Full Description
In recent years attention has switched from how adolescents are attracted into crime, to how adults reduce their offending and then stop - the process of desistance. There are now around a dozen major longitudinal and in-depth studies around the world which have followed or are following offenders over their life course, charting their offending history and their social and economic circumstances.
The book is the first to offer a global perspective on desistance and brings together international leading experts in the field from countries including the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Spain, the USA, and Australia to set out what we know about desistance, and to advance our theoretical understanding. Drawing on leading studies, this book sets the academic agenda for future work on desistance and examines the implications and potential positive effects of this research on desistance processes among current offenders.
Global Perspectives on Desistance is divided into three sections:
Agency, structure and desistance from crime,
Life phases and desistance,
Criminal justice and state interventions.
Comprehensive and forward-thinking, this book is ideal for students studying criminology, probation and social work, social policy, sociology, and psychology. It is also essential reading for academic criminologists, sociologists, and policy makers and practitioners working in corrections and reform.
Contents
Introduction (Joanna Shapland, Stephen Farrall and Anthony Bottoms)
Section I: Agency, structure and desistance from crime
1. Mechanisms underlying the desistance process: Reflections on 'A theory of cognitive transformation' (Peggy C. Giordano)
2. Human agency, criminal careers and desistance (Christoffer Carlsson)
3. "I've always tried but I hadn't got the willpower": Understanding pathways to desistance in the Republic of Ireland (Deirdre Healy)
4. Structural context and pathways to desistance (José Cid and Joel Marti)
Section II: Life phases and desistance
5. Key behavioral aspects of desistance from conduct problems and delinquency (Rolf Loeber, Magda Stouthamer-Loeber, and Lia Ahonen)
6. Learning to desist in early adulthood: the Sheffield Desistance Study (Anthony Bottoms and Joanna Shapland)
7. Observations from the Pathways to Desistance study: Some issues to consider in future work on desistance from adolescence to early adulthood (Edward P. Mulvey and Carol A. Schubert)
8. How important are life-course transitions in explaining desistance? Examining the extent to which marriage, divorce and parenthood account for the age-crime relationship in former juvenile delinquents (Arjan Blokland and Niek de Schipper)
9. Timing of change: Are life course transitions causes or consequences of desistance? (Torbjørn Skardhamar and Jukka Savolainen)
Section III: Criminal justice and state interventions
10. Understanding desistance in an assisted context: Key findings from tracking progress on probation (Stephen Farrall)
11. In search of desistance: Notes from an Australian study (Mark Halsey)
12. The increasing stickiness of public labels (Chris Uggen and Lindsay Blahnik)
13. Understanding and identifying desistance: an example exploring the utility of sealing criminal records (Megan C. Kurlychek, Shaun D. Bushway and Megan Denver)
14. The fuel in the tank or the hole in the boat? Can sanctions support desistance? (Fergus McNeill)
Afterword: diversity or congruence? (Joanna Shapland, Stephen Farrall and Anthony Bottoms)
