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International Social Science Review

Volume 93 | Issue 1 Article 2

The Emerging Adulthood Gap: Integrating
Emerging Adulthood into Life Course
Criminology
Christopher Salvatore
Montclair State University

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The Emerging Adulthood Gap: Integrating Emerging Adulthood into Life
Course Criminology

Cover Page Footnote
An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the 2015 annual meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society in
Boston MA. Christopher Salvatore, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Justice Studies at Montclair State
University.

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The Emerging Adulthood Gap:

Integrating Emerging Adulthood into Life Course Criminology

In 1993, clinical psychologist Terrie Moffitt presented a developmental theory that

describes two key offending trajectories, the adolescent limited and life course persistent.1 The

adolescent limited trajectory group consists of individuals who mainly engage in lower-level

crimes, such as underage drinking and shoplifting, and typically desist by approximately age

eighteen. In the second group are individuals in the life-course persistent trajectory, who engage

in antisocial behavior earlier in their life course, participate in both lower-level and more serious

crimes, such as robberies and assault, as well as the lower-level offenses typical of adolescent

limited offenders. These life course persistent offenders do not desist, but instead continue their

involvement in offending through adulthood.

Key to Moffitt’s work is the idea of the maturity gap, defined as the delay between

biological and social maturation, during which adolescents engage in offending due to the

frustration experienced by being biologically, but not socially mature, and thereby unable to fully

participate in adult society.2 According to Moffitt, most young offenders are on an adolescent

limited trajectory, and offend as a result of the maturity gap desisting once they reach social

maturity and are able to participate in the economy. In other words, once youth reach social

maturity and are able to fully participate in “adult” society they generally stop engaging in the

types of delinquency common during adolescence. For example, an individual may shoplift and

fence goods as a way of making money in high school, but once they graduate, they may stop

engaging in that behavior since they now have a credential that allows access to higher paying

jobs.

More recently, research has begun to incorporate emerging adulthood into the discourse

surrounding antisocial behavior. Recent studies explore the potential for criminal onset during

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emerging adulthood, changes in offending behavior during emerging adulthood, the influence of

turning points and social bonds on offending during emerging adulthood, as well as the influence

of emerging adulthood on sexual behaviors and drug use.3 Although these studies lay a solid

foundation in the area of emerging adulthood, bringing it into the social science discourse, they

have yet to fully conceptualize and theoretically link emerging adulthood into the offending

literature. For example, the criminal career paradigm has been firmly linked to developmental

stages in the life course. Scholars have found that offending onset, participation, frequency, and

desistance are fairly well established concepts in relation to developmental life stages.4

However, the same cannot be said about empirical research on emerging adulthood. Studies such

as the ones conducted by Christopher Salvatore, Travis Taniguchi, and Wayne Welsh provide

support for the notion that emerging adulthood could be integrated into Moffitt’s developmental

taxonomy but stop short of integrating the ideas empirically due to a lack of longitudinal

analyses.5 Due to the need for this integration, it is necessary to place emerging adulthood

within the context of the criminological literature and connect it conceptually and empirically to

existing research.

The National Institute of Justice supports the importance of emerging adulthood as an

area of criminological inquiry. It conducted a large-scale project that focused on adolescence and

emerging adulthood. The project, a “Study Group on the Transitions from Juvenile Delinquency

to Adult Crime,” had the goal of reviewing research findings about offending during the

transition from adolescence to adulthood, as well as exploring the policy implications for the

criminal justice system. The “Study Group” utilized several developmental perspectives to

review the scientific evidence focusing on offending behaviors between the ages of fifteen and

twenty-nine. Two key conclusions emerged from the study: there is a large gap in the research

