Study title

Crime tends to be a temporary, age-limited phenomenon, with the so-called 'age-crime curve' demonstrating that youthful offending starts in the mid-teens, peaks at 18 for both sexes, and declines sharply into the late-20s. Yet criminological research to date has not specifically linked offending, youth transitions and capital (social networks, income, status and identities) amongst people who may lack legitimate opportunities for status and recognition in youth. The research will involve both longitudinal and retrospective interviews with 80 current and ex-offenders aged 20-40, and analysis of reconviction data. The objectives of the research are to: explore gender, age and other differences in reasons for starting and stopping offending, and the impact on offending of transitions and capital; compare self-reported and official reconviction data with key life events and sources of capital; explore the relevance of youth transitions and Bourdieu's concepts of capital; develop a theory of 'social recognition' (being able to both accumulate and spend capital in legitimate and durable ways), to understand the desistance process; influence criminal justice and wider policy and practice based on the perspectives of potential and actual desisters in the transition to adulthood.