Processes of Desistance

Current research often relies on measures of recidivism to evaluate the effectiveness of formal criminal justice system interventions. Such studies, however, do not provide information on desistance from crime, that is, on how such interventions can help maintaining abstinence from offending and assist desisters in their efforts to change. This scoping review argues that formal agents (such as probation officers) can play a part in supporting desistance by providing practical help and resources based on desisters’ needs, and can assist in changes in self‐identity through sustained positive feedback and encouragement. We propose a model of assisted desistance to conceptualise the effects of formal agents on desistance processes. The mandatory context of interventions, the fragile balance between legalistic and therapeutic roles, as well as the processes of desistance outside of the criminal justice system are considered. Implications for future research, policy, and practice are disc...

In the past decade, desistance research has attracted immense research attention, which has necessitated the clarification of the overall picture of desistance research in terms of methodology, definition, and theory. Using the systematic quantitative literature review method, we seek to provide an overview of Englishwritten peer-reviewed journal articles on desistance from 2011 to 2020. Analysis of 196 studies reveals that despite an almost equal quantitative-qualitative divide in desistance research, there is skewness in terms of research location, sample size, and usage of operationalisation and theory. Based on these findings, we suggest the future direction of desistance research.

This chapter considers the relationships between criminology and the worlds of penal policy and practice. It focuses in particular on the day-to-day interactions the authors of the chapter forge in their research lives and on their ‘effects’ and failures as ‘engaged criminologists’. The chapter supports forms of criminological engagement that are subtle, long term and relational rather than occasional, mechanical, linear, or instrumental, and proposes that these forms of engagement improve understanding but require constant reflection and negotiation. This chapter argues that knowledge-generation is slow and cumulative; it takes time to ‘read a situation’ in complex human and social environments and it should be an iterative process with the research community and the world of practice teaching, learning from each other at every step of the way. Research participants welcome a ‘full’ research presence of the kind described in this chapter. For knowledge to ‘do good’, it needs to be ...

This report provides a literature review on desistance from crime which explores the purposes of offender management; understanding and supporting desistance; desistance and the process of offender management; desistance and compliance with offender management; and, desistance and the credibility of offender management. The review was commissioned by the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) to open up lines of enquiry which NOMS may then pursue through its policy programme – specifically its emerging work on offender engagement. The report was commissioned and should be interpreted not as a systematic literature review of desistance research, but rather as a deliberately discursive and speculative paper which aims to scope out some of the implications of desistance research for offender management, rather than to make any definitive statement either about desistance research or about its interpretation in practice.

Informed by a comprehensive review of theories and research into desistance (Weaver, 2015), this article advances a critical and contemporary overview of the main theories of desistance, drawing on illustrative empirical research. It begins by addressing definitional issues, prior to showing how various theories of desistance differently explain the phenomena of giving up crime. The article concludes by engaging with its limitations and its relatively muted impact on policy and practice. It is argued that desistance research, and its interpretation in both policy and practice, remains very individualistic in focus, and often disconnected from specific analyses of the cultural and structural contexts in which both offending and desistance take place. In considering how this review might inform future research, the article suggests that the desistance paradigm might be enhanced by attending to contemporary critiques of its limitations. In particular, this would suggest the application of intersectional methods and analyses, analyses of divergences in desistance pathways by crime type, enhanced critical and contextualizing analyses of cultural and structural influences on desistance, and, beyond individual desistance, a focus on the challenges of social integration for people with convictions, to better inform and shape penal policy and practice.

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Has a criminological idea ever has caught on as rapidly as "justice reinvestment?" As recently as 2002, no one outside of a small circle of justice activists and ex-prisoners in New York had ever even heard of justice reinvestment. By 2009, the state of Michigan's bipartisan "Justice Reinvestment Working Group" was outlining plans to channel $300 million saved by closing prisons into community improvement work. Parallel developments are in the works across a wide variety of states (including unexpected ones like Texas), and a similar enthusiasm has spread internationally. In the United Kingdom, a House of Commons paper called Cutting Crime: The Case for Justice Reinvestment (2009) has garnered support from all three major political parties and has generated considerable activity on the ground. That is not too shabby for an 8-year-old idea considering that many of us are still trying to finish book chapters based on ideas we had a decade ago. Perhaps most remarkably, as Todd Clear (2011, this issue) rightly points out, justice reinvestment (hereafter, JR) has enjoyed all this success even though the idea is still "in its infancy," has been only "sort of" defined, is not based on a "strong empirical foundation," and above all, does not really qualify as being a proper "theory!" As such, Clear's firstever, rigorous academic assessment of the JR idea is a badly needed contribution to this discussion. It is also something of a shame, of course, as Clear's exposure of the idea to the cold light of day does reveal some of the devils buried in its details. After all, justice reinvestment is a thing of beauty. By which, I mean it is an aesthetically compelling idea or, as per the American Heritage Dictionary, a vision characterized by "the

This report provides a literature review on desistance from crime which explores the purposes of offender management; understanding and supporting desistance; desistance and the process of offender management; desistance and compliance with offender management; and, desistance and the credibility of offender management. The review was commissioned by the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) to open up lines of enquiry which NOMS may then pursue through its policy programme – specifically its emerging work on offender engagement. The report was commissioned and should be interpreted not as a systematic literature review of desistance research, but rather as a deliberately discursive and speculative paper which aims to scope out some of the implications of desistance research for offender management, rather than to make any definitive statement either about desistance research or about its interpretation in practice.

Summary: Criminology, by its very nature, has always been an applied discipline, yet in recent years there has been a consistent push to encourage academic researchers to engage with the 'real world'and demonstrate the impact their research has on wider society outside of so-called 'ivory towers'. This paper describes one such effort at 'knowledge exchange'funded by the UK's Economic and Social Research Council that sought to bring the academic research on 'desistance from crime'to a wider audience than the one that ...