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Title: The Effects of Residential Mobility on Criminal Persistence and Desistance during the Transition to Adulthood
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Widdowson, Alex O.
Siennick, Sonja E.
The Effects of Residential Mobility on Criminal Persistence and Desistance during the Transition to Adulthood
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency published online (17 August 2020): DOI: 10.1177/0022427820948578.
Also: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0022427820948578
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: Sage Publications
Keyword(s): Arrests; Crime; Geocoded Data; Mobility, Residential; Transition, Adulthood

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Objectives: Prior research has documented that residential mobility has the potential to trigger both criminal persistence and desistance, with frequent moving often predicting persistence and long-distance moving predicting desistance. However, less work has considered this possibility during the transition to adulthood. To address this shortcoming, we assessed the effects of different residential moves on offending during this period in the life course.

Methods: Using 15 waves of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 Cohort, a sample of youth followed from ages 12 to 32, we used mixed-effects models to examine whether frequent moving, between-county moves (a proxy for long-distance), and moving distance are associated with within-individual change in self-reported offending and arrest.

Results: Findings indicated that frequent moving was not associated with persistent offending. In addition, individuals who made between-county moves showed significant within-individual reductions in self-reported offending and arrest, with those reductions emerging immediately after the move and persisting over time. Finally, individuals who moved further in distance were more likely to experience reductions in self-reported offending, although any moving distance reduced arrest.

Bibliography Citation
Widdowson, Alex O. and Sonja E. Siennick. "The Effects of Residential Mobility on Criminal Persistence and Desistance during the Transition to Adulthood." Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency published online (17 August 2020): DOI: 10.1177/0022427820948578.