Woman - Joanne Belknap - Страница 56

An exception to LCT researchers’ failing to adequately account for gender is A. A. Fagan’s (2003) LTC study that examined the short- and long-term effects of self-reported physical (nonsexual) violence perpetrated by family and nonfamily on youths’ subsequent offending. Both family-perpetrated, and particularly nonfamily-perpetrated, nonsexual violent victimizations increased the likelihood of these youths’ immediate and lasting offending behaviors. Moreover, those youths reporting both family- and nonfamily-perpetrated violent victimization were the most frequent offenders. The only gender difference was that boys reported more of both family and nonfamily (nonsexual) violent victimizations. M. C. Johnson and Menard’s (2012) LCT test focused on those who abstain from delinquent involvement and found the biggest predictor was gender: 11% of females and 2% of males were abstainers. Martino, Ellickson, Klein, & McCaffrey’s (2008) LCT study of physical aggression found that while “girls are more likely than boys to follow a trajectory of consistently low or no physically aggressive behavior,” boys (19%) and girls (15%) were similar in their rates of being in the persistently high aggression trajectory (p. 71). Importantly, the same individual, family, peer, and school factors predict both girls’ and boys’ aggression (p. 71). Unfortunately, this study did not include any abuse or trauma variables as strains.

As an age and developmental theory, LCT stresses the significance of the highest offending levels likely to be in adolescence and possibly into an individual’s 20s. But research on offending, including recidivism and desistance, increasingly suggests that girls/women start or “peak” in their offending later than boys/men (C. R. Block, Blokland, van der Werff, van Os, & Nieuwbeerta, 2010; S. S. Simpson, Yahner, & Dugan, 2008; Widom et al., 2018), and that the later onset for many women offenders is related to abusive and/or criminal male partners (e.g., Bailey, 2013; DeHart, Lynch, Belknap, Dass-Brailsford, & Green, 2014; Erez & Berko, 2010; Garcia-Hallett, 2019; Sampson, 2008) something that is never found for men.

The marriage effect has long been touted (and used in presentencing investigation reports, impacting sentencing outcomes) as a significant desistance factor for offending. In addition to marital status being an extralegal variable or perhaps cultural variable (addressed in Chapter 6), the marriage effect was historically tested solely on men. Doherty and Ensminger’s (2013) LCT study found support for the marriage effect for men “across crime type, with a reduction in offending between 21% and 36%,” while the marriage effect on women was only a 10% decrease in property crimes and a 9% increase in drug arrests (p. 104). A study of individuals released from prison found “never being married” impacted (increased) men’s but not women’s likelihood of being arrested for new violent crimes (D. E. Olson, Stalans, & Escobar, 2016, p. 138). Notably, another study found that women’s “marital chances diminish as soon as they have been convicted once,” whereas men’s “are only affected if they have an extensive record” (van Schellen, Poortman, & Nieuwbeerta, 2012). Giordano, Cernkovich, and Rudolph’s (2002) longitudinal study following incarcerated youths into adulthood found neither marriages nor romantic partners were related to keeping either women or men from recidivating.

Social ties as adults appear to be almost exclusively measured in terms of marriage and divorce, denying not only the potentially devastating effects of being in a bad marriage (as compared with being single) but also the significant roles non-spouses/partners play in many people’s lives as “families of choice” (kinships made with nonrelatives). The marriage effect not only has a sexist history, but it is inherently heterosexist given that same-sex marriage was not legal until recent years, and with the current criminal legal system and societal homophobia, some LGBTQI+ offenders likely do not want to disclose their intimate relationship status.