College as a Turning Point: Crime Deceleration as a Function of College Attendance and Improved Cognitive Control

Using 1,016 male participants from the pathways to desistance sample, the current investigation assessed two different pathways, one of which ran from college attendance at age 19 to cognitive control at age 20 to reduced criminal offending at age 21 and the other of which ran from cognitive control at age 19 to college attendance at age 20 to reduced criminal offending at age 21. Of the two pathways, only the first one proved significant. These results indicate that college can serve as a turning point for crime deceleration and that it may achieve its effect indirectly by increasing cognitive control in former delinquents who attend college during the emerging adult years. The college experience may stimulate change by providing students with skills like cognitive control that support and maintain their desistance from crime, similar to how the antithetical thought process, cognitive impulsivity, once supported and maintained a criminal lifestyle