Strengths-Based Approaches to Crime and Substance Use

From Drugs and Crime to Desistance and Recovery

David Best, Charlotte Colman, David Best, Charlotte Colman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781351852487
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Forensic Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Although there is a strong and growing literature in the two areas of desistance and addiction recovery, they have developed along parallel pathways with little systematic assessment of the empirical evidence about the co-occurrence of the relationship or how one area can learn from the other. This book aims to fill that gap by bringing together emerging literature on the relationship between offending and substance use.

Instead of focusing on the active period of its onset and persistence, this book examines the mechanisms that support desistance, addiction recovery, and the common themes of reintegration and rehabilitation. With contributions from a wide range of international experts in the fields of desistance and addiction recovery, the book focuses on a strengths-based, relational and community-focused approach to long-term change in offending and drug-using populations, as well as the shared barriers to effective reintegration for both.

This book will be highly informative for a wide audience, from academics and students interested in studying desistance and recovery to those working in addiction services and the criminal justice system as well as policy makers and the people undertaking their own journeys to desistance and recovery.

Part 1

Drugs, crime, desistance and recovery

Chapter 1

Desistance and recovery

Developing an agenda for shared learning

Charlotte Colman and David Best

Introduction to the edited book

Today it is widely accepted that most people who commit offences or use drugs eventually refrain from doing so. Over the past decades, valuable insights in both desistance and recovery concepts and theories have been accumulated, showing interesting parallels. These parallels are not surprising given the well-established relationship between drug use and offending and the overlap in populations involved in drug use and offending (Bennett & Holloway 2004; Best & Savic 2015).

Although it may seem evident that researchers in both areas of desistance and recovery found each other and joined forces, studying the overlap between these both processes is a much more recent development. Desistance and recovery stem from two different contexts and research traditions that were rarely linked to each other. Recovery originated from the mental health area, with its clinical origins, while desistance originated from the criminal career tradition of research.

However, desistance theories and innovative practices offer lessons for recovery. Conversely, desistance research and theory can learn from the emerging evidence base around mental health and addiction research and practice (Best, Irving & Albertson 2016). After all, theories on desistance and recovery share common grounds: they are both transformational processes, which are not linear but dynamic, gradual and subject to relapse. It is also widely accepted that similar internal and external components seem to influence both processes of change. Besides individual factors, the role and quality of intimate, family, social and community networks play a significant role in both processes of change, and shape the exit opportunities individuals will have. Furthermore, these change processes are also characterised by a social identity change and the acceptance of this new identity by the lived community. This community itself is a key factor in affording the opportunities and the barriers that can promote or inhibit individual motivations and drives to change.

Recently, the predominantly risk-oriented focus has been extended with a strengths-based approach in law, criminology and mental health care (Vandevelde et al., 2016). This empowering approach moves beyond deficits, problems and risks, and focuses instead on strengthening one’s capabilities, resilience, quality of life and aspirations. This strengths-based approach has been reflected in recent desistance and recovery research stating that, first, persons in recovery and desistance are central in defining and understanding the change processes. Second, besides focusing on socially desired outcomes such as decreases in offending and drug use, emphasis should be put on client-reported outcomes such as quality of life, and third, that besides focusing on individual factors in desistance and recovery, attention should be directed to social networks and structural components, including barriers to sustained recovery and desistance (Colman 2015; Vandevelde et al., 2016) that may derive from stigma, exclusion and ignorance.

Why this book is important

Since the 1980s, interest in desistance has been increasingly reflected in criminological research. Desistance research has flourished in several international networks, bringing together scholars and stakeholders from policy and practice. After all, the significance of examining desistance goes beyond a purely academic interest and therefore several initiatives have been set up aimed at reaching academics as well as non-academics, such as Discovering Desistance, an ESRC Knowledge Exchange Project aiming to share knowledge and improve understanding about why people desist from offending, led by Fergus McNeill, and actively supported by other renowned experts in the field of desistance including Shadd Maruna and Stephen Farrall, two contributors to this book.

Conversely, addiction researchers became increasingly interested in the study of recovery. In the last 20 years, the recovery movement in alcohol and other drugs has emerged as a major influence on alcohol and drug research and practice (Best, Irving & Albertson 2016), and has shaped public policy in several countries including Scotland (Scottish Executive, 2008) and England (UK Government, 2010).

As mentioned earlier, scholars only recently became interested in the emerging field of studying the interplay between desistance and recovery and developing an agenda for shared learning.

In 2016, the two editors of this book, together with Prof. Vanderplasschen, were involved in setting up an international academy to support new research and policy in the area of drug and alcohol desistance and recovery, the Desistance and Recovery Academy (DRA).¹ The DRA aims to be a hub for expertise in the fields of desistance and recovery, offering a framework to collate interdisciplinary and international actions (research, education and services to society) on this topic, centralising knowledge and fostering synergies and new (research) collaborations. Within the framework of this DRA, we have organised two international conferences to bring together practitioners, policy makers, people in recovery and desistance and renowned scholars in the desistance and recovery field to exchange knowledge and experiences. We also use the DRA as a vehicle to share our publications on this topic with a wide audience of scholars, practitioners, policy makers and people in recovery and desistance. This book fits within that aim. With this book, we aim to foster and further exchange knowledge, ideas and actions related to recovery and desistance. We therefore hope to contribute to theory, practice and policy and inspire our readers to implement and build out recovery- and desistance- oriented research and practices.

The targeted audience for this book are not only researchers but also practitioners working in alcohol and drug services, as well as actors in each area of the criminal justice system, including probation, prison and community services, including experts by experience and policy makers. Above all, we aim to reach everyone interested in this emerging topic, from scholars and students, to practitioners, to people in recovery and desistance.

