Volunteerism and arrest in the transition to adulthood

Tocqueville ([1835] 1956) posited that "by dint of working for one's fellow citizens, the habit and taste for serving them is at length acquired" (197 ). Informal social control theories similarly suggest that voluntary servic e gradually draws persons to virtue. Are volunteers less likely to breach t he social contract? This article estimates the effects of volunteer experie nces on the occurrence and timing of arrest using data from the Youth Devel opment Study, a prospective longitudinal survey of 1,000 adolescents. After statistically controlling for the effects of antisocial propensities, pros ocial attitudes and behavior, and commitments to conventional lines of acti on, we find a robust negative relationship between volunteer work and arres t. We then investigate age dependencies in the nature and effect of volunte er work.