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dealing with this time period and there is a need for more research exploring why some

adolescents transition out of crime during emerging adulthood, whereas others continue to

offend.6

The above studies provide a useful starting point and establish emerging adulthood as a

legitimate area of criminological inquiry, as well as the continued need for integration of

emerging adulthood into theoretical paradigms in criminology. The aim of this study is to

provide such integration by providing a theoretical mechanism, the ‘emerging adulthood gap,’

which integrates emerging adulthood into the life course or developmental area of criminological

theory. This paper will present the ‘what’ of the emerging adulthood gap by introducing the

concept and integrating it into existing theoretical paradigms, the ‘how’ by examining how social

circumstances have altered the life course leading to the evolution of emerging adulthood as a

distinct stage of the life course and to the ‘emerging adulthood gap,’ and the ‘why’ of the

‘emerging adulthood gap’ by discussing the decreased level of informal social controls

experienced by those in emerging adulthood, which may make those in this stage of the life

course prone to offending, substance abuse, and risky behaviors as part of their identity

exploration and the instability characteristic of emerging adulthood, thereby tying emerging

adulthood into criminological theory.

Emerging Adulthood and Offending: An Overview

First discussed by Jeffrey Arnett in 1994, emerging adulthood is a developmental stage

that occurs between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. Emerging adulthood is often

characterized by instability and as an age of exploration, during which drug, alcohol, and

sexuality experimentation are common.7 Essential is the understanding that emerging adulthood

is not the adolescence or young adulthood of the past.8 The journey from childhood to adulthood

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is different than it was decades ago, with the key difference being that this process lasts far

longer.9 Changes in society, including delays in marriage and parenting, the commodification of

higher education, and identity exploration, all have been identified as components that have led

to the evolution of emerging adulthood as a unique stage of the life course.10 Furthermore, many

in emerging adulthood experience an increase in social freedom as they are no longer subjected

to the informal social controls of adolescence, such as parents and teachers. This increased level

of social freedom provides opportunities for emerging adults to engage in risky and dangerous

behaviors, including unsafe sex, substance use, and crime.

The convergence between emerging adulthood and antisocial behaviors is well

established. Studies consistently find that dangerous and risky behaviors, such as binge drinking,

smoking, unsafe driving, and unsafe sexual practices are all common in populations of emerging

adults.11 Turning more specifically to crime, Alex Piquero, Robert Brame, Paul Mazerolle, and

Rudy Haapanen conducted one of the first studies to examine the influence of emerging

adulthood on criminal activity, finding that arrest rates for both violent and nonviolent crimes

peaked in their early twenties—i.e. during emerging adulthood. Additionally, they found that

increases in social bonds, such as marriage, decreased arrests for nonviolent offenses, but did not

influence arrests for violent crime.12 In another study, Terrie Moffitt, Avshalom Caspi, Honalee

Harrington, and Barry Milne used data from the Dunedin study to examine offenders in their

mid-twenties, noting that many adolescent limited offenders were engaging in property crimes,

substance use, and had other issues, such as financial problems.13 Moffitt and her team note that

emerging adulthood may have played a role in why those identified as adolescent limited

offenders had yet to ‘age out’ as her original conceptualization of the Adolescent Limited

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Offender in her 1993 dual taxonomy.14 Both Piquero’s and Moffitt’s work provide evidence to

suggest that emerging adulthood has impacted youth offending.

Subsequent studies incorporate the developmental processes indicative of emerging

adulthood into explaining offending during this stage of the life course. Robert Marcus utilized

data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to examine

violent offending during emerging adulthood. Consistent with Arnett’s work, Marcus found

sensation seeking and violent offending declined as the sample aged out of emerging adulthood,

and married.15 More recently, Salvatore and Taniguchi used Add Health data to examine the role

of social bonds and turning points identified in the life course literature—including in John Laub

and Robert Sampon’s 2003 landmark study—as influencing desistance. The results of their study

provides support for the role of social bonds and turning points such as employment, marriage,

parenthood, economic stability, and property ownership as influencing desistance during

emerging adulthood.16 Sung Joon Jang and Jeremy Rhodes also utilized Add Health data to

examine the effects of strain on crime and drug use during emerging adulthood. Examples of

strain that could influence offending and substance use during emerging adulthood include the

ending of a romantic relationship, the loss of a job, or association with anti-social peers. Jang and

Rhodes found that the effects of strain on offending and substance use were exacerbated during

emerging adulthood by social bonds with offending peers and low-self-control.17 The results of

the abovementioned studies support Arnett’s theory, as well as suggesting that there may be a

‘maturity gap’ in emerging adulthood like that identified by scholars during adolescence.

