Conjugality and crime: Why are organized criminals less likely to be single ?

In the decades 1990-2000, the fight against organized crime profoundly transformed French criminal law. The challenge was to reinforce the means of action of the police against entrepreneurial forms of crime. The legislator granted exceptional powers to police officers and judges investigating criminals labeled as “association of criminals” or "organized bands". Surprisingly, these criminals that one observes in criminal statistics are much less often single than the non-organized offenders (49% versus 66%). Criminological literature has shown that the marital relationships are generally a factor of desistance but marital and criminal life seem to be compatible in the case of organized crime. From the French statistical file of prisoners, I seek to explain why organized criminals are less likely to be single. I therefore conducted a quantitative analysis of 126,431 persons sentenced and detained in France in 2016-2017 among which 9750 were labeled as “association of criminals” or "organized bands". I argue that organized criminals are less often single because they enjoy higher economic and symbolic statuses in the criminal world. Thus, just as the rate of persons in couples increases along the social scale, it also increases along the criminal scale. This result is consistent with research on the earnings of crime, which has shown that income and status in criminal economies are highly unequal.