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Supporting Desistance from Crime:Reconfiguring Penal Practice

Fergus McNeillProfessor of Criminology & Social Work

University of GlasgowFergus.McNeill@glasgow.ac.uk

Why produce this podcast?

• To create an open access resource, available on demand, that can help criminal justice organisations engage with the implications of desistance research

• To reduce my carbon footprint!• To move discussions and exchanges between

research and practice onto a different footing (more of which at the end...)

• But first... What is this not about?

Research and Penal Practice

Forms of Research Key Questions Disciplines

Critical and Comparative Research (on penal practice)

What are ‘penal practices’? How and why are they constituted as they are? What purposes should they serve?

Sociology, Penology, Socio-legal studies, Philosophy, Politics, Social Policy, Social Work

Explanatory Research (for penal practice)

How can we best account for crime and criminalisation? How can we best understand desistance from crime? What is successful social reintegration?

Sociology, Psychology, Criminology, Philosophy

Evaluative Research (of penal practice)

What works for whom in which circumstances? Who works? Why and how?

A wide range of ‘medical’ and social sciences methods

So, some important caveats

• Desistance research is not a different form of ‘what works?’ research

• Desistance research is not in direct opposition to ‘what works’ research

• Rather, it helps us to understand the process that such models, practices, programmes exist to support– More analogous to research on child development than

research on teaching methods; more in common with recovery literatures than treatment literatures.

• Desistance research does not produce or prescribe a single practice model, or a programme, or a solution

When does desistance research matter?

• It depends on the purposes of penal systems:– Punish– Help– (Long-term) Change – (Short-term) Control?

• Desistance is principally about long-term change (and hence reducing reoffending and protecting the public), but the project of integration also involves issues of justice and rights

Compared to the general population, prisoners are:

• 13 times more likely to have been in care as a child

• 10 times more likely to have been a regular truant from school

• 13 times more likely to be unemployed

• 2.5 times more likely to have a family member who has been convicted of a criminal offence

• 6 times more likely to have been a young father

• 15 times more likely to be HIV positive

In respect of their basic skills:• 8 out of 10 have the writing skills of an

11 year old• 65% have the numeracy skills of an 11

year old• 5 out of 10 have the reading skills of an

11 year old• 7 out of 10 have used drugs before

coming to prison• 7 out of 10 have suffered from at least

two mental disorders• 2 out of 10 male prisoners have

previously attempted suicide • 37% of women prisoners have

attempted suicide

For younger prisoners aged 18-20 these problems are even more intense; their basic skills, rates of unemployment and previous levels of school exclusion are a third worse even than those of older prisoners

Why desistance is hard?(Social Exclusion Unit, 2002)

Why is desistance hard?

• Not just because of the repeated and reinforced social exclusion... Also the pains of the change process itself...

• ‘…I am finding out a great deal about myself. I am making new relationships and living in a world totally unknown to me. I love it yet there are times when I hate it. I am torn between two worlds – alienated from the old one and a stranger in this new one’ (Boyle, 1985: 80.)

Why desistance is hard?

• ‘To the extent that felons belong to a distinct class or status group, the problems of desistance from crime can be interpreted as problems of mobility – moving felons from a stigmatized status as outsiders to full democratic participation as stakeholders’ (Uggen et al., 2006, p283)... The pains and dangers of social immobility

http://chrisuggen.blogspot.com/

Conceptualising desistance

• Stopping and refraining from offending• Spontaneous or ‘natural’ desistance• Assisted desistance (and what works)• Primary and secondary desistance:

peeling off sticky label (Maruna and Farrall, 2004)... Which matters most?

Models of the processGiordano et al (2002) Vaughan (2007)

1. General cognitive openness to change 1. Discernment: reviews possible choices

2. Exposure and reaction to ‘hooks for change’

2. Deliberation: about possible courses of action; a comparison of selves: who one is, who one wishes to be

3. Availability of an appealing conventional self

4. Transformation in attitudes to deviant behaviour

3. Dedication: commitment to the new (non-criminal) identity

Successful social integration and long term substantive compliance:Better lives as better citizens

From Bottoms and Shapland (2011: 70)

Similar journeys, different terrain

• Gender – Women: socially valorised roles & identities: scripts– Female desistance as a dynamic relational process

• Ethnicity– Additional barriers to desistance: racism, structural disadvantage and over

representation in CJS– Beyond the individual: families, communities and cultures of desistance