The Life Course Perspective: A Theoretical Framework for the Emerging Adulthood Gap

The life course perspective is the study of individual level changes in offending over

time.18 It is a multidisciplinary paradigm that incorporates ideas from biology, sociology,

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psychology, criminal justice, and criminology. Instead of being a theory in the traditional sense,

it is an alternative way of looking at and understanding human development.19 Rolf Loeber and

Marc LeBlac state that developmental criminology is the study of origins and dynamics of

antisocial behaviors and offending according to age, and second, the examination of causal

factors that are precursors to, or occur with, behavioral development that influence the life

course.20 Farrington argues that developmental and life course criminology is focused on

documenting and explaining offending throughout a person’s life course.21 Other scholars, like

Laub and Sampson, simplify the concept to the idea of making sense of people’s lives.

Glen H. Elder, considered the preeminent figure in life course criminology, defined the

life course in 1985 as the interconnected trajectory an individual has as they age through life.22

A trajectory is defined as a sequence of linked stages within a set of experiences or range of

behavior. For example, an individual’s career trajectory is a series of linked stages, as people

age, they go through stages of their career from entry level through executive positions, ceasing

at retirement at approximately age sixty-five. As individuals move through their career

trajectory, they move up in positions and levels in an organization. Entering into an

administrative position could mark a change in the trajectory known as a transition. Transitions

are built into trajectories, and the stages that are part of the trajectory are connected to each other

by transitions.23 For example, an individual who is casually dating someone may engage in drug

dealing as a way to supplement their income. Once their relationship becomes more formalized

through an engagement, they may no longer sell drugs, opting for a more respectable (legal) part-

time job to supplement their income. However, if the relationship ends, so may the stabilizing

force it provided, and the individual may revert to drug sales to supplement their income.

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Turning our focus to the influence of social and biological maturation on offending, in

addition to Moffitt’s abovementioned developmental taxonomy other theoretical models explain

key features of social and biological maturation (the ‘what’ examined in how the transition to

adulthood leads to decreased offending), its origins (the ‘why’ most people stop or decrease

offending as they reach adult social roles and turning points), and the cause of these changes (the

‘how’).

Laub and Sampson’s model of age-graded social control focuses on the role of turning

points, such as marriage, employment, and military service, in understanding the process of

change in an offender.24 Elder defines turning points as changes in the life course which have the

ability to alter life trajectories.25 Sampson and Laub conceptualize turning points as a process

that occurs over time instead of drastic changes that occur instantly; turning points may be the

causative agent that starts the process of change in an individual.26 For example, getting a job

may not instantly cause an individual to cease offending, but it may start a process through

which an individual gradually moves towards building conventional bonds to their employer and

coworkers, and gradually moves away from relationships with deviant peers. This summary of

the life course theoretical paradigm, while brief, captures the essence of the increasingly

prominent perspective. The life course perspective is a natural fit for emerging adulthood and the

‘emerging adulthood gap.’

Emerging Adulthood in the Context of the Moffitt’s Developmental Taxonomy

Historically, adolescence is the period where identity exploration occurs and therefore

delinquency is common. Moffitt argues that developmental changes in antisocial behaviors are

best explained by her developmental taxonomy. This theory makes the distinction between two

types of offenders: adolescent limited (AL) and life course persistent (LCP) offenders. ALs

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generally have normal childhood backgrounds and start offending during adolescence, usually

engaging in nonviolent crime, and desisting as they transition to adult social roles. In contrast,

