Living Life Like a Marathon, Not a Sprint: The Relationship Between Grit and Criminal Justice Involvement

Abstract

While previous studies report that individuals with higher levels of grit are more likely to experience positive life outcomes, much less is known about whether grit can be used to understand individual differences in criminal justice involvement. This study addresses this gap by analyzing self-report data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97) to assess the longitudinal relationship between grit, first-time arrest, and re-arrest in young adulthood. Results from a series of multivariate logistic regression models reveal that higher levels of grit are associated with decreased odds of both first-time arrest and re-arrest. The reported findings are some of the first to indicate that grit is an individual-level factor worthy of further empirical investigation in criminal justice and criminology.