The contributors to this book are a mixed group of junior researchers, senior researchers and practitioners in the field of recovery and desistance from Europe, the United States and Australia.

Structure of the book

This book brings together a collection of chapters on the conceptual, theoretical and empirical evidence base of desistance and recovery. The common starting point and structural consideration for all of the chapters in this book is the interplay between recovery and desistance.

The book is divided into four parts.

Part 1 focuses on the current evidence base around recovery and desistance, as separate areas for research and investigation as well as what we know about their co-occurrence and common underlying predictors.

In Chapter 2, Paul Turnbull starts with stating the interplay between drug use and offending. In Chapter 3, Robert D. Ashford and Austin M. Brown unravel the meaning of recovery as well as its evidence base. In Chapter 4, Stephen Farrall, elaborates on the desistance movement, starting from the results of a project aimed at identifying the role of probation supervision in changes that have taken place in offenders’ lives. By permission of Oxford University Press, this chapter has been extracted from an earlier chapter Stephen Farrall wrote in 2014, namely “The Long-Term Impacts of Probation Supervision” published in Criminal Careers in Transition: The Social Context of Desistance from Crime. In Chapter 5, David Best, Charlotte Colman, Wouter Vanderplasschen, Freya Vander Laenen, Jamie Irving, Michael Edwards, Rebecca Hamer and Thomas Martinelli discuss putative mechanisms of change that are primarily linked to peer and professional interventions to assess what lessons can be applied to persons involved in drug use and offending.

Part 2 focuses on mechanisms of change, crucial in recovery and desistance including identity, social and cultural changes.

In Chapter 6, Michael Savic and Ramez Bathish focus on the role of identity in processes of change, utilising a new conceptual approach for this field called Actor Network Theory that focuses increasingly on contextual as well as social predictors of desistance and recovery. Based on narratives of ex-prisoners, David Honeywell discusses in Chapter 7 various components of identity transformation that have been identified in influencing desistance, and discusses the role of experts by experience in researching and framing the process of desistance. In Chapter 8, Dana Segev and Stephen Farrall provide insight into the role of culture and social structures, by undertaking a cross-national comparison of desistance processes of adult males in England and Israel. In their chapter, they explore the employment opportunities available for ex-offenders in each country, the access to social capital, and participants’ experiences as they desisted.

Part 3 focuses on applied issues and interventions.

In Chapter 9, Sarah Anderson explores the barriers to “going straight” which arise from the stigmatisation of people with criminal justice histories, forefronting the role of other people in facilitating or frustrating desistance from crime. While this chapter focuses on desistance from crime, Sarah Anderson discusses the parallels with recovery from substance use, where stigmatisation similarly presents barriers for people trying to move away from substance use and/or move forward with their lives. In Chapter 10 Kevin Knight, Wayne E. K. Lehman, Danica K. Knight and Patrick M. Flynn discuss the outcomes related to recovery for individuals involved in the legal system in the United States. Based on narratives of men with histories of substance use attending an in-prison treatment programme while serving a life sentence, in Chapter 11 Zetta G. Kougiali, Alessandra Fasulo, Adrian Needs and Darren Van Laar capture the experiences, contextual and personal factors that take place during this in-prison drug treatment group. In Chapter 12, Gale Burford and George Leibowitz elaborate on the development of social capital in the community. Using a case study of family group conferencing, they describe how restorative and responsive approaches to engagement with members of social networks can operate to reconcile the aims of desistance and recovery. In Chapter 13, Susan Broderick and David Best examine the role of community-oriented and strengths-building interventions in the context of prison and post-release into probation. They also consider what the evidence is around desistance and recovery activity and support in prison, and how this links to continuity of care for those re-engaging with the community following release. In Chapter 14, Jo Cursley and Shadd Maruna argue that music can play a substantial role in the rehabilitative process by making emotional sense of complicated and difficult life experiences.

The diversity of topics and methods reported in this part illustrates the vibrancy and innovation in methods and processes.

Part 4 ties the chapters together and discusses the lessons learned.

In Chapter 15, David Best, Rebecca Hamer and Lauren Hall introduce an integrated model of change, promoting not only the role of the individual and professionals, but also communities and society, in desistance and recovery, presenting a conceptual framework that seeks to link common features of the process of change based on human connection and access to community resources that can initiate and sustain positive changes. In Chapter 16, David Best and Charlotte Colman provide a synthesis of the key findings of all chapters. Starting from the evidence base and the gaps in knowledge, they develop a set of key questions to fill the future gaps in research and practice around desistance and recovery.

We hope this book encourages its readers to further explore (the interplay between) recovery and desistance and inspires to promote the implementation of desistance and recovery-oriented practices, embedded in a strengths-based approach. The area of desistance and recovery is an emerging area of research and policy focus that can contribute to understanding how marginalised and excluded populations can effect successful reintegration and increase individual wellbeing as well as community cohesion and social justice.

Note

1 https://medium.com/@DR.Academy/why-do-we-need-a-desistance-recovery-academy-b322b4258928

References

Bennett, T. & Holloway, K. (2004) Drug Use and Offending: Summary Results of the First Two Years of the NEW-ADAM Programme. London: Home Office, Research, Development and Statistics Directorate.

Best, D., Irving, J. & Albertson, K. (2016) Recovery and desistance: What the emerging recovery movement in the drug and alcohol area can learn from models of desistance from offending. Addiction Research and Theory, 25(1), 1–10.

Best, D. & Savic, M. (2015) Substance Abuse and Offending: Pathways to Recovery, 259–271. In R. Sheehan & J. Ogloff (eds.), Working within the Forensic Paradigm. Cross-Discipline Approaches for Policy and Practice. London: Routledge.

Colman, C. (2015) Stoppen met Drug...