LCPs demonstrate antisocial behaviors in earlier in childhood, have less stable childhoods,

commit nonviolent and violent offending during adolescence, and continue to commit violent

crime in adulthood. LCPs account for approximately 6 percent of the male population, but

commit roughly 50 percent of all violent crime.27

A large amount of scholarship has been devoted to testing Moffitt’s developmental

taxonomy, with the bulk of the research examining LCP offenders. Two conditions in early

childhood are hypothesized to be the origin to LCP offending. The first is that LCPS suffer from

neuropsychological deficits such as ADHD. These deficits are believed to be caused by several

factors, including maternal drug and alcohol use during pregnancy, inadequate prenatal nutrition,

birth complications, genetic factors, and pre- and postnatal exposure to toxic agents such as

lead.28 Moffitt identifies that harsh, abusive, and criminogenic home environments during

childhood are key to the development of an LCP offender. In other words, Moffitt suggests that

abusive, neglectful parenting can amplify the effects of neuropsychological deficits, whereas a

more stable, prosocial family environment could reduce or nullify the antisocial effects of

neuropsychological deficits.

Moffitt argues that LCPs may precipitate some of the offending in others, thereby

furthering the development of ALs offending. Reflecting social learning theory, Moffitt suggests

that ALs offenders were mimicking these behaviors to look more adult and penetrate the

‘maturity gap’ between biological and social maturity. She further states that the maturity gap is

rooted in the fact that adolescents are sexually mature, yet they are still prevented from

participating in adult behaviors such as military service, consuming alcohol, and working.29

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Essentially, ALs challenge the maturity gap by imitating the behavior of their LCPs counterparts.

The maturity gap can also be applied to desistance. As adolescents age, they are allowed more

adult privileges and also build social bonds through marriage and employment that act to reduce,

then erase the maturity gap. As such, those ALs who do not encounter any of the “snares”

(defined by Moffitt as factors such as addiction or precocious pregnancy) that would knock ALs

‘off track’ and prevent their natural desistance.30 ALs should desist; the potential influence of

emerging adulthood could, however, act to create a new ‘emerging adulthood’ gap that allows

opportunities for offending. The question becomes does emerging adulthood act as a ‘snare’ for

ALs? If emerging adulthood does act as a ‘snare,’ how should it be integrated into criminological

theory?

It may be possible that emerging adulthood acts to stimulate adult onset offending. Arnett

argues that emerging adulthood is characterized by identity exploration which can be expressed

through substance use and other forms of risky and dangerous behaviors.31 Many prior studies

exploring adult onset antisocial behavior has been limited by two criticisms: 1) it is an artifact of

criminal record and 2) it does not exist because of the low base rate.32 Prior research provides

inconsistent findings regarding if adult onset offending is an artifact of criminal records. Several

studies using self-report data have not found evidence for adult onset trajectories.33 Conversely,

several other studies using self-report data have found support for the existence of adult onset

offending.34 Based on the existing evidence, there has yet to be a consensus reached regarding

the role of emerging adulthood as a factor on adult onset offending, potentially through an

emerging adulthood ‘gap’ similar to Moffitt’s ‘maturity gap.’

A key issue to acknowledge is that the majority of the studies that did not find evidence

for adult onset offending trajectories collected data before the 1990s. The participants in those

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studies did not experience the social changes indicative of emerging adulthood identified by

Arnett as occurring between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. These changes include

postponement of marriage, the commodification of, and extension of education, as well as

increased parental support that many experience by ‘boomeranging’ back to their parents’

home.35 As previously discussed, the bulk of emerging adults experience increased levels of

freedom without the adult supervision of their high school years. This is of particular note as

emerging adults can be separated into two general groups, those who either attend or do not

attend college.

