Criminologist Michael Rocque recognized for life-course research

Michael Rocque, assistant professor of sociology. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

Michael Rocque, assistant professor of sociology. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

As they age, criminals tend to cut back their bad behavior, or give it up altogether. Although environmental factors play a role in this progression, it appears to be largely hard-wired in the brain, rather than being intrinsic to particular cultures or periods in history.

A criminologist and assistant professor of sociology at Bates, Michael Rocque is intrigued by the questions this phenomenon raises.

Why do people engaged in crime eventually slow down or stop altogether? And if they want to stop but don’t, what’s behind that? Such topics, Rocque says, “are fascinating, and understanding them can contribute to making society safer.”

This interest situates Rocque in a branch of his field called life-course criminology: the study of the relationships between criminal behavior and different phases of life.

In July, Rocque learned he would be honored for his contributions to that research by a division of the American Society of Criminology, the nation’s leading professional organization in the field.

Michael Rocque teaches "Thinking Sociologically with Numbers" in November 2015. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

Michael Rocque teaches “Thinking Sociologically with Numbers” in November 2015. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

Rocque will be one of two recipients of the 2016 DLC Early Career Award, bestowed by the society’s Division of Developmental and Life-course Criminology. (Rocque and Lia Ahonen, University of Pittsburgh, will receive the awards in November during the DLC’s Open Meeting, in New Orleans.)

It’s a meaningful honor. Rocque was nominated for the award by Alex Piquero, a professor at the University of Texas at Dallas who has been ranked since 1996 as the world’s No. 1 criminologist in terms of scholarly publications.

The award “is humbling and really gratifying,” says Rocque. “A lot of us are doing work and getting it out there, and who knows who’s reading it? Who knows what anyone thinks about it once it’s published?

“This is a validation that some people think my work is meaningful.”

Adding to the thrill, the letter announcing the award was signed by David Farrington, chair of the DLC and emeritus professor of psychological criminology at the University of Cambridge. He directs the famed Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development, which has followed more than 400 males in London since 1961. (Rocque has worked with Piquero and Farrington on the Cambridge Study.)

Rocque adds, “I hope the award helps keep Bates on the criminological map. The person I took over from, Sawyer Sylvester, has done some really important work, so I’m just trying to take that torch and run with it.”

“Michael is doing incisive research that interrogates long-held assumptions about criminality. His results challenge conventional wisdom,” says Matt Auer, Bates vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty.

“It’s exciting to see him accorded this professional recognition so soon in his career. And it makes us doubly proud that he’s doing this valuable work at Bates.”

Rocque’s research extends to the racial aspects of crime and criminal justice, as well as the field of corrections. (In fact, he’s a research adviser for the Maine Department of Corrections). But in all those dimensions, his work tends to gravitate to the roles that different phases of life play in criminal behavior.

“Michael is doing incisive research that interrogates long-held assumptions about criminality.”

In his dissertation, he proposed a new theoretical approach to the study of criminal behavior in later life, and went on to test that approach in additional research. He is just finishing a book that is one of the first to take a comprehensive look at the phenomenon of desistance — that is, going straight.

“The book looks at historical studies of desistance, theories about it, some research on desistance. It describes my theoretical perspective and some policy implications of desistance research,” Rocque explains.

Rocque’s findings run counter to the common belief that some people are evil to the core and can’t change — and therefore there’s nothing to do with them but lock them up. That viewpoint, he explains, “ignores the situational contingencies and the effects of going through different parts of your life, and how that might influence the way you behave.”

“In fact, we know that even the most hardened criminals eventually just kind of stop.”

Rocque notes that the book is aimed at both academic and mainstream readers. He’s already known to newspaper readers in Maine and elsewhere, thanks to op-eds for the Bangor Daily News and other outlets in which he has explored racism, the criminal justice system, juvenile justice, and so on.

For Rocque, the research isn’t complete until it reaches the people who could put it to use, in policy and in practice.

“A lot of us do research to try to make the world a better place. How do you do that if there’s no connection between those two worlds?” he says. “Writing for a wide audience is important.”

“So if the public, and people working in policy and in the criminal justice system, can take something away from my research that’s useful, then that’s the best outcome for me.”

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