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recidivism, rehabilitation & desistance
The operative claimAdolescent personality and character are still forming and are not reliable indicators of fixed adult character; most adolescents who engage in antisocial behavior, including serious offending, desist as they mature, so adolescent conduct is a poor predictor of irretrievable depravity.
There is broad agreement that most adolescents, even serious offenders, desist as they mature, and that adolescent character is not yet settled. The unresolved problem is prediction — science cannot reliably tell in advance which individual belongs to the small persistent subgroup.
A developmental generalization grounded in longitudinal desistance research. It holds most strongly for the typical (adolescence-limited) pattern of offending, which is far more common than the persistent pattern; a small subgroup shows continuity into adulthood. Predictions are probabilistic at the group level and cannot identify which individual will desist or persist.
Monahan, K. C., Steinberg, L., Cauffman, E., & Mulvey, E. P (2009). Trajectories of antisocial behavior and psychosocial maturity from adolescence to young adulthood. Developmental Psychology, 45(6), 1654-1668.
Longitudinal · adolescence to young adulthood
Youth whose antisocial behavior persists into adulthood show lower and arrested development of psychosocial maturity, indicating that persistent offending reflects maturational deficits rather than fixed character.
Bearing on this claim: Longitudinal: persistent offending tracks arrested psychosocial maturation, not fixed character.
doi.org/10.1037/a0015862Mulvey, E. P., Steinberg, L., Piquero, A. R., Besana, M., Fagan, J., Schubert, C., & Cauffman, E (2010). Trajectories of desistance and continuity in antisocial behavior following court adjudication among serious adolescent offenders. Development and Psychopathology, 22(2), 453-475.
Longitudinal · N = 1,119 · serious adolescent offenders
Following 1,119 serious adolescent offenders, growth-mixture models identified five trajectories; only a small persister group (~8.7%) continued offending, while most reduced antisocial behavior over time.
Bearing on this claim: 1,119 serious offenders followed; most desist, only a small persister group continues.
doi.org/10.1017/S0954579410000179Moffitt, T. E (1993). Adolescence-limited and life-course-persistent antisocial behavior: A developmental taxonomy. Psychological Review, 100(4), 674-701.
Review
Proposes that delinquency comprises a small life-course-persistent group antisocial at every stage and a much larger adolescence-limited group antisocial only during adolescence, accounting for the ~10-fold adolescent rise in prevalence.
Bearing on this claim: Dual-taxonomy framework: most adolescent offending is adolescence-limited and transient.
doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.100.4.674Sbeglia C, Simmons C, Icenogle G, Levick M, Peniche M, Beardslee J, Cauffman E (2025). Life after life: Recidivism among individuals formerly sentenced to mandatory juvenile life without parole. Journal of research on adolescence.
Observational · N = 287 · Adults (formerly juvenile offenders)
This study examined recidivism among 287 individuals originally sentenced to mandatory juvenile life without parole who were later resentenced and released. It found a very low recidivism rate, with only 5.2% receiving new misdemeanor or felony charges up to 7 years post-release, supporting developmental science that offending declines with maturation.
Bearing on this claim: [curated fold] Empirical support for juvenile desistance: extremely low recidivism among individuals released in adulthood after serving decades for homicides committed as juveniles.
doi.org/10.1111/jora.129894 supporting verified sources
Desistance research cannot prospectively identify which individual will persist; samples are often male and U.S.-based; self-report offending measures have known biases; and definitions of "desistance" vary across studies, affecting reported proportions.
Last reviewed June 18, 2026