(Calverley, 2009)• Religiosity/Spirituality

– Scripts for changed identities– Social capital and emotional support

Key aspects of desistance journeys

• They are complex processes, not events, characterised by ambivalence and vacillation

• The involve re-biography (at the time or post hoc) ; changing identities (narratives); more than learning new cognitive skills

• Prompted by life events, depending on the meaning of those events for the offender; inherently subjective, hence individualised, sensitive to difference/diversity

• Solicited or sustained by someone ‘believing in’ the offender (or prevented by someone giving up on the offender?)... Hope

• An active process in which agency is discovered and exercised • Requires social capital (opportunities) as well as human capital

(capacities/skills)• Certified through ‘redemption’ or restoration (de-labelling);

finding purpose in generative activities [constructive reparation ]

Eight principles for supporting desistance from crime (amongst those who have persisted in offending) in and through penal practices...

1. Realism

• Expect and manage setbacks, lapses and relapses. Not all non-compliance is defiance, but mismanaging non-compliance can create defiance (Weaver and McNeill, 2007).

2. Individualisation

• If desistance is an inherently individualised and subjective process, then approaches to supervision must accommodate and exploit issues of identity and diversity (Weaver and McNeill 2010).

3. Hope

• The development and maintenance not just of motivation but also of hope are key tasks for correctional workers. Giving up on people means giving up on desistance (Farrall and Calverley, 2006).

4. Relationships

• Desistance can only be understood within the context of human relationships; not just relationships between workers and offenders (though these matter a great deal) but also between offenders and those who matter to them (Burnett and McNeill 2005; McNeill 2006), and between ex-offenders and the communities into which they seek to integrate (Uggen et al, 2006).

5. Strengths and resources

• Although corrections practice has tended to focus on offenders’ risk and needs, they also have strengths and resources that they can use to overcome obstacles to desistance – both personal strengths and resources and strengths and resources in their social networks. Supervision needs to support and develop these capacities (Maruna and LeBel 2003).

6. Self-determination

• Since desistance is about discovering agency, interventions need to encourage and respect self-determination; this means working with people not on them (McCulloch 2005; McNeill 2006).

7. Social Capital

• Interventions based only on human capital (or developing offenders’ capacities and skills) will not be enough. Corrections needs to work on social capital issues with communities and offenders (Farrall 2002, 2004; McNeill and Whyte 2007) and with communities of ex-offenders?

8. Recognition

• If desistance involves developing generative commitments, these (and other positive achievements) need to be recognised and celebrated. More generally, the language of practice needs to support the recognition of positive potential and development rather than identifying people with the behaviours we want them to leave behind (McNeill and Maruna, 2007).

Motivation[Counsellor]

Capacities/Human capital

[Educator]

Opportunities/Social capital

[Advocate/Allies]

RNRProgrammes?

AvoidanceGoals

Good LivesModel?

ApproachGoals

Work with FamiliesVolunteers/Mentors

Faith groupsEmployers

COSA?

GenerativityIntegration

Copernican Corrections?

The person

changing

The offender

The supporting

interventions

The treatment

programme

The reintegratingcommunity

The exclusionary community

Related initiatives

• NOMS’s Offender Engagement Programme• PBNI’s new National Standards (and Corporate Plan)

– http://www.pbni.org.uk/site/content.aspx?z=X8nkJDID3NQ=&x=6HzjOZy9Euw=

• The Scottish Government’s Reducing Reoffending Programme– http://scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Justice/public-safety/offender-management

• The US National Institute of Corrections ‘Fostering Desistance through Effective Supervision’– http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA/grant/11SecondChanceDFEsol.pdf

• The Desistance Knowledge Exchange– http://blogs.iriss.org.uk/discoveringdesistance/2011/08/19/filming-

desistance/

Further Reading

• McNeill, F. (2009) Towards Effective Practice in Offender Supervision. Glasgow: Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, available at: http://www.sccjr.ac.uk/documents/McNeil_Towards.pdf

• McNeill, F. (2009) ‘What Works and What’s Right’ European Journal of Probation 1(1): 21-40, available at: http://www.ejprob.ro/index.pl/what_works_and_whats_just

• McNeill, F. and Weaver. B. (2010) Changing Lives? Desistance Research and Offender Management. Glasgow: Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, available at: http://www.sccjr.ac.uk/pubs/Changing-Lives-Desistance-Research-and-Offender-Management/255

What next?

