Desistance From Crime: Implications For Research, Policy, and Practice
Desistance From Crime: Implications For Research, Policy, and Practice
Desistance From Crime: Implications For Research, Policy, and Practice
Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs
National Institute of Justice
Desistance
From Crime
Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice
U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs
810 Seventh St. N.W.
Washington, DC 20531
Amy L. Solomon
Acting Assistant Attorney General, Office of Justice Programs
This and other publications and products of the National Institute of Justice can be found at:
The National Institute of Justice is the research, development, and evaluation agency of the
U.S. Department of Justice. NIJ’s mission is to advance scientific research, development, and
evaluation to enhance the administration of justice and public safety.
The National Institute of Justice is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also
includes the Bureau of Justice Assistance; the Bureau of Justice Statistics; the Office for Victims
of Crime; the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention; and the Office of Sex Offender
Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking.
Opinions or conclusions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily
reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
A special thank you to Dr. David Muhlhausen, former NIJ director, and Dr. Nadine Frederique,
former NIJ senior social science analyst, for their contributions to this volume and to Workie
Assefa, Supervisor/Team Lead at CSR, Incorporated, for helping this volume get to the finish line.
November 2021
NCJ 301497
CONTENTS
Foreword ....................................................................................... v
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • iii
Foreword
Amy L. Solomon
Acting Assistant Attorney General, Offce of Justice Programs
T
he recidivism frame dominates discussion in the criminal justice
literature, among practitioners, and even in the context of local news. It’s
true — one way to slice the data shows that the majority of people exiting
prison “fail,” and thus the “system doesn’t work” and “people can’t change.” Tis
failure frame is a trap for many reasons, worthy of its own collection of papers
(many of which have already been written). What it doesn’t tell you is that in fact,
two-thirds of all people who are released from prison will actually never return.1
Or that, as the “Redemption” studies teach us, those who stay out of the justice
system for just a few years are no more likely to return to criminal activity than
a similar person in the general population.2 Moreover, the recidivism literature
does little to show us the pathways to success — or the process of desistance.
What determines who desists from a criminal trajectory — and what can society
do to bend the curve and encourage a better path?
I think I was a student of the desistance concept before I knew the term or had
read the underlying research. Over my 30 years in the feld, I have met scores of
people who have successfully exited the justice system and have found ways to
1
Rhodes, W., Gaes, G., Luallen, J., Kling, R., Rich, T., & Shively, M. (2014). Following incarceration, most released
offenders never return to prison. Crime & Delinquency, 62(8), 1003-1025.
2
Blumstein, A., & Nakamura, K. (2009). Redemption in the presence of widespread criminal background
checks. Criminology, 47(2), 327-359; Blumstein, A., & Nakamura, K. (2012). Extension of current estimates of
redemption times: robustness testing, out-of-state arrests, and racial differences. Final report to the National
Institute of Justice, award number 2009-IJ-CX-0008, NCJ 240100.
A more recent experience was here at the Department of Justice during the
Obama Administration, when I worked with Daryl Atkinson, the country’s frst
Second Chance fellow. His brilliance and infuence on policy and practice helped
pave the way to more enlightened and efective treatment of millions of people
in this country with criminal records. Daryl’s path from prison to college to
law school to a wildly infuential career as a lawyer, advocate, and scholar is an
example for us all.
So many people involved in the criminal legal system have the potential to
desist from crime and achieve great possibilities in their futures. Tat is why
I am so pleased to introduce this volume focused on desistance. It includes
white papers written by some of the best minds in the feld as they explore how
to conceptualize and measure desistance and ofer innovative ways of using
desistance-focused approaches to help individuals cease engagement in crime
and chart paths to a diferent future.
It is my hope that this volume will open up a new and robust line of inquiry
around how to support people involved in the criminal legal system and how to
measure success. Tese papers, and the discussions they spark, are poised to help
move the feld forward in research, policy, and practice, and ultimately pave the
way for more safe, just, and equitable communities.
T
he mission of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) is to inform the
decision-making of the criminal justice community to help reduce crime
and advance justice. To accomplish this mission, we engage stakeholders
to understand the key issues and challenges facing the feld, guide research to
address these challenges, and disseminate the information to those who can
beneft from its application.
NIJ has heard the call for the need to better understand, implement, and
evaluate desistance-focused approaches in the criminal justice system. I am
excited to present this collection of work that aims to bridge the gap between
researchers and practitioners; provide a better understanding of how desistance
is conceptualized, measured, and applied; and help the feld develop innovative
ways to increase the use of desistance-focused approaches. In doing so, we will
be better positioned to meet the needs of stakeholders across the criminal justice
system, improve individual outcomes, and efectively reduce crime and promote
public safety for communities across the United States.
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • vii
A key step in advancing our knowledge in these areas is to examine how we think
about and measure the process of individuals ceasing engagement in criminal
activities, referred to as “desistance.” How we conceptualize this process can
afect how we evaluate the efectiveness of laws and policies intended to provide
or increase public safety. How practitioners view this process — and their role in
supporting it — can infuence how they engage with clients across all stages of
system involvement. Furthermore, programs and initiatives are ofen judged on
their ability to reduce reofending and improve other outcomes. Having a clear
understanding of what we consider desistance to be, incorporating policies and
interventions that support desistance, and identifying best practices to evaluate
these eforts is important work.
Tis volume takes important steps in describing how a desistance framework can
move the feld forward across key decision points in the criminal justice system
(e.g., at time of arrest, charging, pretrial release, case processing, disposition and
sentencing, and reentry). Although research has focused on desistance for some
time, the term and its accompanying knowledge base are far less known than
recidivism. Recidivism is a discrete measure — that is, yes or no — and has a
limit to the amount of information it can provide. Capturing where an individual
is in the desistance process provides more nuanced information, better supports
assessment of individual progress toward less criminal behavior, and facilitates a
strengths-based perspective focused on building on individual assets to promote
positive change. Incorporating desistance principles into the criminal justice feld
has great potential to improve outcomes, elevate practices, better support those
with system involvement, and more efectively use resources to provide safety to
the community.
In the chapters that follow, these experts discuss how to better incorporate a
desistance-focused approach in criminal justice practice, policy, and research and
the potential benefts and challenges of doing so. Tey examine how we defne
and measure desistance and outline strategies and approaches that facilitate an
intentional application of desistance-centered principles into practice. I believe
the application of these approaches has the potential to profoundly impact the
criminal justice system for the better. For this to occur, multiple stakeholders —
practitioners, policymakers, and researchers — must openly communicate with
one another, reassess current practices, and engage in jointly sustained eforts
over an extended period of time. Challenges and concerns will arise as we bridge
the gap between academic knowledge and real-world application; however, these
barriers have been successfully crossed in the past and can be again. Tis volume
is a step in achieving this goal.
In the frst chapter, Dr. Michael Rocque looks at the origins of the term
desistance and reviews how it has been defned and conceptualized through the
years. He suggests defning desistance as “the process by which criminality, or the
individual risk for antisocial conduct, declines over the life-course, generally afer
adolescence.” Tis defnition has direct relevance for practitioners, policymakers,
and researchers because it establishes that the process of desistance may be
underway despite the occurrence of criminal behavior. Understanding this
infuences how we view an individual’s progress toward moving away from crime
and how we evaluate programs and policies meant to support desistance. Dr.
Rocque also examines how researchers have measured desistance and discusses
the implications of using diferent modeling choices, population samples, data
types, and follow-up time periods. He argues that to truly capture desistance, the
focus should be on criminality rather than criminal behavior but acknowledges
both are needed in evaluation and policy research.
In the second chapter, Dr. Danielle Boisvert examines desistance from crime
from a biosocial perspective. She discusses how practitioners and policymakers
can use research on brain development, neuropsychological functioning, and
stress system response to improve risk assessments, enhance treatment planning,
and support desistance in correctional settings. Dr. Boisvert also highlights the
impact that correctional environments have on neuropsychological functioning
and stress response, the need to incorporate strengths-based perspectives, and
the importance of research-practitioner partnerships when studying program
efectiveness. She identifes gaps in the current knowledge base and recommends
increased interdisciplinary research in this area.
In the third chapter, Dr. Christopher Wildeman applies Dr. Rocque’s defnition
of desistance as he examines the efects of incarceration on the desistance
process for individuals who chronically engage in criminal activity. He argues
Te next chapter of the volume, written by Dr. Kristofer “Bret” Bucklen, takes
a practitioner’s point of view on applying desistance concepts to correctional
programming and policy. Dr. Bucklen argues that to date, desistance-focused
research has largely been theoretical and focused on describing the process of
individuals’ behavioral changes. He briefy reviews the proposed mechanisms
of desistance and their theoretical underpinnings, providing a foundation
for understanding the challenges of applying desistance to “real world”
circumstances. Dr. Bucklen raises important questions for practitioners,
policymakers, and researchers, such as what behaviors count as desistance,
how we should measure criminal behavior, and what time span is necessary to
capture desistance. He proposes three measures — deceleration, de-escalation,
and reaching a ceiling — to help stakeholders capture desistance and evaluate
programs’ impact on desistance. Dr. Bucklen also reviews interventions that
could be considered desistance-focused and discusses common barriers
practitioners and policymakers face in applying desistance-related concepts.
Tis volume has several key takeaways for practice, policy, and research that I
would like to highlight.
Practice
Desistance is a process, not an event. Recognizing this will inform the types of
interventions the criminal justice system delivers and the outcomes we expect to
see from them. Desistance can be occurring even if criminal behavior is present.
Beyond assessing criminal behavior, it is important to examine criminality (i.e.,
the propensity to ofend) and use this information to assess where an individual
is in the desistance process. Additionally, when evaluating the risk of reofending,
it is worth considering both failure and success measures. Practitioners can also
incorporate practices informed by biosocial research, which will result in a better
understanding of where the individual is coming from and how to build on their
strengths. I also want to acknowledge that although many interventions show
promise in promoting desistance, we need additional rigorous evaluations of
these interventions and approaches. Continuing to build partnerships between
practitioners and researchers is vital to the success of these evaluations.
Policy
In many ways, policy is the gatekeeper that will determine the extent to
which desistance principles are applied across the criminal justice system.
Multiple authors in this volume suggest that incarceration likely disrupts the
Research
Te measures and models used by researchers should refect the assertion that
desistance is a process. Although the theoretical knowledge base provides rich
understanding of the key components of desistance, we need more rigorous
evaluation on desistance-related approaches, particularly in the United States.
Researchers should keep in mind that system involvement is only a proxy
for desistance and that additional measures of criminality may be needed to
truly evaluate desistance. Tis volume presents several key gaps, including the
application of biosocial interventions, the impact of conditions of confnement
on the desistance process, and the lack of focus on individuals who chronically
ofend. We must continue to invest in data collection eforts to support our
understanding of how desistance occurs and under what circumstances, and how
modern societal infuences may afect this process.
Introduction
I
n a review published in 2001, life-course scholars John Laub and Robert
Sampson (2001, p. 8) noted that a journal editor had told them desistance
“was not a word” in response to their work on the subject. It is hard to
imagine that being the case today, as the term has become fully entrenched in
academic literature and is even making its way into policy and practice. Yet
inconsistencies in the way desistance is defned and measured remain. Tis is
problematic for a variety of reasons, including the inability to meaningfully
merge research fndings across studies.
First, the paper ofers brief comments on the history of desistance research,
drawing on age and crime literature. Next, it discusses the ways in which existing
studies measure desistance in relation to the ofered defnition of desistance.
Which ways of measuring desistance get closest to the phenomenon of interest?
Which are most likely to advance our understanding of why people exit a
criminal life and how we can facilitate that process? Finally, the paper provides
detailed recommendations for researchers and practitioners who are seeking to
examine and promote desistance from crime.
In the end, the paper ofers a close examination of the phenomenon of desistance.
What does it mean? What is its essence? Te paper argues that desistance is
“the process by which criminality, or the individual risk for antisocial conduct,
declines over the life-course, generally afer adolescence.” How can researchers
ensure they are actually capturing that essence in their work? And what is the
Although the term desistance is relatively new, the notion that crime is a young
person’s game is not. Research from the 19th century, though limited, recognized
that when plotted against age, crimes declined. In perhaps the earliest of such
observations, Belgian astronomer Adolphe Quetelet (1984), in his Research on
the Propensity for Crime at Diferent Ages, originally published in 1831, found a
sharp decline in crimes afer ages 25-30 for both property and personal ofenses.
Interestingly, however, Quetelet made a point to argue that age does not directly
cause a decrease in crime but rather a decrease in “criminality,” or the propensity
to engage in antisocial conduct. Tis point has been overlooked in much of the
desistance literature, which uses behavior as an indicator of desistance.
Other 20th century criminological work noted the relationship between age
and crime, but it was not a focal point until the 1980s, when career criminal
and criminal career research became embroiled in a debate among criminal
propensity theorists (Posick & Rocque, 2018). However, David Matza’s (1964)
Delinquency and Drif presented a relevant and novel image of juvenile
delinquency. Matza argued that existing criminological theories painted a picture
of a person driven to deviance by social or internal forces. Tese forces build up
so much that, logically, individuals exposed to them should continue committing
crimes well past adulthood — but they do not. To Matza, the problem is that the
average youths involved in the juvenile justice system are not defned by their
delinquency. Tey are not committed to it. Rather, sometimes they engage in
it, and sometimes they do not. Tey drif in and out of delinquency, and when
they reach maturation, it is rather easy to walk away from the criminal lifestyle.
Tis noteworthy argument implies that, for the most part, intensive intervention
or treatment is not needed to foster desistance from crime because it will occur
naturally.
Another early scholar, Maurice Parmelee (1918), used prison statistics from
1910 to argue that criminality declines afer age 45. However, he recognized that
using prison admissions “probably exaggerates adult criminality in proportion
to juvenile criminality” (p. 211). Using conviction data for males and females,
Parmelee argued that criminality decreases early in adulthood. Like Quetelet,
Parmelee used cross-sectional snapshots and attributed a decline in the
proportion of individuals in the justice system at advanced ages to a decrease in
propensity to commit crime. Both Quetelet and Parmelee did not formally defne
desistance; rather, it was inferred from distributions of crime by age.
In Later Criminal Careers (Glueck & Glueck, [1937] 1966), the Gluecks followed
the same males for another fve years, for a total of 10 years of post-release
data. In this follow-up, they did not simply examine the percentage who had
reofended (this may be called a “binary” measure of recidivism or desistance).
Tey also recorded the men’s “progression or retrogression” ([1937] 1966, p. 9).
Tey classifed the sample as ([1937] 1966, p. 10-11):
• Partial failures: Conviction for two minor ofenses or arrest for three minor
ofenses (more for less serious ofenses).
• Total failures: Arrests for three or more serious ofenses with no convictions,
arrests for three or more minor ofenses with no convictions, convictions for
one or more serious ofenses, fve or more convictions for less serious ofenses,
dishonorable discharge from the Army or Navy, identifed serious criminal
behavior, or a trend of repeated minor crimes.
Like the Gluecks, Matza used the term “maturational reform,” which means
that juveniles committed delinquency but they did not do so in adulthood.
Using available statistics, he suggested that “[a]nywhere from 60-80 per cent of
delinquents do not apparently become adult violators” (Matza, 1964, p. 22). Tus,
his defnition of desistance was binary, referring to the cessation or termination
of ofending.
Criminal career researchers put forth an opposing view, arguing that longitudinal
data were essential to best understand how crime develops and changes (or
does not change) over the life-course. Tese scholars (Blumstein et al., 1986)
also made the case that criminologists should closely examine diferent facets
In sum, desistance from crime has been recognized for nearly 200 years.
However, because desistance was not ofen a focus of investigations, early
scholarship lacked attention to defnitions and measurement. Te literature on
desistance developed in earnest beginning at the end of the 1980s. Tat work
includes empirical examinations of desistance using a variety of measurement
strategies. Tis paper turns to that work in the next section.
1
National Institute of Justice, “Recidivism,” https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/corrections/recidivism.
Tis paper categorizes conceptual defnitions of desistance into two “eras” (see
Appendix 1) because of the evolution of the term’s meaning. Era I spans from
1979 to 1999. Although some scholars mentioned desistance briefy before this
period, desistance as a research focus began in earnest in the 1980s.
Era II begins in 2000 and takes us to the present. In some ways, this is an
arbitrary delineation. But in the early 2000s, three landmark desistance studies
were published: Maruna’s (2001) qualitative study of 30 desisting persons, Laub
and Sampson’s (2001) essay on desistance, and Bushway and colleagues’ (2001)
article on understanding desistance as a process. Tus, since 2000, thinking about
desistance has been more nuanced and more likely to appreciate the process-like
nature of the phenomenon.
Era I (1979-1999)
Early scholarship rarely considered desistance as a process. Work in Era I
generally tended to view desistance as the termination of ofending — that is,
the end of a criminal career. Shover and Tompson (1992) defned desistance as
the “termination of a criminal career” (p. 89). Many of the 15 defnitions in Era
I conceptualize desistance as being the opposite of recidivism. Blumstein and
Moitra (1980), for instance, refer to desistance as “not recidivating” (p. 323). In
general, most of these defnitions — while not comprehensive — suggest that
desistance is an event, not a process.
Tere were hints, though, that desistance may not be the same thing as
termination. Fagan (1989) defned desistance as a process whereby the frequency
and severity of violence decrease, culminating in the end of criminal behavior.
Bushway and colleagues (2001) argue that Fagan was the frst to separate
desistance from termination. Additionally, the work of Laub and Sampson, two
of the pioneers of “life-course criminology,” has consistently viewed desistance
as something that happens over time. However, their most detailed and complex
discussion of desistance (Laub and Sampson, 2001) did not occur until Era II.