In 2007, Arnett raised the issue of subgroups in emerging adulthood, specifically those

who are and are not involved in higher education.36 Many in emerging adulthood, seeking to be

competitive in an ever increasingly competitive global job market, continue their education in

college, where they are subjected to a variety of life changes, such as stress, pressure to perform,

and the autonomy of college and university life, whereas others do not attend college and may

struggle to find jobs that allow them to earn a living wage.37

During emerging adulthood individuals are no longer subjected to teacher or parental

controls compared to childhood and the earlier years of adolescence, yet they have not

established permanent romantic relationships or bonds with employers and coworkers that can

act to inhibit antisocial behaviors in adulthood. The increased freedom of emerging adulthood

provides opportunities to engage in identity exploration through sexual and substance abuse

experimentation.38 Therefore, emerging adulthood may place some in a socially constructed

snare or ‘emerging adulthood gap’ during which they engage in antisocial behaviors.

Although previous studies provide evidence for the onset of antisocial behavior in young

adulthood, investigate the role of emerging adults bonds to parents on influencing offending

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trajectories, and present the idea of an extension to Moffitt’s developmental taxonomy, it is not

clear if there is a ‘gap’ in emerging adulthood that operates in a similar manner to the maturity

gap Moffitt identifies as the causative factor for most adolescents antisocial behaviors.39 Here, it

is proposed that there is ‘emerging adulthood gap’ that may explain why some offend during

emerging adulthood whereas others do not participate in antisocial behaviors.

The discussion to this point reviews the life course paradigm, establishing that emerging

adulthood is a valid and important area of criminological inquiry, and lays a foundation for the

goals of this paper: 1) presenting the emerging adulthood gap (defining ‘what’ it is); 2)

describing the social and economic changes that have allowed emerging adulthood—and in turn

the ‘emerging adulthood gap’—to develop (defining ‘how’ it occurs); and 3) to exam through

what mechanisms the ‘emerging adulthood gap’ works (the ‘why’ of it).

The Emerging Adulthood Gap: The “What” of it

As established above, emerging adulthood is a distinct stage of the life course that

criminologists and other social scientists have explored over the last twenty years. An ever

increasing portion of this scholarship is examining risky and dangerous behaviors, such as unsafe

sex and driving, and substance use, as well as criminal offending behaviors. These studies

demonstrate that emerging adulthood is not simply a passing sociological fad, but rather a

legitimate area of criminology inquiry that needs to be formally integrated into criminological

theory. The above discussion establishes that the most natural fit for emerging adulthood is the

life course paradigm, with its focus on transitions, turning points, social bonds, and biological as

well as social maturation, as it closely parallels many of the conceptual and theoretical constructs

that Arnett discusses throughout his work in emerging adulthood.40 The first goal of this study is

to integrate or place emerging adulthood into the life course paradigm. To accomplish this, a pre-

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existing construct that closely parallels the idea of ‘emerging adulthood gap’ was needed. This

exists in Moffitt’s maturity gap.

Emerging adulthood is an active period of criminal offending. Many turning points are

postponed and as such social bonds that reduce offending and participation in risky and

dangerous behaviors are absent or delayed during emerging adulthood. Unlike adolescence in

which there are formal (e.g., teachers) and informal (e.g., parents) social controls to restrict or

limit offending behaviors, these are largely are not present in emerging adulthood. As such we

have a group of largely socially and biologically mature youth, who in the past would have been

married, having children, and working, unencumbered, and as such are stuck in an ‘gap’ during

which most are completing higher education, experimenting with romantic relationships and

their sexuality, and trying different types of work to see what suits them best. In other words,

similar to Moffitt’s ‘maturity gap’ during adolescence, there is a similar ‘gap’ during emerging

adulthood characterized by experimentation with substances, sexuality, and offending, reflecting

the exploratory nature of emerging adulthood, as well as the lack of informal social controls on

emerging adults. Hence, the emerging adulthood gap is defined as follows: a period during

emerging adulthood in which there is an increased sense of exploration, freedom, and choice,

often marked by offending, substance use, sexual experimentation, and risky behaviors, in which

there are a decreased level of informal social controls. Due to the social maturity ‘gap’ caused by

being in emerging adulthood some may be prone to offending, substance abuse, sexual

…