• An Appreciative Inquiry (AI) approach to developing desistance-supporting penal practices:– AI differs from other approaches to organisational change

in that it ‘focuses on what is good, strong, already working and being achieved… [the] aim [is] to find out ‘what’s right’ and help ‘enhance it’’ (Carter 2006: 50). AI involves a focus on best experiences, strengths, accomplishments, best practices, and “peak moments” in an organisation’s history. It does not start with a problem orientation and then try to ‘fix’ the problems that are found.

• A bit like in the process of desistance itself, the focus is on strengths and resources....

AI for desistance?

Phases Strategy Practice

1. Discovery Discern the best of what is

2. Dream Imagine possible futures

3. Design The ideal organisation/the ideal practice approach or model

4. Destiny Making change happen

• For more information, contact:– Fergus.McNeill@glasgow.ac.uk

• Follow the Desistance Knowledge Exchange blog:– http://blogs.iriss.org.uk/

discoveringdesistance/2011/08/19/filming-desistance/

References

Bottoms, A. and Shapland, J. (2011) "Steps Towards Desistance Amongst Male Young Adult Recidivists", in Farrall, S., Sparks, R., Hough, M. and Maruna, S. (eds) (2011) Escape Routes: Contemporary Perspectives on Life After Punishment, London, Routledge.

Boyle, J. (1985) The Pain of Confinement. London: Pan Books.Burnett, R. and McNeill, F. (2005) ‘The place of the officer–offender relationship in assisting offenders to desist from crime’, Probation Journal, 52(3): 247–68.Calverley, A. (2009) ‘An exploratory investigation into the processes of desistance amongst minority ethnic offenders’. Unpublished PHD dissertation.Carter, B. (2006) ‘’One expertise among many’ – working appreciatively to make miracles instead of finding problems: Using appreciative inquiry as a way of

reframing research’, Journal of Research in Nursing, 11: 48-63.Farrall, S. (2002) Rethinking What Works With Offenders, Cullompton: Willan. Farrall, S. (2004) ‘Social Capital, Probation Supervision and Desistance from Crime’, in S. Maruna and R. Immarigeon (eds) After Crime and Punishment: Ex-

Offender Reintegration and Desistance from Crime. Cullompton: Willan.Farrall, S. (2005) ‘On the Existential Aspects of Desistance From Crime’, Symbolic Interaction, 28(3):367-86. Farrall, S. and Calverley, A. (2006) Understanding Desistance from Crime, Crime and Justice Series, London: Open University Press.Giordano, P. C., Cernkovich, S. A. and Rudolph, J. L. (2002) ‘Gender, Crime and Desistance: Toward a Theory of Cognitive Transformation’, American Journal of

Sociology, 107: 990-1064.McCulloch, T. (2005) ‘Probation, social context and desistance: Retracing the relationship’, Probation Journal 52(1): 8-22.McNeill, F. (2006) ‘A desistance paradigm for offender management’ Criminology andCriminal Justic,e 6(1): 39-62.McNeill, F. and Maruna, S. (2007) ‘Giving Up and Giving Back: Desistance, Generativity and Social Work with Offenders’ in McIvor, G. and Raynor, P. (eds.)

Developments in Social Work with Offenders. Research Highlights in Social Work 48. London: Jessica KingsleyMcNeill, F. and Weaver, B. (2010) Changing Lives? Desistance Research and Offender Management. Glasgow: Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research. McNeill, F. and Whyte, B. (2007) Reducing Reoffending: Social Work and Community Justice in Scotland. Cullompton: Willan.Maruna, S. and Farrall, S. (2004) ‘Desistance from Crime: A Theoretical Reformulation ’ Kolner Zeitschrift fur Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 43.Maruna, S. and LeBel, T. (2003) ‘Welcome Home? Examining the “Re-entry Court” Concept from a Strengths-based Perspective’, Western Criminology Review,

4(2): 91-107.Social Exclusion Unit (2002) Reducing Reoffending by Ex-Prisoners. London: Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.Uggen, C., Manza, J. And Thompson, M.,(2006) Citizenship, Democracy, and the Civic Reintegration of Criminal Offenders , Annals AAPSS, 605, May 2006, pp.

281-310.Vaughan, B. (2007) ‘The Internal Narrative of Desistance’, British Journal of Criminology. 47: 390–404Weaver, B. and McNeill, F. (2007) Giving Up Crime: Directions for Policy. Edinburgh: Scottish Consortium on Crime and Criminal Justice Weaver, B. And McNeill, F. (2010) ‘Travelling Hopefully: Desistance Research and Probation Practice’ in Brayford, J., Cowe, F. and Deering, J. (eds.) What Else

Works? Creative Work with Offenders. Cullompton: Willan.