2
Some work does not explicitly state defnitions, but they can be inferred from the discussion of desistance. For
example, Sampson and Laub (1993) do not defne desistance conceptually, but early in the book they discuss the
age-crime curve and the decrease in crime in adulthood, which is immediately followed by the introduction of the
term desistance.
In 2001, Shawn Bushway and a group of fellows at the Violence and the Life
Course Summer Institute published a seminal article on how to think about and
measure desistance. Tey argued that, historically, desistance had been thought
of as an event (e.g., termination of ofending). Drawing on the work of Laub and
Sampson (2001), Fagan (1989), and Loeber and Le Blanc (1990), they made a
clear case for thinking about desistance as a process that leads to termination.
Teir defnition of desistance went further than others in arguing that desistance
means a decline in “criminality,” not ofending. Previous scholars had stated that
desistance was a decline in, or the termination of, ofending, which suggests that
criminal behavior is the appropriate indicator to measure desistance. Reframing
desistance to refect criminality — or the propensity to ofend — is consistent
with other work (Laub & Sampson, 2001) and has profound implications for
criminal justice evaluation.
Stages of Desistance
Other advancements in conceptualizations of desistance from crime have
built on the distinctions between desistance and termination, and assert that
desistance is not a uniform or monotonous process that, once begun, is gradual
and continuous.
Others have similarly delineated desistance into stages, such as early- and
late-stage desistance (Healy, 2010; King, 2014; Shapland & Bottoms, 2017).
For example, Farrall and Calverley (2006) classifed their sample of persons on
probation into three groups: (1) no ofending; (2) showing signs of desistance;
and (3) continued ofending, which was further broken down into increasing or
serious ofending.
For practitioners and researchers, this conceptual defnition means that they
should use criminal behavior as an indirect measure when studying desistance.
Desistance may occur even if criminal conduct continues. Te key is to capture
criminality and build in assessments that allow for an examination of how
criminality is — or is not — changing. Criminality can change in several
ways, resulting in less serious ofending, less frequent ofending, or less variety
in ofending. Additionally, the desistance process generally concludes with
termination, or the cessation of criminal conduct.
Era I (1979-1999)
Early measurement of desistance ofen examined whether individuals had
reofended in a certain period of time. For example, Cusson and Pinsonneault
(1986) used a fve-year window for persons imprisoned for robbery who had
recidivated. Tose who had not been arrested during that time had desisted.
Barnett and Lofaso (1985), using the Philadelphia Birth Cohort study, considered
desistance to have occurred if there were no arrests between the last arrest and
age 18. Te length of follow-up and ages varied substantially across studies. Some
used one year (e.g., Paternoster, 1989), others three years (Shover & Tompson,
1992), and some more than 10 years (Farrington & Hawkins, 1991).
At the same time, it is clear that some scholars had begun to think of desistance
and measure it in a more complex manner. For example, using follow-up data
to the Philadelphia Birth Cohort study, Rand (1987) defned desistance with a
bit more nuance, using seriousness and frequency of ofending for those who
had engaged in serious delinquency. Laub and colleagues (1998) also sought to
measure desistance in a process-like manner; they were perhaps the frst authors
to use trajectory analyses to plot desistance from crime.
Era II (2000-Present)
By Era II, the understanding of desistance as a process had become entrenched
in the literature. Afer the early 2000s, researchers increasingly used specifc
analytical techniques to measure desistance. Although Laub and Sampson (2003)
operationally defned desistance as an absence of new ofenses (arrests) up to age
70 (p. 91), they also examined trajectories of ofending and modeled desistance
3
This list is based in part on the work of Kazemian (2007) and Rocque (2017), who both provided lists of
operational defnitions of desistance from crime.
Some scholars in Era II have continued to use the absence of ofending during
a particular period of time to represent desistance (e.g., Maume, Ousey, &
Beaver, 2005). If the desistance process has begun for individuals, then there will
likely be an absence of ofending during that period. However, if the conceptual
defnition proposed in the previous section accurately captures desistance, then
binary or event-like measurement strategies will not be adequate.
It is important to note that nearly all studies have measured desistance using
some form of antisocial behavior. Tat is consistent with the conceptual
defnition of desistance as a decline in, or absence of, criminal conduct. However,
if desistance supports such a decline and is, in fact, a change in criminality,
then it could potentially be measured without reference to actual behavior.
Researchers could use other indicators such as self-control, which some regard as
the cause of criminality (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990), or attitudinal measures
examining how individuals view crime. Scholarship has shown, for example, that
over time, those engaged in crime tend to view such behavior less favorably and
as less likely to pay of (Giordano, Cernkovich, & Rudolph, 2002; Shover, 1996).
Tese attitudes have been associated with desistance, measured behaviorally;
however, it is possible that the attitudes are themselves indexing desistance
defned by a decline in criminality.
Ideally, to best understand the when, how, and why of desistance, researchers
should use a mixed-methods approach. However, for practitioners, the type of
data available for evaluation are likely to be ofcial records. Tus, quantitative
methods — including quantitative operational defnitions — are more applicable
to evaluation research. Defnitions that are more subjective, or ask individuals to
indicate their intentions to desist, may be less relevant to such work. Quantitative
methods also allow researchers to examine statistical correlations or predictors of
desistance, which will likely be relevant for policymakers. In sum, the selection
of qualitative or quantitative measurement strategies must be based on the
availability of data and the purpose of the study.
Tis does not mean that ofcial records should be disregarded. Other forms of
data collection (e.g., surveys or interviews) that do not follow up with individuals
until their death or imprisonment for life can also lead to false desistance.
Ofcial records do have value and can be used to gain insight into desistance. If
desistance is conceptually defned as a process, however, binary (e.g., arrested
or not) measurement strategies may not be ideal. In that case, researchers can
look at the frequency of arrests across a number of years (the longer, the better),
explore a decrease in “seriousness” of ofending over time (Loeber & Le Blanc,
1990), or incorporate timing into assessments.
Researchers have also used surveys or interviews that rely on individual reports
of behavior to examine desistance. Tis method ostensibly addresses the dark
fgure of crime issue because it does not require the criminal justice system
to have been aware of the acts. It also requires strong assumptions regarding
individual honesty and memory. In the past, longitudinal data were difcult to
come by. In fact, certain scholars argued against their use because we already
know what happens over the life-course: Crime declines with age (Gottfredson
& Hirschi, 1987). Today, there are numerous projects that follow the same
A few studies have compared the use of ofcial and survey data when examining
desistance from crime. Uggen and Kruttschnitt (1998) compared self-reported
“illegal earnings” with arrest and found that men and women difered with
respect to desistance on both measures, though gender- and race-based
diferences in predictors of both types of desistance emerged. Massoglia and
Uggen (2007) expanded on this type of comparison, using four operational
defnitions of desistance that included an ofcial measure (no arrests in the last
three years). Tis was compared to a subjective measure that asked individuals
to think about the last fve years and whether they had engaged in less crime,
a reference group measure that compared individuals to their peers, and a
behavioral measure that used self-reports of ofenses for the last three years. Te
highest rate of desistance was found using ofcial records (85% had desisted
from crime), and the lowest was found with the reference group measure (60%
had desisted from crime). Interestingly, there were race and gender diferences
with respect to these measures (whites were more likely to desist compared
with nonwhites using the behavioral variable, but less likely to desist using the
reference group variable).
More recently, Farrington and colleagues (2014) examined data from the
Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development, a sample of 411 working class
boys that began in 1961. Tey argued that, theoretically, desistance may occur
later using self-reports compared with ofcial reports because it is logical that
people may continue to commit crimes and not get caught. According to self-
reports, the age of desistance varied by type of crime (from 15.24 to 38.18), with
an overall average age of 35.20. Removing thef from work and fraud, the average
age of desistance derived from self-reports was much younger — 19.50 years old.
Using convictions (ofcial records), the average ages also varied, but the overall
average for the same crimes was older — 25.07 years old. Removing thef from
work and fraud reduced the age of desistance to 23.38, which was older than the
age of desistance for these crimes using self-reports.
Modeling Techniques
Te fnal consideration examined here is how scholars model desistance from
crime. As noted previously, some studies have defned desistance as binary,
Survival analyses take into account behavior (e.g., ofending or not) and time to
that behavior. Bushway and colleagues (2004) suggested that survival analyses
allow scholars to truly model the process of desistance, marrying recidivism
and desistance scholarship. “Tirty years ago, recidivism and desistance
were complementary measures. Tose who failed afer a certain period were
recidivists, and those who did not were desisters. Now, cutting-edge recidivism
studies focus on hazard rates of ofending over time and cutting-edge desistance
studies focus on measuring trajectories of ofending over time” (Bushway, Brame,
& Paternoster, 2004, p. 91). Tey then demonstrated that these two measures are
actually conceptually similar, with one including time and the other allowing the
estimation of multiple trajectories. Bushway and colleagues called for survival
analyses and trajectory analyses to be integrated to best study desistance from
crime.
Modeling techniques are not without consequences. Research has shown that
varying approaches to examining desistance arrive at varying conclusions.
For example, Bushway and colleagues (2003) used the same dataset to explore
two methods of measuring desistance. Te frst method defned those who
committed a crime before age 18 but not afer age 18 as having desisted; this
method identifed 27.6% of the sample as having desisted. Te second method
used trajectory analyses, which produced seven latent groups. One group was
labeled “bell-shaped desisters” and represented 8.4% of the sample. Importantly,
they found that “there is only agreement by the two methods in 4.8% of the
cases” (p. 146). Another study, by Lussier and colleagues (2015), used four
methods — the binary approach, trajectory modeling, dynamic classifcation
tables, and survival analyses — and similarly showed variations in conclusions
across methods.
As an additional point, modeling techniques can only get the research so close
to identifying causality. When evaluation research is the focus, randomized trials
are preferred.
Type of Data
Te type of data used — ofcial records or surveys — will clearly be related
to data access. If survey or interview data are available, they should be used
because they allow a more accurate picture of actual behavior than arrest and
convictions, which are contaminated by legal decisions. Additionally, surveys
allow the inclusion of other indicators, such as antisocial attitudes, self-control,
and job and marital stability, that may be used to construct criminality measures.
In other words, whether a person is arrested is contingent on whether he or she
If data access is not an issue, researchers should assess both correlates and
mechanisms of desistance. Tis may lead to a mixed-methods approach, but
there is precedent for that approach in the feld (e.g., Giordano, Cernkovich, &
Rudolph, 2002; Laub & Sampson, 2003; Sampson & Laub, 1993).
Type of Sample
Te choice of a sample of persons who have been convicted of a crime or a
general sample is again dependent on the purpose of the project. Tus far, it does
not appear that the fndings from samples of persons who have committed a
crime contradict those from more general samples. If the goal is to understand
which informal processes are related to desistance (and how), general samples
can be informative. However, as is generally the case, if researchers and
practitioners are evaluating a criminal justice intervention or program, samples
of persons who have committed a crime are necessary.
Indicators of Desistance
Almost without exception, scholars have measured desistance using behavioral
indicators (e.g., arrests, self-reports of crime). If desistance is a process, then
binary indicators are insufcient. Te question then becomes which behaviors
represent the most useful indicators of desistance.
Frequency and variety scores are among the most used measures of criminal
behavior. Tey provide slightly diferent information. Frequency scores record
the number of ofenses committed over a particular time period. Tese indicators
are useful for evaluating whether criminal behavior rates decline over time.
However, frequency scores have been criticized for being skewed by nonserious
behaviors. For example, if a frequency score includes 10 items, one of which is
speeding, a person who speeds a lot might be coded as a person who ofends
at high rates or chronically. For that reason, Sweeten (2012) recommended the
A question that desistance scholars have not addressed thus far is whether
desistance can be measured using noncriminal indicators. Laub and Sampson
(2001) argued that desistance is a process that supports termination from
ofending, and Bushway and colleagues (2001) suggested that it is a reduction
in criminality. Te reduction of criminal behavior is the outcome or result of
desistance from crime. As such, it is an appropriate indicator — but an indirect
one. Direct measures of criminality could ostensibly better capture desistance.
For example, scholars should explore self-control, antisocial attitudes, and
antisocial or prosocial identity. Tey should also explore other measures of
criminality, such as popular correctional risk assessments. None of these
indicators, however, will perfectly align with criminal behavior over time, as
crime is the result of criminality, opportunity, and contextual and other factors.
Conclusion
Te study of desistance from crime has matured from historical recognition that
crime, in the aggregate, has a curvilinear relationship with age, to sophisticated
modeling strategies meant to capture the process. Tis paper examined the
conceptual and operational defnitions of desistance as they have evolved in
the last 20-30 years. In addition, the paper ofered a conceptual defnition that,
following Bushway and colleagues (2001), views desistance as a process that
causes a decline in crime and is best measured via criminality, rather than via
crime.
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T
he feld of criminology, which is rooted in sociology, has traditionally
been reluctant to incorporate knowledge from other scientifc disciplines
to help understand the onset, maintenance, and desistance of criminal
behavior. Yet scientifc advancements made in the natural and biomedical
sciences using sophisticated technologies, methodologies, and statistical
approaches have demonstrated that genetic and biological factors infuence
nearly all human behaviors (Polderman et al., 2015), including criminal and
antisocial behaviors (Rhee & Waldman, 2002).
Over 15 years ago, notable criminologist John P. Wright wrote that “the biological
sciences have made more progress in understanding crime over the last 10
years than the social sciences have in the last 50” (Robinson, 2004, as cited
in Wright et al., 2008, p. 326). Tis statement — perhaps an exaggeration —
resonates today as we have yet to see a concerted and systematic approach to
incorporating biosocially informed research into practice. By focusing primarily
on environmental and psychological factors and excluding known biological
and genetic factors that afect behavior, the criminal justice system may be
suppressing its ability to fully beneft from its correctional eforts. If criminal
justice is to be truly evidence based, then it is time to fully integrate knowledge
On the other hand, a growing number of scholars have suggested that desistance
should be viewed as a developmental process (Bushway, Tornberry, & Krohn,
2003). Tis perspective considers incremental changes in ofending behavior
and amelioration in associated traits over time as part of a “dynamic” process
rather than a static occurrence. Researchers can capture this process by
measuring reductions in criminal behavior and improvements in associated risk
and protective factors over time. In general, both positions on desistance have
implications for how best to move forward in research and practice.
Likewise, practitioners may want to depart from (or add to) a traditional
treatment approach in favor of an enhancement approach to correctional
interventions (Chew, Douglas, & Faber, 2018). With an enhancement approach,
service providers focus on improvements to the clients’ baseline measurements
in critical developmental areas.1 Traditional treatments, on the other hand, are
specifcally intended to correct certain behaviors (Shniderman & Solberg, 2015).
Tis distinction is critically important: Te enhancement approach is a dynamic
process addressing specifc defciencies or strengths for continuous improvement,
while traditional treatment is designed to achieve a lasting or permanent change
in behavior and typically measures the presence or absence of a behavior (for
example, recidivism) in a “yes or no” fashion. Again, if practitioners view
desistance as a developmental process for most people who engage in crime, then
1
These indicators may include criminal-justice-related and non-criminal-justice-related outcomes.
Scholars most ofen study the relationship between aging and criminal behavior
during the transitional period from adolescence to adulthood from sociological
and psychological perspectives (Laub & Sampson, 2001). Sociological
explanations of the decline in crime with age include experiencing common life
events, such as fnding stable employment or getting married (Laub & Sampson,
2001), engaging in civic responsibilities such as voting and paying taxes (Uggen
& Manza, 2004), and possessing positive citizenship values (Farrall & Calverley,
2006).
Brain Development
Research on brain development and maturation provides even greater insight
into the pattern of desistance taking place from adolescence to adulthood
(Restak, 2001). From a developmental perspective, desistance may be considered
part of a neuromaturational process infuenced primarily by normative changes
in brain structure and function and the production of hormones and levels of
neurotransmitters. Tese biological changes occur as juveniles mature into adults
(Collins, 2004).
For example, testosterone levels vary across one’s life. Te frst spike occurs
in males during the second trimester of pregnancy; this surge in testosterone
organizes the male brain in preparation for the second surge, which occurs
during puberty. Both sexes then experience a peak in testosterone around 18
to 19 years old, with a steady decline throughout the remainder of adulthood.
Specifcally, testosterone levels begin to decrease in males by about 1% each year
afer the age of 30, while women begin to experience a decline in testosterone
during menopause (Sternbach, 1998).
2
This means that they increase the likelihood that a neuron will fre an action potential.
Persons who persistently and violently ofend, then, are likely not following a
normative developmental path, and their likelihood of desistance may require
interventions that are biosocially informed. Tus, as it pertains to the desistance
process, it is important for researchers and practitioners to know an individual’s
biopsychosocial profle3 to distinguish between people whose criminal behavior
is defned as “adolescent-limited” and those considered “life-course persistent,” as
their risk levels and needs may difer drastically.
Nearly 30 years ago, Terrie Moftt (1993) developed the most biologically
informed theory of criminal and deviant behavior in the criminological literature
when she proposed the existence of two main types of people who ofend:
“adolescent-limited” and “life-course-persistent.” Specifcally, Moftt categorized
those who ofend, primarily in nonviolent ways, for relatively short periods of
time during the teenage years and then desist from crime in early adulthood as
adolescent-limited. Tose who ofend persistently throughout their life-course,
on the other hand, begin to exhibit antisocial and criminal behaviors early in the
life-course and continue along this trajectory throughout adulthood.
3
A biopsychosocial profle may be obtained by including neuropsychological and physiological tests, as well as
biosocially informed questionnaires, to already developed assessments to better inform distinctions between
(1) low-risk individuals who are following a normative path based on brain development and (2) individuals who
have neurodevelopmental dysfunctions that resulted from genetics or prenatal environments or were acquired
throughout the life-course.
Substance Abuse
Substance abuse has long been recognized as a signifcant risk factor for
antisocial and criminal behavior. According to the National Center on Addiction
and Substance Abuse (2010), approximately 65% of the correctional populations
in state and federal facilities meet the criteria for substance use disorder. Te
growing opioid crisis in America has further exacerbated the problem within
the criminal justice system. A growing number of individuals involved in the
justice system are using prescription pain killers, heroin, and synthetic opioids
(e.g., fentanyl), putting them at an increased risk for recidivism (Belenko, Hiller,
& Hamilton, 2013). Tere is mounting evidence to suggest that the relationship
between neuropsychological defcits and substance use is reciprocal. Tat
is, individuals with neuropsychological dysfunctions may be more likely to
engage in substance use, and that substance use, in turn, may lead to further
neuropsychological defcits (Blume & Marlatt, 2009; Clark, Tatcher, & Tapert,
2008).
Conditions of Imprisonment
Tere are certain environmental conditions that can inhibit normative brain
development and create cognitive and neurological defcits — and thus,
exacerbate criminogenic risk (Meijers et al., 2015). For example, studies have
shown that living in impoverished environments, ofen in urban areas, that
are overcrowded and noisy and contain high levels of toxins (e.g., lead) can
negatively impact an individual’s brain and stress system functioning (Baskin-
Sommers & Fonteneau, 2016). Characteristics of impoverished environments
Ethical Concerns
Tere has been documented apprehension to incorporating a biological
perspective when discussing persons who commit crime and criminal justice
policy and practice (Wright et al., 2008). Further, it has been suggested that
any efort to take a biosocial approach to correctional rehabilitation and the
desistance process should frst identify and address potential ethical concerns (de
Kogel, 2019). As such, there are three primary ethical concerns to discuss and,
likewise, safeguard against when implementing a biosocially informed approach
to correctional rehabilitation.
4
Costs associated with implementing correctional strategies from a biosocial perspective also remain unknown.
Cost-beneft analyses are needed to determine whether the increase in cost, effort, and resources leads to a
higher likelihood of achieving the desired outcomes compared to traditional correctional strategies.
Second, there are noted concerns about the distribution of services, particularly
in the early stages of implementation when experimental designs are needed to
examine the efectiveness of biosocially informed interventions. For instance, in
drug trials, there will be individuals in need of treatment who will not receive
the treatment if they are participating in an experimental control group. Tis
concern is further exacerbated if the experiment does not, or cannot, follow
the random assignment of individuals into treatment and control groups.
In other words, researchers and practitioners should make every efort to
follow a systematic implementation of a true experimental design, ensuring
an equal chance of selection into the treatment group. Additionally, following
any experiment, all participants should be given the most efective treatment
options. Related to distribution of services, there are also concerns about
how practitioners may label individuals. Tere is the potential to withhold or
even deny treatment to individuals if they are labeled as “untreatable” due to
practitioners’ faulty understanding of biological infuences on behavior (i.e.,
biological determinism). Educating practitioners on how biosocially informed
treatments could beneft their clients in the short and long term will be an
important next step in correctional rehabilitation.
Taken together, these ethical concerns should not limit the incorporation
of biosocial research into the rehabilitative process. Instead, bioethicists,
criminologists, and practitioners should recognize and minimize these concerns
through conversation (de Kogel, 2019).
When the RNR model was developed over 30 years ago, research in the feld
of criminal justice was heavily rooted in sociological traditions. Te area of
biopsychosocial criminology was only beginning to receive scholarly attention.
Since that time, the biosocial perspective has become more widely accepted in
the feld, but its application in correctional settings remains underdeveloped.
For now — and as a frst step to integrating biosocial research into practice —
the goal should be to develop and employ biologically informed risk assessment
instruments that are noninvasive and relatively inexpensive for measuring
well-established biological risks, namely neuropsychological defcits and the
characteristics of an individual’s stress system response. Tis will require
substantial collaboration between researchers and practitioners to advance
knowledge of “what works” in applied desistance research that is biosocially
informed. For example, they should make a concerted efort to include indicators
geared toward distinguishing between (1) adolescent-limited individuals
following a normative developmental path, (2) individuals who have acquired a
neuropsychological defcit as the result of adverse environments or risky lifestyles
throughout their life-course, and (3) life-course-persistent individuals who
display neuropsychological defcits from an early age and fall at the extreme end
of the distribution on direct and indirect measures of cognitive and executive
functioning. Te desistance process will very likely difer based on a person’s
biopsychosocial profle, thereby necessitating a more individualized approach to
intervention eforts.
Cognitive Remediation
Cognitive remediation is a therapeutic training program that, when employed
regularly, can improve brain functioning. For example, a review of the research
on the efectiveness of cognitive remediation strategies for those who have
sufered traumatic brain injury has shown that attention and self-regulation
retraining is most efective when coupled with performance feedback and
reinforcement (Benedict, 1989).
One way to achieve this goal is to update current needs assessments to include
neuropsychological dysfunctions as a dynamic criminogenic need to target via
cognitive remediation trainings. Researchers should measure and study the
cognitive skills being acquired or improved upon during trainings to establish
their generalizability to other environments and maximize training efectiveness.
Tere is preliminary evidence to suggest that neuropsychological trainings, such
as Attention to Context training and Afective Cognitive Control training, are
efective when properly matched to individuals (Baskin-Sommers, Curtin, &
Newman, 2015). Te type of cognitive training needed should depend on the
individual’s unique neuropsychological needs, underlying behavioral problems,
and stage of development.
Mindfulness Training
Mindfulness training teaches individuals to focus on the present moment rather
than on the past or future. Learning to be mindful enables a person to identify
thoughts, emotions, and physiological feelings in an objective way, which
builds capacity to counteract the efects of a negative environment (Baer, 2003).
Tat is, individuals are trained on how to become more attentive to their own
thoughts and emotions without acting on them, thereby promoting increased
self-regulation (Baer, 2003). Studies have shown that mindfulness training can
improve self-awareness, attention, emotional regulation, and self-regulation
(Auty, Cope, & Liebling, 2017). For example, a meta-analysis conducted by
Auty, Cope, and Liebling (2017) found that yoga and mindfulness meditation
programs in prison had positive efects on the psychological well-being and
behavioral functioning of those incarcerated.
Nutritional Supplements
Te health sciences feld has documented and established the relationship
between diet, nutrition, and brain health and development (Wahl et al.,
2016). Tere is also evidence of how important nutrition is for brain health as
individuals age beyond physical and brain maturity. Tus, another practical
approach to improving neuropsychological functioning is through diet and
nutritional supplements. Omega-3 fatty acids and micronutrients (e.g., zinc,
magnesium), for example, play an important role in brain development and
cognitive functioning (Parletta, Milte, & Meyer, 2013). Research has shown that
defciencies in omega-3 fatty acids during critical stages of development may
result in fewer serotonergic neurons and synapses and lower levels of serotonin,
which are linked to impulsive and antisocial behaviors (Patrick & Ames, 2015).
Research on the diets of persons who are incarcerated and the food served in
correctional facilities is somewhat limited. One study by Cook and colleagues
(2015) reviewed a 28-day cycle menu in a large county jail in Georgia. Tey
found that those incarcerated received less than two-thirds of the recommended
amounts of magnesium; potassium; and vitamins A, D, and E; and more than
the recommended amounts of calories (for women), sodium, saturated fats, and
cholesterol (Cook et al., 2015). Grains were also overrepresented on the menu,
while vegetables, fruits, and dairy were underrepresented, thereby afecting the
total nutrient content of their diet and overall health and well-being (Cook et al.,
2015).
Emerging research that examined the efects of omega-3 supplements and other
vitamins and minerals on adults in prison found that those who were given
supplements committed signifcantly fewer ofenses than control groups (Gesch
et al., 2002; Zaalberg et al., 2010). Tese fndings suggest that correctional
facilities should consider obtaining baseline nutrient profles5 for persons who
are incarcerated and providing omega-3 supplements and other vitamins and
minerals to their daily diet when needed. Nutritional profles may also provide
information about the capacity to participate in neuropsychological training
programs, as people may not be able to fully beneft from treatment if they have
nutritional defciencies. Initiatives that identify defciencies through baseline
levels of nutrients and create a nutritional supplement plan to help improve brain
functioning — which could lead to changes in cognition and behavior, thus
promoting the desistance process — are needed.
5
This would require obtaining blood samples and could cost up to several hundred dollars per sample. As such, a
practical frst step may be narrowing testing to specifc nutrients known to infuence antisocial behaviors when
defcient.
Mental health conditions and substance use problems can interfere with
an individual’s ability to respond to treatment and desist from crime. For
example, ADHD, a neurological condition characterized by underarousal and
neuropsychological defcits, is a signifcant predictor of life-course-persistent
ofending, with symptoms emerging in early childhood and continuing through
adulthood. Individuals diagnosed with ADHD have seen improvement in
behaviors with medications such as methylphenidate (Ritalin) and other central
nervous system stimulants (Connor et al., 2002; Platje et al., 2016). Correctional
eforts to promote desistance would beneft from addressing underlying
neurological conditions before implementing other treatment options.
Individuals with substance use problems, such as opioid addiction, may also
beneft from medications, including methadone, buprenorphine, and naltrexone
(Moore et al., 2019). Currently, the criminal justice system does not take a
comprehensive or systematic approach to providing medical care or afercare
for substance-using individuals. Rather, facilities typically use an abstinence-
only approach or ofer Alcoholics Anonymous/Narcotics Anonymous-type
programming. Research has shown that medications reduce opioid use, improve
cognitive functioning, and reduce recidivism (Moore et al., 2019). As such,
practitioners may want to frst provide medication-assisted treatment options6
before enrolling individuals in cognitive-based programming. In other words, an
individualized approach to treating underlying mental illness and substance use
problems via medication could enhance treatment readiness and the desistance
process by restoring or improving neuropsychological and brain functioning.
6
There is an associated risk of potentially creating an underground market when incorporating medical treatments
for substance abuse in a correctional facility (e.g., replacement drugs such as Suboxone), which could, in turn,
lead to violence. Implementation of medical treatments would have to be carefully monitored.
Physiological tests can measure stress hormones and enzymes (e.g., cortisol,
alpha-amylase) through saliva and hair samples, and neurological tests can
use equipment to measure heart rate and skin conductance (e.g., Neurolog).
Wearables8 that monitor heart rate variability and skin conductance can also be
used throughout the day to provide biofeedback to individuals. New initiatives
could promote a more active role in one’s own treatment, training individuals on
how to recognize physiological cues that correlate with antisocial behavior (e.g.,
increased heart rate or skin conductance) and regulate stress.
7
The typical cost of equipment needed to monitor heart rate and skin conductance (e.g., Neurolog) is about $150.
The cost of collecting and processing hormone data is about $20 to $25 per person.
8
These types of wearable devices typically cost about $120 each.
CBT is arguably the most efective option for promoting desistance from a
biosocial perspective and should continue to be implemented widely. New
initiatives, however, should provide enhancement options prior to or in
conjunction with CBT to further promote desistance. As previously stated, these
enhancement eforts should strengthen or restore neuropsychological defcits
and improve an individual’s stress system response. Tis could include cognitive
remediation, mindfulness training, nutritional supplements, or medications.
Tere are two theoretical perspectives on how genes and environments interact
to infuence behaviors. First, the “dual risk” model suggests that individuals who
are at genetic risk are more likely to display antisocial behaviors when they are
exposed to high-risk environments. As an example, individuals who are exposed
to severe forms of child maltreatment (i.e., environmental risk) and who are
carriers of the low-activity MAOA allele (i.e., genetic risk) are signifcantly more
likely to exhibit antisocial and criminal behaviors as a result of the dual risk
(Caspi et al., 2002).
Strengths-Based Approach
In addition to integrating a biosocial framework in the RNR model, practitioners
should consider adopting a strengths-based approach to promoting desistance.
It has been well documented that genetic, biological, and environmental factors,
including prosocial behaviors, infuence nearly all human behaviors (Polderman
et al., 2015). Although understanding an individual’s biopsychosocial profle
has the potential to improve the efectiveness of the RNR model, its application
continues to place great emphasis on individual defcits (e.g., neuropsychological
defcits and stress system dysfunction). A complementary line of research and
correctional practice that focuses on desistance from crime following a strengths-
based approach (Ward & Brown, 2004) is greatly needed. In short, it is time to
move beyond recidivism-focused approaches that use reofending as the sole
metric of success or failure. Desistance is a process, and enhancement eforts seek
to improve various aspects of one’s life. As such, interventions should focus on
both diminishing risk factors and improving protective factors, such that success
can be measured on a continuum rather than a dichotomy.
Tis paper recommended ways to integrate the biosocial perspective into the
study of desistance from a correctional standpoint. Neuropsychological and
physiological tests and biosocially informed questionnaires can better identify
(1) low-risk individuals who are following a normative path based on brain
development, (2) individuals who have neurodevelopmental dysfunctions
as a result of genetics or prenatal environments or that have been acquired
throughout the life-course, and (3) types and sources of neurobiological
limitations and their impact on the desistance process. Tis information would
better inform risk, needs, and potential barriers to the desistance process that
may vary based on an individual’s stage of development.
Tis paper calls for refning assessment practices, procedures, and facilities
management in correctional settings to recognize the importance of
biological risk factors. Interdisciplinary teams of researchers and practitioners
could administer low-cost, high-quality, and noninvasive measures of
neuropsychological defcits and individuals’ stress system response. Tis will
help inform enhancement and treatment options that are biosocially and
developmentally informed to promote desistance.
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Introduction
A
large body of research documents how common incarceration now
is for Americans (Bonczar, 2003; Enns et al., 2019; Pettit & Western,
2004) and considers how contact with the prison and jail systems shapes
the course of a person’s life (Kirk & Wakefeld, 2018; Wakefeld & Uggen, 2010;
Western, 2007). Tis research focuses heavily on the way in which incarceration
afects an individual’s labor market outcomes (Pager, 2003; Western, 2002),
family life (Braman, 2004; Comfort, 2008; Turney & Wildeman, 2013), and
mental and physical health (Wildeman & Wang, 2017).
Unfortunately, research in this area has at least four core limitations that are
relevant for policy, practice, and research. First, most research on the criminal
activity of individuals who were formerly incarcerated focuses narrowly on crime
rather than on the desistance process (Maruna, 2001; Rocque, 2021). Tis is a
major gap because the lack of new criminal activity or criminal justice contact
is less informative than a broader conception of desistance, which focuses on
moving away from criminal activity and antisocial behavior and moving toward
prosocial engagement. Second, virtually none of the research considers how
the conditions of confnement in prisons and jails may moderate the efects of
imprisonment on both life-course outcomes and the desistance process. Tis is a
key oversight with special importance for practitioners because it means that we
have very little insight into how the vast diferences in conditions of confnement
(Wildeman, Fitzpatrick, & Goldman, 2018) shape the outcomes of individuals
who were formerly incarcerated. Tird, much of the research on desistance does
not consider the experiences of contemporary cohorts, who are highly diverse,
experience incarceration at high rates, and have many of the traditional pathways
to desistance blocked. Instead, it examines cohorts who came of age in the 1950s
or earlier. Finally — and maybe most importantly — virtually all of the research
on how imprisonment shapes the life-course focuses on the average efects of
prison and jail incarceration. Tis is problematic because it means that previous
research has shed little light on how imprisonment afects the life-course
outcomes of individuals who are chronically engaged in criminal activity.
Fact of Imprisonment
Tere are two ways to estimate the fact of imprisonment’s efects on crime. First,
one could compare the subsequent levels of criminal activity of individuals
convicted of similar crimes who are sentenced to noncustodial sanctions (e.g.,
probation, house arrest) and custodial sanctions (e.g., prison incarceration, jail
incarceration). Second, one could compare the subsequent levels of criminal
activity of individuals convicted of similar crimes who are given long and short
sentences. A 2009 meta-analysis by Nagin and colleagues (2009) considered both
of these possibilities and suggested null or mildly criminogenic efects of being
sentenced to prison relative to receiving a noncustodial sanction and length
of confnement, contingent on being imprisoned. As such, the best available
evidence in 2009 strongly supported the idea that the fact of imprisonment was
mildly criminogenic or had no efect on criminal activity.2
1
Some research considers how extremely long-term imprisonment can shape the desistance process (Kazemian,
2019, p. 41). However, attention here is focused on differences in sentences for individuals likely to be
released at some point in their life when they could still plausibly be criminally active. As a result, this section
conceptualizes the effects of imprisonment length within the confnes of, for instance, 10 years relative to eight,
rather than 30 years relative to 25.
2
Evidence from Green and Winik (2010), which considered these factors simultaneously, mirrored these
conclusions.
Nature of Imprisonment
Although there is a host of conditions of confnement that could shape desistance
from crime (Wildeman, Fitzpatrick, & Goldman, 2018), much of the existing
literature focuses on using a regression discontinuity approach3 to test how
placement in a higher-security facility relative to a lower-security facility afects
the risk of recidivism. In general, this research fnds that placement in a higher-
security facility tends to have no efect on the risk of recidivism or to marginally
increase the risk of recidivism (Chen & Shapiro, 2007; Drago, Galbiati, &
Vertova, 2009; Gaes & Camp, 2009). Some research speculates that exposure
to more peers who are criminally engaged may drive these efects; however,
no study to date has sufciently analyzed possible mediators to know with
certainty what is driving this relationship. And although there is now a growing
literature on how conditions of confnement moderate the efects of prison and
jail incarceration, and on the need to focus more on conditions of confnement
(Kreager & Kruttschnitt, 2018), the reality is that we still know little about how
conditions of confnement in the United States shape the desistance process. Tis
research gap has implications for both policymakers and practitioners.
3
In most of the research in this area, this approach is used to compare the outcomes of individuals with slightly
higher risk scores who were placed in a higher-security facility to those of individuals with slightly lower risk
scores who were placed in a lower-security facility.
Early research tended to show that prison and jail incarceration led to a 10% to
30% decrease in earnings (Western, 2002, 2007) and that the stigma attached to
a criminal record explained some of that association (Pager, 2003). More recent
research fnds either no efect on labor market outcomes (Loefer, 2013) or
efects that are concentrated among individuals who were formerly incarcerated
and had some presentence history in the formal labor market (Harding et al.,
2018). One study ofers evidence that imprisonment could lead to short-term
increases in labor market activity for those with little labor market engagement
previously; however, these positive labor market efects receded within a
relatively short period of time (Harding et al., 2018).
Research also shows that strong family ties tend to promote desistance (Sampson
& Laub, 1990; Warr, 1998). As a result, if incarceration damages family ties,
then it could impede the desistance process. Ethnographic research on the
efects of imprisonment on family ties paints a complex, generally negative
portrait: Although incarceration has some short-term benefts for families
when individuals are spiraling out of control (absent interventions from social
services), the long-term efects are largely negative (Braman, 2004; Comfort,
2008). Quantitative research on the efects of incarceration — almost regardless
of the outcome considered — fnds the same basic pattern. Although the efects
of incarceration on the transition into marriage remain contested, there is a
general consensus that incarceration increases the risk of union dissolution,
largely driven by the time spent apart from each other (Lopoo & Western, 2005;
Massoglia, Remster, & King, 2011).
4
This is not meant to be an exhaustive list of possible consequences of prison and jail incarceration. The focus
here is on outcomes that are either certainly or almost certainly linked with the desistance process. For a more
complete review of the literature that considers these effects, see Kirk and Wakefeld (2018).
Although very little research has considered the efects of housing instability, it
is clear that severe levels of material deprivation — such as those indicated by
homelessness — could impede the desistance process. It is also well-documented
that individuals who are released from a correctional facility experience high
rates of homelessness and housing instability (Herbert, Morenof, & Harding,
2015; Metraux & Culhane, 2004; Western et al., 2016; Western, 2018). Relatively
little research provides strong evidence on how incarceration afects housing
instability and homelessness, but the little available evidence suggests that
incarceration increases the housing insecurity of fathers living in urban areas
(Geller & Curtis, 2011). Tis evidence is far from defnitive; nonetheless, it
does indicate another channel through which incarceration could impede the
desistance process.
Many individuals with documented mental health problems desist from crime;
however, an increase in mental health problems seems especially unlikely to
facilitate the desistance process. As a result — to the degree that prison and jail
incarceration exacerbate mental health problems — this would suggest another
mechanism through which incarceration could impede the desistance process. In
the most complete assessment to date, Schnittker and colleagues (2012) showed
that a history of incarceration is associated — possibly causally so — with a range
of mood disorders, including dysthymia, bipolar disorder, and major depressive
disorder. Other research has shown that even if there are short-term benefts of
incarceration for some mental health problems (but see Wildeman, Schnittker,
& Turney, 2012), the preponderance of evidence suggests that a history of
incarceration harms mental health (Massoglia & Pridemore, 2015; Turney,
Wildeman, & Schnittker, 2012).
Research on persons who chronically ofend provides support for four central
conclusions. First, they engage in relatively high levels of ofen-serious criminal
activity for an extended period of time. Second, although there are some life-
course-persistent individuals — those who simply do not desist from crime at
any point in their lives — most persons who chronically ofend do eventually
desist from crime (Laub & Sampson, 2003; Moftt, 1993). Tird, contact with the
criminal justice system — both lower-level contacts like arrests and higher-level
contacts like jail and prison incarceration — are common for this group from
a relatively young age. Finally, they tend to have lower levels of prosocial ties to
educational institutions, families, religious institutions, prosocial friends, and the
labor market than others who either do not engage in crime or engage in crime
at a lower rate. Tus, persons who chronically ofend difer from other members
of society, on average, in a host of ways that may be relevant for the desistance
process.
Tis lack of evidence is problematic for four reasons. First, as noted above,
conditions of confnement have the potential to shape the well-being of
individuals both during the time they are incarcerated and afer their release.
Tis is the case for crime and a host of other outcomes (e.g., labor market
outcomes, family life, housing stability, mental health) that ofen come with
desistance from crime. As a result, understanding how in-facility programming
and more mundane conditions (e.g., the amount of natural light, the quality
of food) shape diferent outcomes is crucial for understanding the desistance
process.
Tird, the prison and jail conditions that individuals experience while
incarcerated can be tied to their probability of desisting from crime and
potentially lead to scalable changes because some features of prison and jail
life are the same everywhere — or at least are sufciently similar on many key
dimensions everywhere.
5
The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections is an exemplar in this regard, as it both consistently seeks
to modify conditions of confnement to help individuals who are incarcerated and rigorously evaluates the
modifcations.
A Mismatch of Samples
Tere is a core limitation in the literature that makes it difcult for researchers to
precisely estimate the efects of imprisonment on the desistance process: Many of
the datasets used are from a sufciently diferent time period, which limits their
utility for understanding the contemporary desistance process.
Consider the example of Laub and Sampson (2003). Te cohort of boys they
studied came of age in an era that difered in at least three central ways from
our current society. First, marriage, stable employment, and military service —
three of the central turning points highlighted in their work on the desistance
process — are less prevalent now among marginalized populations than they
would have been for the youth they studied.6 It is unclear what processes, if any,
have replaced these on the pathway to desistance.
Second, incarceration in prison and jail has become dramatically more common
in the contemporary era (Blumstein & Cohen, 1973; Western, 2007). Tus, the
life-course would have proceeded diferently for those who chronically ofended
in the Glueck study (Glueck & Glueck, 1950) on which Laub and Sampson relied
than it would for the contemporary person who chronically ofends.
6
Although military service remains common in the United States, restrictions on military service for some types
of criminal records interact with high rates of incarceration in poor, minority neighborhoods in ways that make
military service a less viable turning point for many individuals who chronically offend in contemporary society.
Tinking in terms of the areas discussed earlier in this paper — criminal justice
contact, labor market outcomes, family life, housing instability, and mental
health — there is no a priori reason to expect those who chronically ofend
to respond better to the prison or jail environment than other individuals.
However, research does suggest that because persons who chronically ofend
may be sufciently disengaged from family life and the labor market, they may
experience fewer negative consequences in those domains than other individuals
who experience prison or jail incarceration. And, indeed, there are reasons to
expect that prison and jail incarceration may actually be more damaging for
persons who chronically ofend than for others since they have less support
afer release. It would be realistic, then, to think that the efects of prison and
jail incarceration on the desistance process for this group would generally be
negative. At the same time, more research is sorely needed to isolate these efects.
Yet policymakers must also consider the short-term costs of not incarcerating
persons who chronically ofend, costs that signifcantly complicate any policy
discussion. Although there are few policy reasons to object to less severe prison
conditions or shorter sentences for those who chronically ofend — as these
would likely cost the state less money and not lead to any discernible increase
in criminal activity in society — there may be concern about the risks of crime
associated with imposing noncustodial sanctions on these individuals during
their criminally active years. Few, if any, studies test for these short-term efects
— the costs of crimes taking place while individuals serve out the noncustodial
conditions of their sentences — and, consequently, it is difcult to decipher
how the short-term costs compare to the long-term costs associated with
imprisonment’s negative efects on desistance.
7
These arguments, moreover, likely apply to an even greater degree to individuals who currently experience
prison and jail incarceration but who do not display the patterns of criminal activity that persons who chronically
offend do. This is the case because virtually all of the long-term benefts discussed for those who chronically
offend would also apply to the broader spectrum of individuals who engage in crime, but the short-term costs for
individuals who engage in less criminal activity would likely be far lower than for those who chronically offend.
Although shifing more persons who chronically ofend into less restrictive
criminal justice settings would likely have the most severe implications for
practitioners working in the probation system (and, albeit to a lesser degree, the
parole system), this change would also have implications for individuals who
manage and work inside of prisons and jails. For individuals who work in the
prison system, shorter sentences and less restrictive conditions (when possible)
have implications for programming and safety within prisons. On each front, the
key to managing this shif in the composition of persons incarcerated is to make
it slowly and gradually, with an eye on the level that is most manageable within
each diferent type of institution. Regardless of how slowly the shif is made, it
is crucial — for both safety within correctional settings and reentry outcomes
afer release, including desistance from crime — that practitioners who manage
and work in prisons invest deeply in improving the conditions of confnement
however they can. Tis will improve the mundane details of prison incarceration
and focus on what works in improving post-release outcomes.
For individuals who manage and work in the jail system, the implications
for practice are even more complex and dovetail with policy. Successfully
incorporating persons who chronically ofend into jail systems will pose some
signifcant challenges. Specifcally, jail systems will need to decide whether they
have the resources to ofer the quick, high-intensive programming needed to
prepare these individuals for release. If they are unable to do so, they must decide
8
Many of these arguments would also apply to individuals working in the parole system, but this section focuses
more on the probation system because the changes in the probation system may be more jarring to practitioners.
Each has the potential to resolve the four problems with existing research
documented earlier.
Te remainder of this paper discusses how next steps in each of these three areas
could enhance our understanding of how imprisonment shapes the desistance
process for persons who chronically ofend. Specifcally, research in the feld
would beneft from (1) using existing criminal justice data to address these
questions by supplementing the data with information on criminal activity
and core indicators of desistance, (2) discussing the conditions of confnement
that could promote desistance among those who chronically ofend, and
Unlike the NCRP, which has been collected continuously for nearly 40 years,
the RSP has been collected only three times: in 1983 (in 11 states), 1994 (in 15
states), and 2005 (in 30 states) (Bureau of Justice Statistics, n.d.-b). Te goal has
been to link a sample of individuals who were released from prison in a specifc
year to their subsequent arrest, conviction, and incarceration experiences in the
three (1983 and 1994) to nine (2005) years following release. As with the NCRP,
the data are administrative in nature. Recidivism is reported only in the state in
which the individual most recently served time in prison, leading estimates from
this survey to be somewhat conservative.
Currently, the data collected in the NCRP and RSP only consider criminal justice
contact, not criminal activity. However, three features of the datasets make
them well-suited for expansion to provide insight into the desistance process.
9
The National Institute of Justice has made two recent investments in the third area suggested here; therefore,
this paper will spend less time discussing this area than the two areas yet to receive a signifcant investment.
See https://nij.ojp.gov/funding/awards/2020-mu-mu-0017 for an extension of the Rochester Youth Development
Study and https://nij.ojp.gov/funding/awards/2020-jx-fx-0002 for an extension of the Project on Human
Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. Although neither of these awards is heavily focused on the effects
of incarceration on desistance among persons who chronically offend, both could address those research
questions.
Although prior analyses have used the NCRP and RSP to answer an array of
criminological questions, these data have been underused for considering
the consequences of imprisonment on the criminal activity of persons who
chronically ofend and could be extended markedly. One possible way to expand
the NCRP or RSP would be to choose a random sample10 of individuals who
have just been released from prison and track them for many years following
their release. All (or virtually all) individuals in the sample had been criminally
active at some point in their lives, and so even a relatively small cohort (500
to 1,000 individuals) would provide signifcant insight into the relationship
between imprisonment, chronic ofending, and desistance from crime because
many would eventually be reimprisoned, continue ofending but not be
imprisoned, or desist from criminal activity. A survey that includes information
on criminal activity and social circumstances (e.g., marriage, housing stability,
employment) — preferably that was conducted frequently to map changes in
social circumstances to changes in criminal activity and recidivism (Horney,
Osgood, & Marshall, 1995) — could increase scientifc knowledge in this area in
a potentially low-cost way.11
10
It could also be reasonable to stratify by the consistency and severity of criminal justice contact.
11
Of course, any data collection effort like this must manage a tradeoff between cost and attrition. As such,
there are a number of features of any data collection effort in this area that merit discussion. First, and most
importantly, participating individuals would need to know that an independent research team was conducting the
survey and that their confdential data would not be shared with correctional offcials. Absent such assurances,
it seems unlikely that any data collection effort would be successful, especially since it would likely be seen
as coercive, causing ethical problems. Second, data collection costs vary massively across data collection
mechanisms (Sugie, 2018; Western et al., 2016); it would be important for the National Institute of Justice
to conduct a pilot study in which three or four of the most promising mechanisms for facilitating participation
among marginalized programs are compared to ensure that the most cost-effective methods for retaining the
sample are used. Absent a pilot data collection effort like this, any new data collection effort would likely include
either a smaller sample than would be ideal (because a high-cost method was used) or a higher attrition rate
than would be ideal (because a lower-cost method that was not proven effective was used). Although it would be
ideal for such a pilot to be broadly representative, it may be more realistic to instead partner with a state that has
shown interest in collaborations with outside researchers (i.e., Pennsylvania) to keep the pilot costs reasonable.
It is important to note that absent some additional data collection that examines
criminal activity, studies relying exclusively on administrative data will provide
insight not on chronic ofending or desistance from crime but on chronic
criminal justice contact and desistance from criminal justice contact. As such,
signifcant data limitations will remain.
12
Few studies doing primary data collection in correctional settings have worked with persons who chronically
offend, which may be partially due to a reluctance on the part of departments of corrections to allow access to
higher-security facilities. For example, Kreager and colleagues (2017, p. 82) drew their sample from a “good
behavior” unit.
Although there are many excellent examples of such collaborations, one recent example is the Prison Inmate
13
Work assignments
Count
Tere are two core limitations to extending a study in which most of the
participants are by now approaching their 100th birthday (Glueck & Glueck,
1950). First, the life-course has been transformed dramatically across recent
cohorts — the life-course for more recent cohorts now features very high rates of
incarceration and very low rates of violent crime. Tis transformation, moreover,
has been especially profound for young men with low levels of educational
attainment, who now experience incarceration at extremely high rates and
victimization at lower rates than earlier cohorts. Second, as researchers focusing
on mass incarceration have detailed extensively (Western, 2006), these shifs in
the broader life-course for men have interacted with dramatic changes in the
criminal justice system, making an updated consideration of the later adulthood
of persons who chronically ofend necessary.
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 101
it would be necessary to include the entire sample to have statistical power.
Finally, these samples tend to be more broadly population-representative,
so they can help identify persons who chronically ofend and may present
atypical trajectories or lack many of the risk factors on which researchers have
traditionally focused.
Tere are many studies in both of these domains that would be appropriate
to consider extending. However, this paper does not provide an extensive
discussion of possible datasets to extend because the National Institute of Justice
has already funded extensions of two relevant studies, the Rochester Youth
Development Study14 and the Project on Human Development in Chicago
Neighborhoods.15 Again, these are not the only two studies that could be used to
consider the efects of imprisonment on the desistance process among persons
who chronically ofend. Studies using additional relevant datasets are also sorely
needed.
Conclusion
Tis paper proceeded in three stages. Te frst stage reviewed existing research on
the consequences of prison and jail incarceration for criminal activity and other
core life-course outcomes associated with desistance from crime. Te central
14
The Rochester Youth Development Study (RYDS) was started in the late 1980s and was based on a sample of
1,000 youth in the public school system in Rochester, New York, during the 1987-1988 school year. The RYDS
oversampled high-risk youth. The initial sample was heavily male (about 70%) and African American (about
70%); the remaining 30% of the sample was roughly evenly split between the Hispanic population and the
white population. Assessments included information from both the youth and their primary caregivers, as well
as fles from the Rochester public schools, police department, probation department, family court, and social
services. Interviews were also conducted at about ages 21 and 23; retention rates were high throughout the frst
two phases of the study, which spanned through young adulthood (Thornberry et al., 2016). In a third phase,
additional interviews were conducted when the youth were 29 and 31, leading to a similar age of follow-up as
the Pittsburgh Youth Study. These interviews were completed in the early 2000s and included much of the same
information that was included in the earlier waves of data collection; information on criminal justice contacts was
also included at this time.
15
The design of the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) at baseline involved a
two-stage procedure (Earls & Buka, 1997). First, a stratifed representative sample of 80 neighborhoods was
selected in the mid-1990s, representing the variability, especially by race and class, of Chicago neighborhoods.
An array of data was collected from each neighborhood, including independent surveys of residents and
systematic observations of city streets. Second, a representative sample of eligible children was drawn from a
screening of more than 35,000 households in the 80 neighborhoods. Children falling within seven age cohorts
at the time — birth (i.e., born 1995-1996) and then every three years until age 18 (i.e., age 3, 6, 9, 12, 15,
and 18) — were then sampled from randomly selected households and studied over about six years, from the
mid-1990s to the early 2000s (for more details on the design, see Sampson, 2012, pp. 77-93). Because of
these procedures, the PHDCN sample was broadly representative of children and adolescents living in a wide
range of Chicago neighborhoods in the mid-1990s. The frst round (or “wave”) of the study included just over
6,200 children who were visited for extensive in-home interviews or assessments, along with interviews with
their primary caregivers, starting in late 1994 and running through 1996. Then, at roughly 2.5-year intervals,
the research team collected two more waves of data (wave 2 was concentrated in 1997-1999, and wave 3 in
1999-2001).
Te second stage discussed the most central research gaps that exist in this area.
Specifcally, and most importantly, existing literature on how incarceration
afects recidivism and other life-course outcomes does not focus on persons who
chronically ofend — individuals for whom prison and jail incarceration are most
common and the consequences are likely most consequential. Existing research
is also limited because it exclusively uses criminal justice contact as a proxy for
criminal activity, pays minimal attention to how conditions of confnement
moderate the efects of prison and jail incarceration, and relies heavily on data
that come from a fundamentally diferent era than the contemporary one.
Despite these limitations, there is little reason to expect that the negative efects
of incarceration on the desistance process will be smaller for persons who
chronically ofend than for other individuals who are incarcerated.
Te third and fnal stage discussed the implications of these fndings for policy,
practice, and research. For policymakers, the evidence suggests that less punitive
sanctions may both save scarce state and federal resources and facilitate the
desistance process for individuals who chronically engage in criminal activity.
Te benefts must be weighed against the costs of crime, however. Because
even these individuals rapidly decrease their engagement in crime as they age,
policymakers should still strongly consider shorter sentences. Tis is especially
the case in the wake of the deep budget cuts likely due to the COVID-19
pandemic.
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 103
systems to marry information on conditions of confnement with research on the
outcomes of individuals who were formerly incarcerated, and (3) extends both
general population and high-risk longitudinal studies of youth later in the life-
course by using survey data to consider these questions. Although the National
Institute of Justice has already made an initial commitment to the fnal area of
research through recent funding decisions, extended funding on the frst two
areas is still sorely needed.
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Desistance-Focused
Criminal Justice Practice
Kristofer Bret Bucklen, Ph.D.
Introduction
I
n a data-driven and outcome-focused environment, the criminal justice
system increasingly relies on metrics to determine the impact of criminal
justice interventions and to examine behavioral changes in individuals
currently or formerly subjected to them. Many policymakers and criminal justice
professionals are now familiar with using recidivism rates to determine impact.
Even politicians and some in the general public know the term “recidivism.”
More recently, however, using recidivism as a core metric for the criminal justice
system has been criticized. Some note problems in operationalizing recidivism
(Klingele, 2019). Others argue that recidivism is limited as a metric because it
focuses on failure rather than success, and it tends to be a binary measure of
failure (Butts & Schiraldi, 2018). Critics claim that using recidivism to exclusively
measure the success of criminal justice interventions is like using school dropout
rates to exclusively measure the success of teachers. Further, a recidivism event
requires an interaction with the criminal justice system, which means that
recidivism rates measure some combination of the behavior of individuals
who have been involved in the justice system and the system’s responses to that
behavior. Distinguishing individual behavior changes from criminal justice
system policy changes can be difcult when using a metric like recidivism rates.
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 111
Academic criminologists have increasingly called on the criminal justice system
to pivot toward desistance to measure the success of interventions. Te focus of
desistance — a word that is far less familiar than recidivism to most practitioners
and the public — is as a metric of success rather than failure. It is intended to
measure the process by which those who previously participated in criminal
behavior move toward stopping the behavior or ending a criminal career.
Desistance explains individual change versus continuity in criminal behavior.
Research has explained the risk factors for beginning to engage in criminal
behavior; however, desistance focuses on the move away from such behavior
given previous participation in crime. Te factors that cause individuals to
engage in crime in the frst place are not necessarily the same factors that explain
the process by which they move away from it.
In addition to it being a relatively new criminal justice term, there are a few
issues that have prevented the wide-scale adoption of desistance as a metric for
evaluating the impact of interventions. One problem has been that, up to this
point, desistance has mostly been theoretical. Academic criminologists have
written about desistance, mostly when theorizing about behavioral change. Tere
is, in fact, no widespread agreement among criminologists on how to defne
or measure desistance. In the most crudely simple terms, some might think of
desistance as just the inverse of recidivism. Criminologists have pointed out that
this does not completely capture the concept of desistance because it is primarily
a process rather than a binary event. It is the sustained absence of an event
rather than an event itself, which makes it harder to operationalize and measure.
As important as desistance theory is, in order for it to be a useful concept to
practitioners for measuring the impact of criminal justice interventions, the
focus will have to pivot from primarily theoretically driven basic research to
more applied research. Practitioners will need to understand how to defne and
operationalize desistance in a useful way and how to translate and incorporate
theoretically focused concepts of desistance into everyday practice.
Mechanisms of Desistance
A growing body of theoretical and empirical research has outlined a variety of
mechanisms through which desistance works. At a very high level, most of the
Psychological Mechanisms
Internal factors might be psychological or biological. An example of a
psychological theory is cognitive transformation theory (Giordano, Cernkovich,
& Rudolph, 2002). Under this theory, the individual who is desisting moves from
thinking patterns that are primarily antisocial or criminally focused to prosocial
thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs. Cognitive transformation is the primary goal
in treatment approaches, such as cognitive behavioral therapy. Te idea is that
internal changes to thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs primarily drive external
behavioral changes. Under most psychological theories, desistance must frst be
internalized before it is externalized into behavioral transformation.
Biological Mechanisms
Some ontogenetic desistance theories focus more on biological mechanisms. For
instance, some studies of maturational brain development suggest that the brain
does not become fully developed until an individual reaches his or her mid- to
late 20s (Johnson, Blum, & Giedd, 2009). Te prefrontal cortex area of the brain
is responsible for regulating impulse control. Impulsivity is known to be a major
risk factor related to criminal behavior (Loeber et al., 2012). At the same time, a
long history of research has established that criminal behavior is most prevalent
among those in their late teens to early 20s, and it declines precipitously
thereafer — this statistical pattern is ofen referred to as the “age-crime curve”
(Hirschi & Gottfredson, 1983). It might be that brain maturation — leading
to better regulation of impulsivity — explains why criminal prevalence peaks
among those in their late teens to early 20s and then starts to decline. Tis is just
one example of a biologically focused theory of desistance.
Sociological Mechanisms
Sociogenic theories for explaining the mechanisms of desistance focus on
factors that are external from the individual and more socially structured or
environmental. Tese external changes are ofen referred to as “turning points.” A
body of research called life-course criminology looks at continuity versus change
in behavior over the long view of one’s life and focuses on identifying these
important turning points. Social turning points could include getting married,
obtaining steady employment, becoming a parent, or changing one’s community
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 113
or network of friends. Tese factors have been referred to as mechanisms of
informal social control.
One important theory (Laub & Sampson, 2003) fnds that turning points that
tend to lead to desistance have the following four factors in common:
Most theories in this area also purport that these factors have a causal chain of
events that work in the opposite order of the psychological factors of desistance.
Remember that under psychological theories of desistance, internal change
primarily precedes external change. Under sociologically focused theories of
desistance, such as informal social controls, external change (i.e., turning points)
primarily precedes internal change. External circumstances change frst; they are
later followed by internal changes, or even by no internalization at all (this has
been referred to as “desistance by default”).
Labeling Mechanisms
A related category of sociogenic mechanisms of desistance involves social
identity. Labeling theory is one example (Braithwaite, 1989). Under labeling
theory, individuals involved in criminal behavior are, in part, acting on a
preexisting societal label. In other words, they act out based on what others
already think of them and how others treat them. Removing the stigma of these
labels can help sustain the process of desistance. Tis destigmatization may
involve a process of “redemption,” which will be discussed later in this paper.
Te concept of human agency is closely tied to the idea that criminal justice
sanctions can be used as formal social controls or to deter criminal behavior.
Although the desistance literature does not ofen discuss deterrence theory,
it is closely tied to desistance. Interestingly, deterrence-based criminal justice
approaches to desistance act in much the same way as informal mechanisms
of social control, such as marriage and a job. Tey both involve motivating or
rewarding compliance and disincentivizing noncompliance. Tey also can be
used to change behavior without frst changing internal motivation. Deterrence-
based approaches might attempt to disincentivize or wear down individuals
involved in crime, until they “age out” or “hit rock bottom.” One might ofen
hear people who desist this way say they just “got tired of being tired” or that
being subjected to repeated criminal sanctions required them to “fake it until
they made it.” Desistance might involve decisive behavioral change without an
accompanying internal change, similar to the desistance by default concept in
informal social control theory. Empirical research fnds that informal social
control is more efective than formal social control (e.g., criminal sanctions);
however, as will be discussed later, a recent resurgence of evaluations around
deterrence practices shows that formal sanctions can be efective if done right.
Operationalizing Desistance
As previously discussed, one of the problems with putting desistance research
into practice is the difculty in defning and operationalizing desistance. For
example, because desistance is a process rather than an event, how do we know
when it happens? What type of follow-up period is needed to measure it? If
too short of a period is used, an individual might return to criminal behavior
afer the follow-up period and thus be falsely labeled as desisting (“false
desistance”). Tere is also the issue of how to handle the intermittent nature of
criminal behavior, as individuals involved in crime tend to zigzag in and out of
criminal behavior over their criminal careers. It is important to outline practical
operational defnitions of desistance to move toward desistance-focused criminal
justice interventions.
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 115
(probation or parole)? Do factors such as steady employment, sobriety, and
compliance with community supervision rules count as desistance, or are
they proximal outcomes that are markers of desistance (as defned by strictly
refraining from criminal behavior)?
Some have argued that outcomes like steady employment and stable housing are
so closely related to desistance that, given the concerns with using recidivism
as a metric, we should focus more on these non-criminal-justice outcomes as
evidence of desistance (Butts & Schiraldi, 2018). Factors like employment rates
might be easier to measure and might demonstrate more movement in a positive
direction than seemingly intractably high recidivism rates. However, if the focus
is on criminal behavior, then there must be a high degree of confdence in a
causal link between these other factors and crime to count them as markers of
desistance.
On the other hand, this assumes a strong causal link that may not be fully
established or may not even exist. What happens when these proximal outcomes
move in a positive direction but criminal behavior does not? Tere seems to
be a push to focus on non-criminal-justice outcomes because recidivism rates
remain so high and unchanged, and these other outcomes are, in some sense,
easier to change. In other words, criminal justice agencies will have a hard time
demonstrating success with traditional recidivism measures; however, they may
be able to boast more success if they move the needle further on non-criminal-
justice outcomes and argue that those outcomes are ultimately related to
desistance from criminal behavior.
Redemption Benchmarks
Redemption research has helped conceptualize how long is long enough for a
follow-up period (Blumstein & Nakamura, 2009). Existing redemption research
has sought to empirically examine how long an individual who was previously
involved in criminal behavior must remain “clean” from such behavior to meet
a threshold of an acceptably low risk of reofending. Te idea is that the risk of
reofending does not need to reach zero; rather, it should reach some acceptably
low level. Redemption researchers refer to this as a “point of redemption.” For
example, it might be the point at which the risk of arrest for a person previously
involved in criminal behavior is as low as that for a person from the general
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 117
public (which contains a mixture of people who do and do not have previous
arrest records). A more difcult benchmark of redemption to reach would be
the point at which the risk of arrest for a person previously involved in criminal
behavior is as low as that for a person who was never previously involved in
criminal behavior. Some redemption research fnds that it takes fve to seven
years of remaining crime-free to reach these benchmarks of redemption
(Blumstein & Nakamura, 2009). Tey could be similarly considered benchmarks
of desistance and help inform the issue of setting appropriate follow-up periods.
Te signaling model addresses concerns with long time horizons because it does
not rely on long follow-up periods to observe behavioral change when internal
change has already happened. Rather than waiting for a follow-up period to
declare desistance, a strong enough signal could signify motivation to change
and indicate desistance up front and early on. Te problem with this approach,
however, is that it is still probabilistic, with some degree of error in forecasting
later behavior based on its correlation with the earlier signals.
Many practitioners in the corrections feld are already familiar with one tool that
would facilitate a signaling (probabilistic) approach to identifying desistance:
criminal risk assessment instruments. Risk assessment is a fundamental part
of the risk-need-responsivity (RNR) model, a prevailing paradigm in the feld
of corrections (Bonta & Andrews, 2017). Te risk principle states that limited
correctional resources should be focused on high-risk individuals because
those who are low risk are not likely to reofend, even absent intervention. A
risk assessment instrument can assess risk actuarially. Tere are many of-the-
shelf and customized risk assessment instruments in use that are fairly efective
at accurately predicting future recidivism. Practitioners may be able to use
individual scores from a risk assessment instrument to identify those who have,
in all likelihood, desisted (i.e., low risk) without having to wait many years to
measure the absence of further ofending. Using risk assessment instruments
seems to be an important practice for incorporating desistance principles into
practice.
Deceleration
Deceleration looks at desistance through the lens of slowing down the frequency
of criminal ofending rather than stopping it completely. Early criminal career
research referred to a measure of individual frequency of criminal ofending as
“Lambda” (represented mathematically by the Greek letter λ) (Blumstein et al.,
1986). Deceleration could be measured by an individual’s average number of
arrest incidents per time period (e.g., number of arrests per month or number of
arrests per year) before and afer a criminal justice intervention.
1
These three measures are adapted from Loeber and Le Blanc (1990), with two important differences. First,
reaching a ceiling is defned differently here than by Loeber and Le Blanc. They defned it as reaching a plateau
or ceiling in seriousness of criminal behavior. This paper defnes reaching a ceiling as complete cessation of
criminal behavior. This paper takes the position that Loeber and Le Blanc’s defnition is partially subsumed
under de-escalation; in that sense, it is redundant and does not allow for a complete stop in offending. The
second difference is that this paper does not include Loeber and Le Blanc’s fourth measure, which they call
“specialization” and defne as a decrease in the variety of criminal offending over time. It is the position of this
paper that simply reducing diversity of criminal behavior is not a marker of desistance that makes common sense
to policymakers and practitioners, and so it is not included as a measure of desistance.
2
Individuals obviously can commit crimes while in prison, but typically those crimes are more restricted through
close surveillance and incapacitation. Also, those crimes do not tend to show up in offcial arrest records. Thus,
incorporating them into a measure of deceleration would be complicated.
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 119
Tis measure of deceleration could be used as a marker of desistance, but it is
less useful for directly connecting the impact of a criminal justice intervention
to desistance because it is necessarily confounded with age. In the example
above, let’s assume that the individual spent 10 years in prison and was 25 years
old when he went to prison. We already saw that afer factoring in the amount
of time free from confnement, this individual moved from fve arrests per year
before prison to one arrest per year afer prison. However, this is not sufcient
to demonstrate that prison itself led to desistance. Tis individual was 20 years
old at the beginning of the fve years before prison, and he was 40 years old at
the end of fve years afer release from prison. Based on accumulated knowledge
about the relationship between age and crime, a 20-year-old is signifcantly more
likely to be involved in more criminal behavior than a 40-year-old, independent
of any impact of imprisonment in deterring future criminal behavior. Separating
the impact of aging from the impact of a criminal justice intervention is a
difcult but not impossible task and should be considered.
De-Escalation
Te idea of de-escalation is that a reduction in the seriousness of criminal
behavior is a sign of desistance. For example, an individual who moves from
repeat burglaries to support a drug problem to just arrests for drug possession or
use may be in the process of desistance.
Reaching a Ceiling
Reaching a ceiling is a restrictive measure of desistance in that it attempts to
measure when criminal behavior has completely ceased. In the simplest terms,
this measure is essentially the inverse of recidivism. For example, if recidivism
is defned as any incident of arrest within a fve-year follow-up period afer an
intervention, and an individual does not recidivate by the end of the fve-year
period, it would indicate that the individual has reached a ceiling of criminal
ofending and may have completely stopped.
Tis measure is limited because it is highly afected by the length of the follow-
up period. If recidivism is measured in a fve-year follow-up period and an
individual does not frst recidivate until the sixth year, this will result in a false
desistance label. Tis again highlights the importance of selecting an appropriate
follow-up period. Empirical data for a previous sample could be used to help
inform the selection of an appropriately long follow-up period, as could the
redemption literature discussed above. Depending on the measure of recidivism
used, this measure may also underreport actual criminal behavior.
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 121
Desistance-Focused Interventions
Tis section discusses criminal justice interventions that should be considered
desistance-focused — in other words, policies, practices, or programs that can
be connected back to one or more of the theories of mechanisms of desistance
reviewed earlier. Table 1 also provides an overview of the interventions
summarized below and outlines each intervention’s connection to a theory of
desistance. Further, the U.S. Department of Justice’s CrimeSolutions (http://
www.crimesolutions.ojp.gov) reviews the evidence for most of the interventions’
efectiveness.
2. Motivational Interviewing
Another cognitive-based, desistance-based intervention is called motivational
interviewing (MI). Te purpose of MI counseling is to challenge an individual’s
resistance to change and to develop internal motivation for change. It is heavily
infuenced by the transtheoretical model of the stages of change (Prochaska &
DiClemente, 1983). One particular program built on MI principles is called
EPICS. In general, the evidence supports MI as a successful intervention for
3. Prison Visitation
Several criminal justice interventions are built around the sociogenic theories
of desistance and rely on reinforcing informal social controls. For example,
providing visitation for people in prison is, in part, built on the theory that
maintaining important social relationships will translate into social support and
social control afer release from incarceration, which may, in turn, translate into
desistance. In addition to in-person visitation and phone call policies, many
correctional jurisdictions are experimenting with technological opportunities to
support visitation, such as video visitations. Fostering opportunities for persons
who are incarcerated to receive communication in other forms, such as letters
and emails, is another way to strengthen social connections that may lead to
desistance. Preliminary evidence suggests that in-prison visitation is associated
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 123
with reductions in recidivism; however, the research to date has yet to establish a
causal impact of prison visitation on recidivism (Bales & Mears, 2008).
4. Family Counseling
To help reinforce important social relationships, correctional jurisdictions could
provide two forms of relationship/marital counseling and parenting counseling.
One form could provide counseling and practical skills to individuals who are
already in a relationship or married or are parents to help strengthen these
relationships. An innovative approach would be to have the spouse, partner,
or child participate in the therapy session with the individual who is under
the criminal justice system. Although a few correctional jurisdictions have
experimented with this type of relationship counseling, virtually no evaluation
research exists for determining its efectiveness.
Te other form of counseling could focus on individuals who are not yet in a
relationship or married or do not yet have children, but who want to eventually
pursue one of these relationships. Te goal would be to proactively instill skills
that will help make those potential relationships successful in the future.
6. Relocation
One theorized mechanism of desistance involves changing environments and
social settings that reinforce criminal behavior. Although returning home afer
release from prison might provide some level of prosocial support from family,
it also might mean a return to a toxic environment where individuals actually
encourage criminal behavior. A few studies have demonstrated that individuals
who are relocated afer release from incarceration show lower recidivism rates
than those who return to their home community (Kirk, 2015; Nakamura, 2018).
Clearly, interventions should be individualized, as it might be better for some to
return home and others to fnd a new beginning through relocation.
7. Religious Services
Correctional systems could provide religious programming to encourage
desistance. To use the turning points language of desistance research, a religious
conversion is a type of turning point that has properties in common with other
turning points like marriage and employment. Obviously, participation in
religious-based programs must be strictly voluntary and not compelled, but these
types of programs may facilitate the type of turning-point conversions that could
lead to desistance. Research to date is mixed on the efectiveness of in-prison
religious programming and, once again, it is fairly weak on examining causality.
Given the volunteer nature of participation in religious programs, there almost
certainly is a strong self-selection efect.
9. Medication-Assisted Treatment
Medication-assisted treatment is also increasingly being used with some
efectiveness, specifcally for the treatment of substance use disorder (Substance
Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2019). Substance abuse
involves biological mechanisms that can afect or limit an individual’s human
agency. Treating substance use disorder may remove a major barrier to
desistance. On the other hand, some research has shown that a subset of
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 125
individuals may desist from crime but continue to have substance use problems
(Laub & Sampson, 2003).
Mental health problems may also limit opportunities for desistance. Medical
and biological responses to mental illness may help alleviate these barriers to
desistance. Some consider substance use disorder a form of mental illness, as
it is classifed as such under the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders, 5th edition. Improving mental health generally should assist in better
decision-making, which, in turn, should lead toward a path of desistance.
14. Destigmatization
Finally, criminal justice interventions can focus on removing labels that
impede desistance. Achieving redemption benchmarks should translate into
opportunities for removing labels. For instance, several jurisdictions have passed
legislation that allows criminal records to be expunged or sealed afer a certain
period of crime-free time.3
3
One example is Pennsylvania’s recently enacted “clean slate” law.
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 127
Eliminating reentry barriers, such as licensing obstacles, may also further the
goal of removing negative labels. Some jurisdictions have experimented with the
concept of reentry courts. Individuals are closely supervised post-release, and the
court recognizes them through ofcial “redemption ceremonies” when they meet
certain benchmarks within the program. Te research to date, however, has not
found recidivism reductions from such an approach (Lindquist, Hassoun Ayoub,
& Carey, 2018).
Budgets
Te budget-driven nature of criminal justice agencies also presents challenges.
Policymakers have to make decisions about how to allocate their budgets.
Investing money now into interventions that have a chance of paying of
Some politicians and policymakers have the opposite problem when managing
tight budgets — they work under an implied theory that just doing more will
improve results. Consequently, resources are uncritically targeted toward
programs, policies, and activities that are presumed to further many types of
goals related to desistance. Doing more is not always doing better, however. In
fact, doing less may be more efective than doing more. In other words, some
interventions can have no impact or, even worse, a negative impact. Focusing
on a few programs that have been found to have strong impacts is preferable
to uncritically implementing many programs, some of which have little to no
efect. Importantly, desistance-focused interventions must be critically evaluated,
a causal link to desistance should be established, and interventions should be
revised or abandoned if they do not further desistance. Tis is challenging
because it is ofen difcult to establish causal links for desistance-focused
interventions. Further, if it is found that interventions are not efective but they
seem appealing at face value, it is ofen hard for politicians and policymakers to
abandon them.
For these reasons, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and cost-beneft analyses
must become two critical components of desistance-focused criminal justice
practice. More RCT evaluations of desistance-focused programs and practices
will build the strong evidence needed to give policymakers faith in allocating
resources toward these interventions. As noted several times throughout
this review, the evidence base for many existing desistance-focused policies
and practices is thin. Researchers must pay more attention to the quality of
evaluations to build strong causal links between programs and policies and
desistance.
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 129
Non-Criminal-Justice Outcomes
Criminal justice outcomes should remain the main focus of desistance. Criminal
justice policymakers, by virtue of their specifc public safety mission, are likely
to show little concern for non-criminal-justice outcomes, such as employment
and housing, unless there is a clear and convincing link between these outcomes
and crime. For example, state correctional departments will likely not consider
it their primary responsibility to make sure that individuals released from
incarceration secure a job and stable housing unless they are convinced that this
will lead to a reduction in future crime.
Communication
Desistance is a messy concept. Politicians and policymakers gravitate toward
concepts that are simple to understand and explain. Tis paper has spent a
signifcant amount of time describing some of the challenges in operationalizing
desistance. Policymakers might have a hard time understanding, explaining, and
implementing fexible concepts like intermittent ofending and desistance as a
process rather than an event. As such, we must develop simpler and better ways
to operationalize desistance and better communicate desistance principles.
Conclusion
Desistance is an important concept in academic criminology, but
implementation into criminal justice policy and interventions has lagged. Tis
paper discussed research on how desistance works, along with challenges and
ideas for establishing operational defnitions of desistance. It also provided
some actionable guidance on what types of desistance-focused criminal justice
interventions should be pursued. Translating desistance research into practice
will continue to prove challenging, but it is a worthy endeavor for improving
criminal justice outcomes.
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International Perspectives
and Lessons Learned
on Desistance
Stephen Farrall
Introduction
I
n the years since monographs such as Crime in the Making (Sampson &
Laub, 1993) have been published, there has been a tremendous research
efort to further knowledge about why people stop ofending. Although
much of this research has been based in countries with well-established
criminological communities (such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and
a few other European countries), empirical studies have also been conducted in
Brazil, Chile, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Spain, and Sweden, among others.
Although the theoretical understanding of desistance from crime has advanced
considerably — as acknowledged by the National Institute of Justice’s call for
white papers in this area — a critical gap remains in our collective understanding
about how this knowledge should be applied. Such knowledge is crucial because
if key decision-makers are able to operationalize these insights into research-
informed innovations, then future practice in crime prevention, sentencing, and
the wider criminal justice system may be further improved.
Tis white paper explores how insights from desistance research have been used
in the United Kingdom and, to a lesser extent, further afeld. Te paper begins
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 135
with a discussion of how desistance is defned and operationalized, followed
by a review of the main associates and correlates of desistance. Te paper then
critiques many criminal justice systems’ desistance-promoting elements, drawing
on insights from England and Wales, Scotland, France, and Israel, as well as
some experiences in North America. It fnds that much of what criminal justice
systems “do” is not conducive to supporting desistance. Te fnal section — the
main focus of the paper — discusses ideas for activities and procedures that are
more likely to support and promote desistance. Tese ideas are drawn both from
empirical studies and from the “philosophy” of many criminal justice systems
and the ways in which it shapes desistance-related work.
In the 1980s, when research on desistance was still in its infancy, some adopted a
rational choice perspective and argued that desistance was the result of decision-
making (Cusson & Pinsonneault, 1986, represents a good example of this
approach). More recent thinking holds that while decisions are important, they
are unlikely to be sufcient on their own.
Highly regarded research argues that the relationship between the person who
is desisting and wider society is crucial. Sampson and Laub (1993) argued
that the bond between an individual and others in society is the cornerstone
of desistance. Furthermore, they argued, both formal and informal social
institutions “cement” the bond between the individual and society. Tese
institutions include schools, families, and peer groups in early adolescence and
employment, marriage, and parenthood in adulthood.
Maruna (2001, p. 7) pointed to another set of processes, arguing that “to desist
from crime, ex-ofenders need to develop a coherent, pro-social identity for
themselves.” Individuals must fnd ways of “making sense” of their past lives to
“redeem” and fnd value in lives that had ofen been spent ofending.
Hence the key processes associated with desistance from crime appear to be
related to:
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 137
• Accommodation that is secure, safe, and away from others who may
encourage ofending.
• Aspects of the criminal justice system that may assist desistance (others fnd
that these stigmatize and hinder desistance).
Recent studies (F.-Dufour & Brassard, 2014; Farrall et al., 2014) have reported
that diferent groups may have diferent routes out of crime. F.-Dufour and
Brassard (2014), for example, found that those who started ofending at a
younger age tended to come from more disadvantaged backgrounds and,
contrary to Sampson and Laub’s (1993) thinking, rejected conventional ties and
informal social control. Tose who started later in life (in their 30s) and came
from more privileged backgrounds tended to favor psychosocial interventions.
Other cases have found that criminal justice systems tend to view people who
have been convicted of crimes as the embodiment of risks that need to be tackled
and dealt with. Tis is seen as the consequence of risk assessment tools, which
inadvertently encourage probation staf to view those on probation as people
who only have risks, rather than people who may have strengths that can be
harnessed (a point discussed later).
Criminal justice systems’ recent reliance on longer and more punitive sentences
— especially if they involve imprisonment or formal debarring from, for
example, voting — can provide additional hurdles to those wishing to desist. In
a fast-moving economy in which new technologies have a rapid turnover, skills
are easily lost while individuals are in prison and not working (or working, but
not using electronic devices as part of their work). Insurance systems may also
inadvertently encourage employers to recruit from outside of this population
to achieve lower rates of insurance premiums. Reductions in the type of
employment that might suit those embroiled in the criminal justice system —
who may (typically) be males from lower socioeconomic groups and have lower
educational qualifcations and poor IT skills — have not helped some sections of
the pool of people who want to desist from transitioning away from ofending.
As Shover (1996, p. 179) observed, “In many [U.S.] states, as matters stand today,
the heaviest penalties fall at the point when many ofenders are on the verge
of desisting or shifing to less serious forms of crime. Heavy prison sentences
can exact such a toll from ofenders that they miss all timetables for achieving
success legitimately.” As such, the empirical studies on desistance from crime
point not simply to a set of correlates and associates of desistance, but to a wider
set of values and system philosophies that can hinder desistance from crime at a
systemic level.
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 139
Proposals for Future Interventions and System
Philosophies
Te remainder of this paper focuses on proposals, policies, and practices that
have been made or adopted to improve an individual’s chances of desisting
from crime. Where possible, an assessment of their impacts is noted. Te paper
discusses both specifc intervention programs and the philosophies of criminal
justice systems.
Key social institutions like family and employment are important, and common
ideas — such as the concept of “forgiveness’” and individual change — have
become culturally embedded. Further, many aspects of the criminal justice
systems in the United States and the countries discussed below are similar (such
as the existence of both prisons and community sentences). Terefore, colleagues
in the United States could relatively easily adopt these proposals, policies, and
practices, either in part or in whole.
If individuals who are desisting are able to help others (e.g., via engagement
in voluntary service), this can transform receivers of help into givers of help,
which, in turn, may assist their own positive self-identity. In addition to helping
individuals desist, the aims are to communicate to a wider community that the
person has ceased ofending, is (therefore) worthy of support, and has something
to ofer to others. Te perspective is resolutely future-oriented — focused on
what the individual who desisted can ofer in the future — rather than focused
on past mistakes. Both strengths-based and desistance-focused approaches share
some similarities — they are future-oriented, less concerned with risk, and more
concerned with rehabilitation.
How would these principles work in the United States? Recently, the United
States has chosen to go down the route of very high rates of imprisonment;
however, this has not always been the case. Until the early 1980s, U.S.
imprisonment rates were far lower than they are today. Some of the programs
and projects outlined below have operated in prisons, others have been run in the
community, and still others have tried to ease the transition from imprisonment
to living in the community. Te current high rates of imprisonment need to be
kept in mind when assessing the interventions below because many operate in
criminal justice systems that are less punitive than the one currently adopted in
the United States.
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 141
appropriate), fnd suitable accommodation, and develop human and social
capital. Writing with a former criminal justice social worker, McNeill suggested a
number of principles when undertaking interventions (Weaver & McNeill, 2007):
• Be realistic. Relapse is common, and change takes time. Tis means that
patience is required by criminal justice staf, both those working with people
who want to desist and those who are employed in the sentencing of relapses
that result in ofending.
• Recognize that no two individuals are the same, so a “one size fts all”
approach will not work as efectively as approaches that are tailored to
the individuals and their pasts, strengths, and desired futures. In short,
interventions must be individualized.
• Promote redemption.
• Punishments must end at some point. Recognize and respect these endings.
Barry (2000), inspired by the principles above and her own social work
experiences, additionally suggested that criminal justice workers:
• Be encouraging.
• Recognize that relationships matter to persons who desist and harness them
to support desistance.
• Try to maintain hope as well as motivation. Hope is a key variable that can
support individuals during periods of difculty and change because it sustains
their longer-term goals.
• Develop human capital (the skills needed to complete a task) as well as wider
social capital in order for these skills to be employed.
• Avoid identifying people by the behaviors we wish them to leave behind (e.g.,
“ofender”).
In response to the Insights paper (McNeill et al., 2012a), Bottoms and Shapland
(2019) suggested that criminal justice system staf help people change their
daily routines and practice newly developed social identities (such as “parent”
and “employee”) to facilitate desistance (p. 257). Tey also suggested that local
criminal justice systems and those delivering services develop 24/7 support
services for people facing temptations (Bottoms & Shapland, 2019, p. 257), an
idea based on the insights regarding temptations and the loss of motivation
developed by Halsey and colleagues (2016). Tese 24/7 support services could
consist of duty staf who are on call outside of normal ofce hours or a list of
people whom the individual could phone or ask for help when needed.
McNeill and colleagues (2012b) argued that correctional services — and judicial
systems more generally — must fnd ways to recognize and “certify” progress
and change. In doing so, they should use language that conveys belief in the
possibilities of “redemption,” rather than language that reinforces ofending
identities (Maruna, 2001; Maruna & LeBel, 2003; Maruna, 2011). Examples of
these decertifcation processes are discussed below.
Probation lost the desire and motivation to work with ofenders leading to a
loss of core values, and case management became ‘an administrative function
rather than a therapeutic or change focused one.’ Service users viewed
probation as ‘an organisation that trips you up and wants to catch you out
rather than wanting to help you.’
Te underlying message from the above is possibly that even those most
entrenched in criminal lifestyles should, at least, be given the hope that change is
possible and there is a future for him or her without crime. Tis notion appears
to be sorely lacking in current experiences of supervision, as noted by one of the
people Farrall interviewed for his study of the impact of probation supervision
on the lives of those being supervised (Farrall, 2002, p. 227):
Tis section focuses on four broad areas: changing the assessment lens;
strengths-based opportunities to give back; building and supporting jobs, homes,
and relationships; and certifying and recognizing change. Where possible,
examples of projects that refect these areas are provided. However, not all of
these programs were evaluated. In some cases, assessments that were performed
do not meet the highest standards of empirical social science research, as they
were sometimes run by practitioners and did not always compare against control
or comparison groups. Nevertheless, these schemes provide some clues to
interventions that may assist desistance.
Most risk assessment tools (such as SAPROF or SARN-TNA) ask criminal justice
staf to score various aspects of an individual’s social and personal circumstances
in terms of their risk of further ofending. Te scales typically run from 0 (no
risk) to 10 (high or severe risk). Tis approach encourages the staf member —
and the person being assessed to some extent — to think of the person as the
physical embodiment of these risks. Strengths are neither identifed nor ofcially
recognized.
One way to alter this would be to extend the scale from -10 (a severe risk) to +10
(a strength), with 0 representing a neutral point, something that is neither a risk
nor a strength. Tus, the person being assessed is viewed as having strengths and
Burnett and Maruna (2006) reported on a scheme run by a local Citizens Advice
Bureau in the United Kingdom. Citizens Advice Bureaus ofer free advice and
advocacy services relating to legal matters to anyone who requests them. Tese
services are ofered over the phone and in person at a number of locally based
centers.
One center, which was struggling to cope with the volume of calls it received,
approached a local open prison — that is, a prison that accommodates low-risk
individuals, ofen near the end of their sentences — to see if it could help. Te
prison released these individuals on a temporary license to answer calls at the
center. Teir skill base was refreshed and increased, and they were reacclimated
to a working environment. Tey reported that it was a destigmatizing experience,
as well as one that helped create civic values and feelings of having given
something back to the community.
ASSET
Te ASSET project (run by what was then Inner London Probation Service,
ILPS) worked with young people (ages 16-25) being supervised in two inner
London boroughs. It was a stand-alone organization that provided one-to-one
support and guidance to just over 750 persons on probation referred by ILPS.
Te key aim was to provide them with the skills and direct work experience
needed to subsequently secure meaningful employment. It ofered them travel
grants, clothing, equipment, and course fees. ASSET stood apart from other
probation-run employment, training, and education schemes at that time
because it provided:
• Links with the Prince’s Trust, which ran a business start-up program.
• Mentoring.
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 147
Among both probation staf and the persons on probation, there was a general
feeling that there should be more programs like ASSET. Te probation staf
who had contact with the scheme spoke highly of both the project staf and the
program more generally. Many probation staf felt that ASSET complemented
their work because it ofered specialist expertise that they could not ofer.
Meanwhile, many of those supervised felt that ASSET and the wider project had
a positive impact on their lives.
Although 43% of the participants were reconvicted within a year of frst contact
with ASSET during its frst year of operation, this compared favorably with the
number for those who were referred to ASSET but did not attend (56% were
reconvicted within a year). Additionally, participants who were reconvicted were
slower to reofend (151 days) when compared to nonattendees (132 days).
Springboard
Probation staf were initially skeptical. However, over time they came to value the
program’s work and praised the commitment of Springboard’s staf. Interestingly,
Springboard’s staf was most appreciated for its help with housing. (Surrey
is an especially afuent part of the United Kingdom and, as such, afordable
housing is scarce and in high demand.) Tis suggests merit in a holistic approach
France has used similar schemes. Te programs are run by Foundation Emmaus,
which was created by Abbé Pierre, a priest who worked to support people who
were homeless in the 1950s.
Some employers in the United Kingdom actively recruit employees from those
serving prison sentences. Possibly the most famous is Timpson, which runs
an extensive network of cobblers and locksmiths. Te Timpson Foundation
has created a series of training academies inside prisons, which train persons
who are incarcerated and give them meaningful work rather than menial tasks.
When these individuals are released, they are fully trained and able to work in
Timpson’s high street shops. Someone from the Timpson Foundation ofen meets
individuals at the prison gates as they are released, then introduces them to their
new work colleagues and provides them with a uniform, lunch, and time to settle
into their new role. Tis scheme also applies to those released on temporary
license, or “day release” — persons who leave prison in the morning, work in one
of Timpson’s shops during the day, and return to prison at the end of the day.
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 149
part in their recoveries, with reductions in ofending and substance use outcomes
noted (Hall, Best, & Musgrove, 2019).
Data from a 12-month follow-up study of participants suggested that there had
been a 94% reduction in recorded ofending rates for the sample as a whole. It
also showed an increase of more than £25,000 of tax and national insurance paid
by sample members; dramatic savings in costs for mental health, primary care,
and emergency services (totaling about £15,000 for the frst 12 months); and
annual savings of approximately £3,000 per person per year in terms of housing
welfare (see Best, Beswick, & Walker, 2016).
A similar idea is the prison-based “homework club,” where children take their
school homework into prison and complete it with their parents who are
incarcerated. Such a scheme is being run in England at HMP Wymott.
In Israel, rehabilitation ranches were run for families with a history of physical
abuse. For example, a parent (who had been convicted of abuse) and one of his
or her children (who had been abused) spend the day at a rural ranch looking
afer either a dog or a horse. When they arrive, they must choose which animal
they will look afer — meaning they have to consider the other’s preferences
(for example, one of them may not like dogs). Tey then spend the day together
looking afer the chosen animal — grooming it, bathing it, feeding it, playing
with it, and walking it. Tis relaxed time spent together focused on the same
cooperative task increases the bond between the parent and child and allows
them to talk about the concept of “caring.”
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 151
the core member recognize the patterns of thought and behavior that could lead
to reofending.
• Growth and learning: Given the appropriate supports, people can grow, learn,
and change their behavior.
• Individuality and respect: Treating people with humanity and respect is a key
part of assisting their rehabilitation.
Although Circles of Support and Accountability have been used for those
convicted of sexual ofenses, they may potentially be extended to include people
convicted of other ofenses.
OPK was formed following a request from the leaders of one of Winnipeg’s
better-known street gangs. Its members were in their 20s and had young
children. Tey were tired of contact with the police and of being imprisoned, and
they were looking to lead more “legitimate” lives.
Decertifcation Programs
Judicial Rehabilitation
In France, criminal records are organized and structured so that they do not
hinder access to employment. Tey are stratifed into three groups called
“Bulletins.” Te highest two tiers are accessible only to the courts and other
public services. Te third (and lowest) tier is made public. A potential employer
might ask prospective employees to provide a copy of the third tier (Bulletin
3), although employers seldom ask for it in practice. However, unlike Bulletin 1
and Bulletin 2, Bulletin 3 contains very little information. For example, prison
sentences of up to two years — which are the vast majority of custodial sentences
in France — are not mentioned in Bulletin 3.
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 153
Furthermore, old court fles are destroyed afer a certain period of time (Herzog-
Evans, 2011). Tis means that previous convictions cannot be used in some
sentencing decisions or to bar people from certain forms of employment. Tose
who are convicted can ask the courts not to formally record the conviction,
which again allows greater chances of employment. Courts can also agree with
the individual that achieving some form of behavioral change will signify his or
her “redemption.”
Maruna (2011, p. 111) described the possibilities of these approaches for the
United States. Maruna wrote that a “certifcate of rehabilitation”
Maruna (2011, p. 112) also referred to a “roll of honour,” whereby the records of
persons who were formerly incarcerated would include information about the
extent to which they broke institutional rules or were rewarded for good behavior
and estimate how likely they are to remain out of trouble. Such approaches have
much in common with Clean Slate Acts that some U.S. states have passed in the
last few years.
1
The flm, which includes an interview with former NIJ Director John Laub, is available at https://www.iriss.org.uk/
resources/videos/road-crime.
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 155
8. Redraft the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act
In England and Wales, the Rehabilitation of Ofenders Act sets the types of
previous convictions that one must disclose when applying for employment
and the length of time for which one has to disclose these convictions. When
convictions reach the age at which they no longer have to be declared, they
are referred to as being “spent.” Tere was much discussion about allowing
convictions to be spent earlier. Legislation could be enacted so that convictions
earned before a certain age (e.g., before one’s 18th birthday) no longer need to be
declared afer, say, reaching the age of 25.
Some Caveats
It is important not to fall into the trap of thinking that promoting desistance is
the sole responsibility of the criminal justice system. In fact, it might even be
argued that the criminal justice system is poorly positioned to do much about
desistance because so much of what appears to be related to desistance is found
outside its domain (Farrall, 1995). As Österman (2018) noted in her study,
females navigating the route to desistance in Sweden had an easier path out of
crime than those in England, due in no small part to Sweden’s more developed
welfare and social security system. As such, to help ensure desistance is possible,
a country can establish, bolster, or maintain a strong welfare system that supports
all sections of society. Not only will this help people who want to desist, it will
also help those who are best suited to aid in the desistance process, such as
parents, partners, wider family members, and charitable organizations.
Conclusion
It is not always easy to fnd employment — even less so if a person has few
skills, a poor or nonexistent employment record, a criminal conviction, and few
relationships with people who work. In addition to referring some persons on
probation to employment programs, probation services should attempt to create
local jobs for their caseloads. In other words, probation services should provide
sheltered employment through schemes like ASSET and Springboard, discussed
above. Tey could provide employment to suit a range of skills and needs. For
example, a recycling scheme that sells reclaimed goods and goods made from
recycled materials in its own chain of shops would need:
• People to make new goods from old materials or refurbish partially damaged
goods.
Although probation caseloads could not meet all of these skills, they could
meet many of them. Te aim would be to get people to the frst rung of the
employment ladder: a job. A job provides a record of “employability” — with
people who can provide references — and may lead to jobs in other occupations.
Schemes like this ofer work with a caring employer (the probation service) that
is committed to a notion of social justice and understands the problems facing
those on probation, such as needing time of to attend court and probation
appointments. As such, they may better secure “good” employment for persons
on probation. Probation services could also partner with local employers, who
would employ suitable members of the probation services’ caseloads. All parties
must accept that these individuals would require additional support and short
periods of time of for probation supervision.
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 157
Both the desistance literature and some of the interventions discussed
above (e.g., Jobs, Friends, and Houses) emphasize the need for good, secure
accommodation for people who want to desist and for those who have desisted.
Tere is also a great need for supported housing where rents are afordable,
services are available to assist with building maintenance, and there is no danger
of being evicted except in the most serious cases.
To both kick-start the desire to desist (if it is absent) and maintain this desire in
the face of setbacks, an individual must identify a hook for change — something
that will motivate their eforts to desist. Tese are (at least initially) likely to be
quite mundane — for example, regaining or rebuilding a relationship or getting
away from the local area. Tis does not make them any less important, however.
Criminal justice systems must learn how to identify these hooks — and help
individuals identify them for themselves too — and then learn how to support
these desires. To do so, criminal justice systems will need to change their current
approaches and thinking (their system philosophy). Tey must move away from
the current model of “fxing broken people’’ to one that more readily embraces
the idea that those who want to desist:
• Have strengths that can be harnessed (while admitting that there are
weaknesses that need to be avoided). Tis implies a change to assessment
procedures.
• Need to be treated individually (at least some of the time) and given
opportunities (rather than threats or punishments) to which they will want to
respond positively.
• Will face setbacks and relapses during their journeys away from crime.
Realism rather than idealism is the watchword here.
• Will fnd informal, rather than formal, interventions most valuable and
meaningful. For example, probation staf could hold meetings with both the
person on probation and people who are important to them.
• Do better when they are kept out of prison or sent to prison only briefy
(whenever possible).
• Will do better when the criminal justice system (where appropriate) supports
their relationships.
Tis paper provided suggestions on how colleagues working in the United States
could develop these ideals into workable policies and practices. It is clear that
while there are some useful pointers for what can be undertaken, it also remains
the case that these interventions need both careful thought and a change in other
aspects of the criminal justice systems in all countries in order to transform their
basic philosophies from those of suspicion to those of hope.
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Pathways to Desistance
From Crime Among
Juveniles and Adults:
Applications to Criminal
Justice Policy and Practice
Lila Kazemian, Ph.D.
Introduction
T
he association between age and crime is one of the most established
facts he association between age and crime is one of the most established
facts in the feld of criminology. It is generally agreed that aggregate
crime rates peak in late adolescence/early adulthood (ages 18-21) and gradually
drop thereafer. Although most adults who engage in criminal behavior also
ofended during adolescence, most juveniles who commit crime do not persist
in adulthood (Robins, 1978; Sampson & Laub, 1993). Tis is true even among
those who engage in more serious forms of crime (Mulvey, 2011). In other words,
desistance from crime tends to be normative in adolescence.
In this regard, the age-crime curve creates a paradox. Individuals are more
susceptible to crime in late adolescence and early adulthood, but they are also
more likely to abandon criminal behavior afer this period. As such, some of the
more punitive criminal justice interventions targeting adolescents and emerging
Decisions to give up crime may involve several relapses and reversals of decisions
before reaching the fnal point of giving up crime permanently. It is important to
distinguish three related concepts in the study of the abandonment of criminal
behavior: recidivism, termination, and desistance. Recidivism refers to the
act of repeat ofending. It is a discrete event, measured by the commission of
a new crime, and it is ofen the main outcome used to assess the efectiveness
of criminal justice interventions. Termination refers to the point at which an
individual commits his or her last crime. Unlike termination and recidivism,
desistance from crime is regarded as a process rather than an event. It is broadly
defned as the process involving a series of cognitive, social, and behavioral
changes leading up to the cessation of criminal behavior (Kazemian, 2015a). By
highlighting the importance of tracking both positive and negative changes in
individuals’ lives, the desistance paradigm ofers valuable insight for juvenile and
criminal justice interventions.
1
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/tables/table-38.
Age of onset refers to a person’s age at the time of the frst ofense. An early onset
of ofending (i.e., 10-12 years old) is associated with longer and more active
criminal careers when compared with a later start (Farrington & Hawkins,
1991; Le Blanc & Fréchette, 1989; Loeber & Le Blanc, 1990; Loeber et al.,
2008). Delaying onset can afect the length and intensity of the criminal career
(Farrington et al., 1990). Tere are two main explanations for the link between
age of onset and persistence in crime: It can be a result of underlying time-
stable individual traits (i.e., the persistent heterogeneity argument) or it can be
due to the criminogenic efect of past ofending on future crime (i.e., the state
dependence perspective) (Nagin & Farrington, 1992).
2
A criminal career is defned as the “longitudinal sequence of offenses committed by an offender who has a
detectable rate of offending during some period” (Blumstein, Cohen, & Farrington, 1988, p. 2). A criminal career
can be short or extend over many years, and include several crimes or as few as two offenses. The term “career”
should not be taken in the sociological sense; it is not meant to imply that individuals who engage in crime derive
their livelihood exclusively or even predominantly from crime (Farrington et al., 1990).
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 165
a higher rate well past the peak of the age-crime curve (Blumstein, Cohen, &
Hsieh, 1982; Kazemian & Farrington, 2006, 2018).
Escalation refers to the increase in ofending severity over time. Tere is some
evidence of an increased risk of violent ofending between late adolescence
and emerging adulthood (Farrington, 2001; Le Blanc & Fréchette, 1989). Te
degree of continuity in violence between adolescence and adulthood has greatly
varied across research samples. Because individuals who commit crime tend to
be versatile, the types of ofenses committed in adolescence are not necessarily
predictive of adult ofending. Rosenfeld, White, and Esbensen (2012) noted
that even serious forms of violence generally follow the typical age-crime trend.
Homicide tends to be a one-time occurrence, and thus individuals engaging in
these ofenses are not generally at risk for persistence (barring exceptional types,
such as individuals who commit serial or mass murders).
Te duration of a criminal career refers to the time interval between the frst and
last crimes. Duration has been estimated to be between four and 12 years for
most individuals (for a review, see Kazemian & Farrington, 2006) and 16 years
(on average) with extended follow-ups (to age 56) (Kazemian & Farrington,
2018). Tese fgures should be interpreted with two caveats in mind: Tey have
largely relied on ofcial data (arrests or convictions), and the duration estimates
do not consider the nature of the repeat ofenses. For instance, Kazemian and
Farrington (2018) noted that most convicted ofenses (nearly 80%) consisted of
nonviolent crimes.
3
This section draws heavily from Kazemian (2020).
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 167
crime. Relationships with parents, schools, and peers are more infuential
in adolescence, whereas marriage and employment gain importance in the
transition to adulthood (Sampson & Laub, 1993).
Several decades of research have highlighted the strong link between marriage
and desistance from crime (Bersani, Laub, & Nieuwbeerta, 2009; Doherty &
Ensminger, 2013; Farrington & West, 1995; Horney, Osgood, & Marshall, 1995;
Sampson & Laub, 1993, 2003), but the timing and quality of marriage are also
important (Teobald & Farrington, 2009; Laub, Nagin, & Sampson, 1998). Laub
and Sampson (2003) summarized the key processes involved in the efect of
marriage on desistance from crime: reduced deviant peer associations, exposure
to new friends and extended family, changes in routine activities, residential
changes, parenthood, and shifs in self-identity. Similarly, cohabitation has also
been linked to reductions in criminal behavior, and some research has noted a
cumulative efect of parenthood and union formation on desistance from crime
(Savolainen, 2009).
Other social institutions, such as employment and religion, have been linked
to the desistance process. Employment has been identifed as a correlate of
desistance from crime, but it may be more efective during specifc periods of the
life-course (Morizot & Le Blanc, 2007; Uggen, 2000). Te link between religion
and desistance has been inconsistent (Boufard & Jin, 2019), but some research
suggests that religion and spirituality may promote desistance from crime by
their infuence on morality (Pirutinsky, 2014) or by stimulating a shif in identity
(Giordano et al., 2008).
Anderson and McNeill (2019) detailed the cognitive skills that are central
to the desistance process. Tese include efective decision-making, human
agency, emotional regulation, executive functioning, and the ability to resist
temptations (i.e., self-control). Self-control was long regarded as a stable
individual trait (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990), but researchers have underlined
the dynamic nature of self-control (Na & Paternoster, 2012) and the individual
strategies developed to cope when it is defcient (Shapland & Bottoms, 2011).
Unsurprisingly, substance use is likely to impede the desistance process since it
afects a person’s ability to think rationally (White et al., 2002). Drug and alcohol
use can be particularly disruptive to young adult development (Hussong et al.,
2004).
4
For an extensive review of cognitive transformations linked to desistance, see Anderson and McNeill (2019).
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 169
change, exposure to prosocial experiences that will further promote desistance
(e.g., employment, marriage), adherence to a new prosocial and noncriminal
identity, and a shif in the perception of the criminal lifestyle (i.e., the negative
consequences of ofending become obvious to the individual).
In short, debates about the superiority of one theoretical framework over another
may not be fruitful. Diferent theoretical explanations may have relevance for
diferent individuals. Te underlying mechanisms triggered by life events and
the meaning granted to life experiences, which can vary a great deal across
individuals, are central to the explanation of desistance from crime. Importantly
for criminal justice policy and practice, eforts to make long-term predictions
about desistance have not yielded impressive results (Kazemian, 2015b).
Desistance is likely to occur as a result of various turning points and cognitive
shifs that occur throughout the life-course, rather than being determined by
early risk factors. Tis is good news for interventions that can potentially deviate
ofending trajectories and accelerate the process of desistance from crime.
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 171
people to thrive when they experience positive relationships and meaningful
activities in supportive and safe environments” (Butts, Pelletier, & Kazemian,
2018, p. 1). Tis paradigm involves tracking not only recidivism, but also
various positive outcomes that can foster the process of desistance from crime,
such as healthier relationships with adults and peers, academic or vocational
engagement, improved self-esteem, confict resolution, stress management,
empathy, and compassion.
Butts and colleagues (2018) summarized the key features of several programs
and models that are consistent with the positive youth development paradigm.
Tese include Developmental Assets (Search Institute of Minneapolis), the 5 Cs
model of youth development (Tufs University), the Youth Program Quality
Assessment Model (David Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality), the
Positive Youth Justice Model, and Youth Trive (Center for the Study of Social
Policy). Tese interventions look beyond recidivism and track positive changes,
shif the focus from defcits to strengths, and promote approaches that seek to
connect adolescents with positive resources that can help them make progress in
the desistance process.
Some of the most efective interventions for adolescents have acknowledged that
(1) family support is key to stimulating positive change and (2) success is more
likely when it draws on support from various resources in the youth’s life. For
instance, models such as Functional Family Terapy (FFT) and Multisystemic
Terapy (MST) have been shown to reduce juvenile ofending and “induce
adolescent desistance” (Rocque, 2017, p. 203; Welsh et al., 2012). FFT has been
successfully implemented in at least 24 states, and MST has been successfully
implemented in at least 34 states (Elliott et al., 2020).
With regard to gang prevention programs, some interventions may afect gang
membership but they may not necessarily reduce ofending behavior (Esbensen
et al., 2013). For instance, the Gang Resistance Education And Training
(G.R.E.A.T) program — one of the largest scale gang prevention initiatives in
the country — is a school-based prevention program that includes a curriculum
led by police ofcers in middle schools. An early evaluation of the G.R.E.A.T.
program did not fnd any signifcant long-term efects on gang membership or
delinquency. Changes were implemented to improve the G.R.E.A.T curriculum
(Esbensen et al., 2002). In its revised version, the program resulted in short-term
reductions in gang involvement and improved relationships between youth and
the police, but it did not reduce delinquency. Although G.R.E.A.T. and other
gang prevention programs (see Wong et al., 2016) may not have successfully
reduced ofending, they nonetheless tackle some of the risk factors linked to
criminal behavior, which may ultimately foster the process of desistance from
crime. Gang membership is likely to end before the peak of the age-crime curve
(White, Loeber, & Farrington, 2008), which highlights the ephemeral nature
of adolescent gangs (Tornberry et al., 2003). Aggressive strategies that aim to
dismantle the gang may have the unintended consequence of crystallizing gang
Among adolescents and adults alike, evidence suggests that punitive responses
may not be efective in reducing reofending and that the efects of punishment
may spill over to the broader community. School suspensions and expulsions can
signifcantly increase the likelihood of subsequent criminal justice involvement
(Ramey, 2016; Mowen & Brent, 2016). Although some evidence suggests that we
may have downplayed the role of selection bias in the association between school
discipline and academic outcomes (Anderson, Ritter, & Zamarro, 2019), punitive
school climates (characterized by high rates of suspensions) have been found
to adversely afect school performance, even among those who are not subject
to the disciplinary action (Perry & Morris, 2014).5 Because punitive climates
may be detrimental to all members of a community, alternative strategies such
as restorative approaches should be considered to address behavioral problems,
when appropriate. Te fndings for restorative justice initiatives in juvenile justice
appear to be promising, but more rigorous evaluations are needed before we can
draw any frm conclusions (Wilson, Olaghere, & Kimbrell, 2017). During periods
of rising crime rates, pressing public safety concerns may compel us to focus on
evidence-based practices rather than invest resources in interventions that have
not been subject to thorough evaluations. Given that juvenile arrest rates have
been declining since the late 1990s and reached a new low in 2019 (Ofce of
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2020), this may be an opportune
time to implement and evaluate innovative practices and interventions that may
promote the process of desistance from crime among adolescents and young
adults.
5
Conversely, a disruptive environment may adversely affect schoolwide achievement (Kinsler, 2013), which
suggests that disciplinary actions may counter the negative effects of more extreme forms of disruptive
behaviors.
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 173
and anxiety disorders) (Sugie & Turney, 2017). Contact with law enforcement
may disrupt the desistance process by excluding access to key social institutions
(e.g., job market, educational opportunities, housing, family ties) as a direct
consequence of the label.
Drawing on four waves of longitudinal data involving more than 2,000 middle
school students who were matched on their propensity to experience police
contact or arrest, Wiley and colleagues (2013) found that young people who
were arrested by the police reported higher rates of subsequent delinquency
when compared to those who were only stopped. Similar results were observed
for those who were stopped versus those who had no police contact. Police
contacts resulted in the development of a “deviant identity” as well as increased
associations with peers who engage in delinquency, which are well-established
barriers to desistance from crime. A Chicago study using matched samples
found similar results: Self-reported violent ofending was signifcantly higher
among youth who had been arrested when compared with those who did not
experience arrest (Liberman, Kirk, & Kim, 2014). Tese fndings suggest that
law enforcement practices that involve a high rate of stops (e.g., stop, question,
and frisk) and few actual apprehensions may be detrimental to the process of
desistance among young people.
Law enforcement strategies that ofer promising insight for desistance eforts
involve active partnerships with the individuals who engage in ofending and
other agents of the criminal justice system, and tackle perceptions of legitimacy
and procedural justice. Rooted in problem-oriented policing, the focused-
deterrence model emerged from the Operation Ceasefre initiative in Boston in
the 1990s (Kennedy, Piehl, & Braga, 1996). Te focused-deterrence approach
to policing (also referred to as “pulling levers policing”) (Kennedy, 1997)
involves collaborative eforts between law enforcement, community leaders and
organizations, and social services agencies to inform individuals engaging in
specifc crimes that these behaviors would not be tolerated in the community.
If individuals persist in the ofenses of concern, law enforcement then resorts
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 175
Overall, the fndings presented here suggest that policing initiatives that combine
elements of focused deterrence and legitimacy show great promise for the
development of desistance-promoting law enforcement strategies. Rather than
relying solely on coercion tactics, these interventions regard individuals as active
agents in their process of change. Providing individuals with an opportunity to
move away from crime does not ensure that they will rise to the occasion, but
permanent change is more likely when it is chosen rather than imposed.
Some evidence has suggested that restorative strategies in law enforcement can
help prevent repeat ofending and foster the process of desistance from crime
(Sherman & Strang, 2007). Restorative policing involves meetings between
individuals who have been accused or convicted of crime and those who have
been afected by the ofense; these initiatives are led by law enforcement ofcers
and seek to achieve some level of reconciliation. Te 12 experiments examined
by Sherman and Strang (2007) — conducted in the United States, the United
Kingdom, and Australia — generally found that reconvictions were less common
among individuals who had been randomly assigned to restorative justice
interventions versus those who were not; this was true for both adults and
juveniles.
Evidence from the Netherlands and Australia has suggested that alternatives
to incarceration — including community service and suspended sentences —
may be more efective in preventing reofending when compared with short
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 177
prison sentences (Weatherburn, 2010; Wermink et al., 2010). Similar results
were observed in the United States. Using matched samples, Mears, Cochran,
and Bales (2012) concluded that prison sentences are more likely to result
in increased ofending behavior when compared with probation. Overall,
imprisonment yields higher post-release reofending rates when compared
with community sanctions (Bales & Piquero, 2012). It is possible to reduce
our reliance on confnement without compromising public safety; New York,
New Jersey, and California have succeeded in simultaneously reducing their
incarceration and crime rates (Greene & Schiraldi, 2016).
Pfaf (2017) dispelled some of the myths underlying the rise of mass
incarceration in the United States. He argued that the exponential increase
in the recourse to imprisonment was not due to the war on drugs or even the
imposition of longer prison sentences. According to Pfaf, the steady increase in
the number of prosecutors in the United States and their growing discretionary
power were the main drivers of increased incarceration rates. Prosecutors have
a great deal of discretionary power in determining whether to charge or dismiss
a case, the severity of the charges, the conditions of a plea bargain, and an
individual’s trajectory in the criminal justice system. Te number of prosecutors
nearly doubled between 1970 and 2007, from 17,000 to 30,000. Tis increase
was particularly signifcant afer 1990. Despite declining crime rates, this period
was marked by a rise in felony charges. Pfaf noted that the vast majority (about
95%) of criminal cases are resolved by plea bargains, which may fuel recidivism
if these cases result in more recourse to incarceration. He suggested that it may
be wiser for mayors and local ofcials to appoint prosecutors and judges, which
may make them less sensitive to public opinion than if they are elected. Pfaf also
highlighted the importance of changing district attorney culture.
Tere are some promising initiatives in prosecution. For instance, Fair and Just
Prosecution “brings together newly elected local prosecutors as part of a network
of leaders committed to promoting a justice system grounded in fairness,
equity, compassion, and fscal responsibility.”6 Tis network aims to shif the
traditional prosecutor culture by educating newly elected prosecutors, creating
partnerships with academic institutions and other organizations, moving
6
https://fairandjustprosecution.org/about-fjp/our-work-and-vision/.
Fair and Just Prosecution (2019) provided examples of policies adapted to young
adults. For instance, New York, Washington, D.C., Michigan, and Alabama
enacted laws that enable courts to deviate from mandatory sentences for
young adults and resort to expungement for past convictions. Lastly, Fair and
Just Prosecution ofered several examples of jurisdictions that have developed
alternatives to prosecution and incarceration for emerging adults, including
Common Justice in New York, Roca in Massachusetts, and Lone Star Justice
Alliance in Texas.7
7
For an overview of innovative perspectives on prosecution, see LaGratta (2020).
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 179
The Consideration of Age in Prosecution
Te United States Supreme Court has acknowledged the reduced culpability
of adolescents in three landmark cases: Roper v. Simmons, Graham v. Florida,
and Miller v. Alabama, which banned the death penalty and life imprisonment
without the possibility of parole for juveniles, regardless of the nature of
the crime. Danielle Boisvert’s paper (2021) highlighted some of the reasons
underlying the Supreme Court’s decision: immaturity, reduced capacity for
impulse control, and a limited sense of responsibility.
In recent years, many state jurisdictions have ceased processing 16- and 17-year-
old youth in adult criminal courts. Vermont was the frst state to raise the age of
criminal responsibility in 2018. Te state now includes 18-year-olds in its juvenile
justice system and, efective in 2022, it will also include 19-year-olds. Similar
reform discussions are occurring in Massachusetts and California.9 Tis is
certainly a good starting point, but it does not correspond to the developmental
transition ages identifed by researchers. Young adult courts focusing specifcally
on 18- to 24-year-olds may ofer an alternative to the adult criminal justice
system. Tese courts would ideally work with adolescent development experts
to develop case plans that focus on fostering desistance from crime, successful
reintegration, and “developmentally appropriate alternatives to incarceration”
8
The proceedings from these meetings were published in an edited volume (Loeber & Farrington, 2012).
9
https://thecrimereport.org/2020/05/18/ma-ca-next-states-to-consider-raise-the-age/.
Desistance-Promoting Supervision
We fnd ourselves not only in an era of mass incarceration, but also of mass
supervision (Phelps, 2017; McNeill, 2019). Te Pew Charitable Trusts (2018)
reported that 1 in 55 Americans fnd themselves on community supervision; this
rate is as high as 1 in 23 for the Black population, in contrast to 1 in 81 for whites.
More intensive forms of probation supervision have not been found to reduce
reofending (Hyatt & Barnes, 2017). Stephen Farrall’s paper (2021) highlighted
the elements of efective probation supervision and they will not be repeated
here. A few points, however, are worth reiterating.
Tese data suggest that our current supervision system may be well equipped
to detect recidivism, even in its most minor form, but may not be conducive to
desistance from crime. Supervision violations may afect other factors that are
linked to recidivism, such as access to public assistance programs (e.g., public
housing, food stamps). Many of the obstacles underlying supervision violations
— poverty, addiction, mental illness, and racial and ethnic bias — are difcult
to overcome even if individuals exhibit an extraordinary level of motivation to
turn their lives around. It may be that probation and parole ofcers use technical
violations to justify revocation when criminal behavior is suspected but difcult
to prove. We do not have any large-scale data available to explore this question.
Ofcers may difer in their supervision styles. A Dutch study identifed the
practices of “highly engaged parole ofcers” (Doekhie et al., 2018). Parole
experiences that were predominantly surveillance-focused were not deemed
to be particularly helpful for desistance eforts. In contrast, the rehabilitation-
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 181
focused approach appeared to be more efective in promoting desistance from
crime. Te parole experience was most conducive to desistance when those on
parole regarded parole ofcers as supporters rather than mere enforcers, when
the ofcers could acknowledge the “trial-and-error nature of the desistance
process” (p. 502) and did not automatically revoke parole as a result of a violation
of the conditions of release. Te quality of the relationship with the parole
ofcer plays an important role in the desistance and reintegration processes of
individuals with a history of incarceration; it is also predictive of recidivism
(Chamberlain et al., 2018). In the “assisted desistance” model, probation and
parole ofcers provide reinforcement and encouragement when necessary,
but they allow individuals to exercise agency in their own process of change.10
Imposed change is unlikely to yield long-term results, but practitioners can
certainly help plant the seeds for positive change.
Doekhie and colleagues’ (2018) research, and many other studies conducted in
Europe, inevitably raise the question of whether such supervision practices are
possible in the United States, where the incarceration rate is about seven times
higher than in European countries. For the rehabilitation-focused approach to be
a viable option in the American context, we need to: (1) decrease the workload of
parole ofcers by reducing our reliance on incarceration, cutting the number of
people under correctional control, and shifing resources from control strategies
to parole and reentry initiatives that support rehabilitation and reintegration,
including the possibility of training more parole ofcers; and (2) follow the lead
of other countries and ofer social work training to parole ofcers so that they
may be better equipped to support individuals in their eforts to give up crime.
10
For a review on the topic of assisted desistance, see Villeneuve, F.-Dufour, & Farrall (2021).
11
See the example of New York City, https://www1.nyc.gov/site/probation/services/youth-thrive.page.
We know relatively little about the individual, behavioral, and social changes
that occur over the course of a prison sentence. Research and theorizing on
the desistance process during periods of confnement have been especially
limited (Kazemian & Travis, 2015). A prison sentence can promote desistance
if individuals can fnd meaning to their lives and discover ways to make
constructive use of their time while in confnement (Kazemian, 2020; Schinkel,
2014). Tere are some qualitative accounts of positive transformations and
desistance from crime in prison (Kazemian, 2020), but these changes have not
been captured in large-scale quantitative research. Although few studies with
strong methodological designs have assessed the impact of incarceration on
desistance from crime, the existing evidence suggests that in the aggregate,
12
https://www.exitprobationparole.org/statement.
13
https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/incarcerated-women-and-girls/.
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 183
our prisons in their current form do little to reduce recidivism and promote
desistance (Nagin, Cullen, & Jonson, 2009; Mitchell et al., 2017). Te
imprisonment-recidivism link appears to be particularly pronounced for men
(Mitchell et al., 2017). Prison impedes desistance from crime by: (1) harming
ties to key social institutions, (2) neglecting the mental health needs and trauma
histories of individuals who are incarcerated, (3) disproportionately focusing
on rule violations and failing to track and reward progress, and (4) creating
an environment that may be incompatible with the outside world. Tese
observations bear relevance for both juvenile and adult incarceration.
First, prison impairs ties to social institutions, such as family, employment, and
education (National Research Council, 2014). Individuals who are incarcerated
and wish to maintain contact with their family members face a wide array of
barriers (Braman, 2004; Comfort, 2008; Christian, 2005). Incarceration increases
the risk of separation (Turney & Wildeman, 2013). Men who are married when
entering prison are more likely to separate from their partners when compared
with the general population, and those who are unmarried are less likely to get
married later in life (Western, 2006). Imprisonment reduces the likelihood of
employment afer release, even among those who serve short prison sentences
(Apel & Sweeten, 2010; Bäckman, Estrada, & Nilsson, 2018).
Fourth, prison adaptation creates many incongruences with the outside world.
Prison interventions should be designed to ease the transition to the community
afer release. Temporary releases from prison provide an opportunity to bridge
this gap; these programs have been linked to a reduced likelihood of post-
release unemployment and a lower rate of return to prison (Helmus & Ternes,
2017). Individualized sentence planning (i.e., a sentence plan that is tailored
to the individual’s needs) should ideally begin during the initial phase of the
sentence and draw on principles of the strengths-based approach. Te view that
preparation for release is not relevant during the early stages of a prison sentence
is out of date and inconsistent with what we know about the process of desistance
from crime.
Individuals may adopt strategies that are well adapted for survival in prison,
but that may be unsuitable for life on the outside (Jamieson & Grounds, 2005;
Kazemian & Travis, 2015; Kazemian, 2020). Tese coping strategies may
include a loss of empathy for others, self-isolation, emotional suppression,
becoming “hardened and emotionless,” heightened feelings of mistrust toward
others, learning to be “hateful,” and a progressive detachment from the outside
world (Kazemian, 2020). To promote desistance from crime and successful
reintegration, our prisons need to be more compatible with the outside world.
One thing is clear: Our prison system, in its current form, makes it extremely
difcult for individuals to thrive during and afer periods of incarceration.
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 185
that “research has as yet not resolved the critical issues of what works for whom,
when, why, and under what circumstances” (p. 197). For instance, prison
education programs may have diferential efects on post-release employment
and recidivism outcomes depending on the level of education attained (i.e., high
school or GED versus post-secondary degree) (Duwe & Clark, 2014). We still
know little about how to adapt desistance-promoting interventions to the prison
setting; research and systematic evaluations are lacking in this area. It is also
crucial to better understand whether program participation constitutes a signal
of desistance (Byrne, 2020).
Few studies have investigated the impact of quality of life in prison on recidivism
and desistance from crime. One study found that disciplinary segregation afects
employment and recidivism outcomes afer release (Wildeman & Andersen,
2020). Some research has underscored the features of the architectural design of
prisons that may be conducive to more efective rehabilitation services and that
may “inspire prisoners and motivate them to lead better lives” (Jewkes, 2018, p.
329; see also St. John et al., 2019). Tese are key areas for exploration as we work
on reimagining our prison system.
14
This section draws on Kazemian and Walker’s (2019) review.
Some surveys have suggested that approximately 40% of employers would not
hire an individual with a criminal record (Holzer, Raphael, & Stoll, 2007; Pager,
2007). Policies that restrict access to employment are particularly detrimental to
the desistance process because integration to the job market is vital to fulfll basic
fnancial needs. Employment discrimination is heavily skewed toward minorities.
In the context of employment, Pager (2003) found that the likelihood of securing
employment was lower among Black males without a criminal record (14%)
than among white males with a criminal record (17%). White males without a
criminal record were most likely to be called back by employers (30% of cases),
whereas Black males with a criminal record were least likely to be called back
(5% of cases).
Not all criminal records are equal. Criminal histories have a diminished ability
to accurately predict ofending behavior over time, and the mere existence of
a criminal record is not sufcient to predict the risk of reofending. Tis bears
relevance for various social policies — including housing and employment
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 187
decisions — that rely on criminal records searches to assess risk. Two features of
a criminal history are noteworthy.
First, the amount of time elapsed since the last ofense is an important feature
of criminal histories. Tere is no compelling empirical evidence to suggest that
old criminal records are predictive of future ofending. Kurlychek and colleagues
(2006, 2007) estimated that the future arrest risk of individuals who remain
arrest-free for approximately seven years becomes nearly indistinguishable from
that of individuals with no criminal record. Researchers agree on this point:
Te longer the time interval since the last crime, the less likely it becomes that
the individual will engage in crime in the future (Blumstein & Nakamura, 2009;
Kazemian & