![]()
1
Introducing Desistance through the Lived Experience
David Honeywell
Little of what we know about prison comes from the mouths of prisoners, and very few academic accounts of prison life manage to convey some of its most profound and important features: its daily pressures and frustrations, the culture of the wings and landings, and the relationships which shape the everyday experience of being imprisoned.
(Crewe and Bennett, 2012: ii)
Background
The Ambiguities of Desistance is based on my PhD thesis, written in 2013ā2018 which was about ex-prisoners and their self-transformation through higher education. Education was at the forefront of my study where I interviewed 24 individuals both males and females with three broad research questions: (1) How does the reformed ex-prisoner experience self-change and negotiate his/her ex-offender status through education? (2) What impact does higher education have on the ex-offender in terms of rehabilitation? (3) What barriers constrain the ex-prisoner's transition into conventional society, and in particular his/her chosen career path? Initially I set out to prove how transformative education was for ex-prisoners but it soon became clear that the complexities of their stories were worthy of a desistance focussed analysis.
What Is Desistance?
Desistance is taken from the term ādesistā which means to abstain from doing something. There are many examples of desisting from something but criminologists have used its meaning to coin the term ādesistanceā (abstaining from crime). And scholars of this theory tend to favour it as having a process that includes a beginning (a willingness to change), a middle (identity transformation) and an end goal (reintegration and acceptance). I argue that desistance in many cases is much more chaotic than this and is much less to do with abstaining from crime and criminal activity. It is more about making significant lifestyle changes and choices and thus desistance is in fact an ongoing and never-ending process. This is supported by desistance studies associated with drug users and the notion of the āchicken and eggā factor (see Colman and Vander Laenen, 2012). Colman and Vander Laenen posit that while desistance often focuses predominantly on why and how offenders move away from crime, it is often the case that the secondary factor (identity transformation) and recovery from such as substance abuse needs to be addressed first.
Albertson et al. (2015) also found that amongst military veteran desisters, recovery from drug use involved a whole set of social interactions and transitions. This is supported by Best et al. (2008) who found that abstinence was sustained by social network factors (moving away from drug-using friends and support from non-using friends) and practical factors such as accommodation and employment as well as religious or spiritual factors (p. 619).
These findings are unsurprising which is a common theme within desistance studies that often show what you might expect. It seems completely obvious that if someone has a stable home and a job and is accepted within society, they are more likely to be well-rounded citizens. Therefore, stability would clearly give someone more chance of transforming their lives than if they remained in the same chaos from where their problems arose. If we take the environment, for example, some of my interviewees who had battled drug use and domestic violence were able to completely change their lives by moving into their university halls of residence.
It has taken many years of analysis but most desistance scholars now tend to stress that desistance includes the interplay between ageing, informal social control and cognitive transformation theories. But it is not just about getting older, getting married or getting a job, but what significance these things all have and how stabilising they are. Getting older may bring more isolation and less employment opportunities. A job might be highly stressful for some individuals and not be suitable for their temperament or it might not pay enough. A marriage may be toxic and exacerbate further offending, so while desistance theories point to these things as contributing towards change, it merely scratches the surface.
One thing that can be agreed by all is that there has to be an initial decision to give up crime (Cusson and Pinsonneault, 1986). Cusson and Pinsonneault (1986) argue that rational choice (see also Cornish and Clarke, 1986) usually stems from shock such as being wounded in a bank robbery; growing tired of prison; anxieties related to crime; and taking stock of what is most important to them. This may be true, but they will only change when they want to change because whatever the catalyst to change might be, desistance is a subjective choice. And even the most serious criminals can and often do eventually decide to make changes in their lives and abstain from crime.
Earlier desistance studies focussed on external factors being the most influential on self-change using an informal social control perspective which discussed āturning pointsā such as marriage, college, employment and the military as being influential on reform (Laub and Sampson, 2003; Shover, 1996). Sampson and Laub's (1993) informal social control theory was a follow-up of Glueck and Glueck's (1940) earlier work which argued that ageing was the only factor which emerged as significant in the reformative processes. But although āage remains among the best predictors of desistanceā (as cited in McNeill et al., 2012, p. 4), this theory is not without its flaws because the ageing process can occur in ways other than biologically, such as through maturation excelled through life experiences (Rutter, 1996).
So When Is Someone a Fully Fledged Desister?
More recently, there has been more focus on subjective transformations (Burnett and Maruna, 2004; LeBel et al., 2008; Maruna, 2001). Examples of this come from Giordano et al. (2002) and Farrall (2005) who argue that would-be desisters need to identify a āblue printā for the āsort ofā person they want to become which is partly about role-adoption and partly about identifying a set of values or moral standards. Maruna (2001) extends this notion by examining how desisters use a method of re-biographing where desisters reinterpret their past in such away as to recast their past experiences as needing to have occurred for the āreal meā to emerge. They display an āalmost missionary sense of purpose in lifeā (Maruna, 2001, p. 9) and construct new narratives of their past in order to make sense of the past and the future. In other words desisters see their past experiences as having been essential in making them the better person they are today.
That is not to say that they do not still feel shame and regret for their previous activities which is something that Farrall and Calverley (2006) suggest are most common towards the end of the emotional trajectory. This emotional trajectory is clearly outlined within Giordano et al.'s (2002) four-part theory of cognitive transformation: (1) A general cognitive openness to change; (2) Exposure and reaction to āhooks for changeā or turning points; (3) The envisioning of an appealing and conventional āreplacement selfā and (4) A transformation in the way the actor views deviant behaviour so in other words, the transformative process eventually leads to a less favourable perspective of deviance. Giordano and colleagues extended the cognitive transformation theory through exploring spirituality and desistance which Maruna et al. (2006) also examined in their study of religious conversion. It offers an additional perspective of life transformations whereby individuals find religion as a hook for change (Giordano et al., 2002) and the religious community enables belonging and reintegration (McNeill, 2016). But Giordano et al.'s (2008) study supports the argument that desistance from crime is limited with its focus on crime. They argue, their results were unable to provide lasting changes through an individual's religious faith alone without the influence of other factors such as socio-economic factors that relate to desistance from crime. They suggest further research would benefit from a broader focus on areas of life other than criminality that may be enhanced by a strong religious faith, including mental health and parenting outcomes (as cited in Giordano et al., 2008).
In other words, religious faith did not just impact on moving away from crime but also other aspects of the life transition. Although religion effects can be viewed usefully through the lens of social control, acquiring a spiritual foundation is also compatible with the principles of differential association theory, particularly symbolic interactionist versions (e.g. Giordano et al., 2002; Matsueda and Heimer, 1997). Thus, āreligion can be viewed not only as a source of external control over individual conduct but also as a catalyst for new definitions of the situation and as a cognitive blueprint for how one is to proceed as a changed individualā (as cited in Giordano et al., 2008, p. 102).
Introspection through the narrative approach which Maruna (2001) refers to as, āwithin-personā changes are essential for the transformation of self as ex-offenders must continually address their offending ātriggersā and be self-critical of their own identities in order to make that transition. And though both informal social control and subjective approaches are equally important, āindividualisation discourseā puts the onus on the individual offender, thus eradicating the state from any blame (Barry, 2015, p. 94).
This is all very inspiring but the question still remains of when someone can be said (without any shadow of a doubt) to have successfully desisted? Perhaps someone who has desisted from serious criminal activity and has settled into a life with legitimated employment has a habit of breaking the speed limit. On occasions this person may have their licence revoked and even appeared in court but does that mean they have not desisted from crime? Proving one has changed is a continual onus on desisters but there are encouraging changes on the horizon in the United Kingdom as a direct result of a campaign known as āban the boxā (see Unlock, 2018). āBan the boxā encourages employers to change their recruitment policies towards people with convictions which has now been mirrored in relation to university admissions policies (see UCAS, 2018; University of Westminster, 2018). Not all organisations and universities are as on board with this as they should be, nevertheless it still offers some hope for those whose past demeanors continually blight their futures. Without hope, it is easier for many to revert back to their old ways and Burnett and Maruna (2004) identify hope as an important emotion in desires to desist. This was supported by Farrall and Calverley's (2006) study of emotional trajectories of desistance (i.e. the shifting emotions experienced during processes of desistance). Initially, hopes are for a ābetter lifeā and sustain motivations to desist, whereas later, hopes become more concrete and more closely related to āconventionalā aspirations (better job, larger house, etc). But how does one maintain hope when they are being constantly defined by their worst life mistakes? It is agreed that desistance includes a transformative process which involves a reconstruction of new identities (Maruna, 2001) and reintegration, but the literature falls short of examining the ongoing complex challenges within long-term desistance (McNeill, 2016).
McNeill's tertiary desistance notion offers an important additional stage of the process, whereby individuals become part of a conventional community. This not only includes shifts in behaviours and identities but also shifts in one's sense of belonging to a (moral) community. It extends Maruna and Farrall's (2004) primary and secondary desistance concept which involve lulls (see Weaver and McNeill, 2007) in and out of criminal activity which eventually subside as they progress towards developing new identities. The tertiary stage adds to this by including how desisters reintegrate within conventional society which posits that since identity is socially constructed and negotiated, securing long-term change depends not just on how one sees oneself but also on how one is seen by others.
This suggests that external factors are still significant and essential contributors to successful desistance but not as a whole. That said, what is successful desistance anyway? Is it when someone has not offended for five years? 10 years? because unless it can be determined that someone never re-offended by the time they die, how can anyone measure or determine the completed cycle of desistance? Perhaps the answer can only come from within? The problem here of course is whether the desister would be believed.
Desistance versus Rehabilitation
There are systemic failures where authorities are only interested in how desistance can reduce re-offending which fails to address the more subjective, intuitive and emotional aspects of the desistance journey. Weaver and McNeill (2007) argue that it takes time to change entrenched behaviours and the problems that underlie them and therefore the criminal justice system should expect it to be a zig-zag process (Weaver and McNeill, 2007; Bilby et al., 2013) and therefore be more sparing with imprisonment. This is because of the complexities of the desistance journey and by using prison every time a desister relapses merely delays the desistance process for many more years.
At least with the recent emergence of desistance theory the self-determination and honest attempts to change by many people with criminal convictions is now validated within academic literature. The outdated notion of rehabilitation suggests someone needs fixing and that change has to be forced upon individuals, but as desistance scholars have demonstrated, self-change can only occur by one's own volition:
The study of desistance, in fact, originally emerged out of something of a critique of the professionally driven āmedical modelā of rehabilitation. To explore desistance (sometimes referred to as āspontaneous desistanceā in early writing, drawing on the notion of āspontaneous remissionā in medicine) was to study those persons who change without the assistance of correctional interventions. From such a perspective, one either ādesistsā on one's own accord or else one is ārehabilitatedā through formal counselling or ātreatmentā.
(Maruna, 2016, p. 292)
Ward et al. (2012) emphasise an important point which is that psychologists use the term ārehabilitationā, while criminologists are understandably suspicious of its implication that individuals are being returned to a more acceptable set of behaviours. It is evident that the distinction between rehabilitation and desistance is still not fully understood by most. The process of desistance has been around for a long time, it is just that people tend to claim individuals have been rehabilitated when they have actually desisted. Rehabilitation has always been the favoured narrative because it suggests someone has been forced to change or see the errors of their ways. This fits with the societal expectations and the collective consciousness of social construct rather than accepting people can and do change themselves.
This is why I feel education has always been appealing to prisoners because of how one finds education and makes a personal decision to embark on a programme of self-change and discovery. Education enables prisoners self-expression and an ability to develop emotionally, psychologically and intellectually. It is also a personal journey created from one's own volition so this alone positions education firmly within the desistance narrative. This further emphasises my argument in Chapter 2 that education in prison as a process towards early desistance is nothing new. It also leads me back to my earlier argument that a desistance culture within prisons would be a step in the right direction (see McNeill and Schinkel, 2016). We are not exploring some wild and bizarre concept but merely identifying and nurturing something which already exists. Rather than this idea being alien, it is just that we have only recently developed a theory called desistance.
Examining the Desistance Narrative
Moving away from crime and criminality should not always be the main focus which has always been the case within mainstream criminology but something narrative criminology continues to rectify. Even classic sociology and criminology studies such as the Chicago School in the 1930s (e.g. Shaw, 1931; Landesco, 1933; Sutherland, 1937) and desistance studies in the 1990s which have included autobiographical accounts that have not been widely acknowledged much within mainstream criminology (Presser and Sandberg, 2015). Yet Sykes and Matza's (1957) neutralisation theory of how offenders play down their offences has stood the test of time and is still very much used in theoretical criminology teaching. This could be because of its emphasis on offenders being homogeneous and that they will always try to justify their actions. However, it could be argued that playing down one's own offending could in some instances be associated to feelings of shame and low self-esteem. Also, a completely unexplored area within narrative criminology is how some ex-offenders over-disclose their pasts to sometimes complete strangers. Is this a way of making sense of their lives and excusing oneself? It could be a way of re-negotiating identities (i.e. trying to make sense of the world and re-biographing) (Maruna, 2001) or even a way of apologising. To put this into further context of neutralisation narratives, over-disclosing could be a way of dissociating oneself from past offending followed by reconstructive narrative (Maruna, 2001). For example, following a six-year prison sentence, 38-year-old Chloe explains:
I just felt like, I'd tell everybody because, I felt like everybody knew, like it was stamped on me and I would literally tell people [upset] probably inappropriately, over disclosing.
(Chloe)
This is something I can personally relate to but have never seen discussed in any literature and it is these types of nuances of the desistance narrative I wish to further explore within and beyond this book. My personal experience and the process and subsequent immersion in the theory are an original and ground-breaking feature of this book. It is also very timely as it resonates with Shadd Maruna's (2017) Desistance as a Social Movement prediction that the new era of desistance stories will come from ex-prisoner desisters themselves. The Convict Criminologist Organisation has already made significant leaps in this regard through a combination of first-hand experiences of the criminal justice system within academic research. There are many ex-prisoner activists and ex-prisoner scholars, some of whose interviews are used in this book, but as far as I am aware, there is no other desistance scholarship written by ex-prisoner desisters other than myself and fellow c...
