HIV/AIDS sebagai Penghalang kepada Bekas Banduan Memasuki Alam Perkahwinan di Malaysia: Perbezaan dari Perspektif Teori Pengkelasan Umur Sampson dan Laub

HIV / AIDS as a Barrier to Former Prisoners from Entering Married Life in Malaysia From the Perspective of Age Graded Theory By Sampson and Laub

Abstract

Age Graded Theory of Informal Social Control has stressed the importance of marriage as an important life events that can change an individual decision to refrain from criminal activity. The paper was conducted based on doctoral research which examines the effect of re-offending among former prisoners in Malaysia. One of the finding from the PhD research has found that most prisoners will continue to choose to live on their own due to difficulty in adapting to marriage life. Marriage is no longer the main focus that former prisoner want to achieve during the release. This is the contradiction of Sampson and Laub's assumptions that marriage is the most important institution in which it is capable of forming informal social controls among individuals. Sampson and Laub's assumptions about marriage institutions as a good trajectory in life and capable of altering criminal behavior through the bonds of social control formed with the couple cannot be concured quite easily. This study employs qualitative methods by interviewing 19 former prisoners who have been identified through the snowballs sampling techniques. The findings have indicated that only four former prisoners were able to enter the marriage life while the other 14 choose to live alone and only one former prisoner has a partner. From the accumulated findings, the reality in Malaysia from the former offenders’ perspective have shown that entering marriage life is tough and it is not something that often occurs among former prisoners. Thus, marriage cannot be positioned as an important institution in the life event as being emphasized in the Age Graded Theory.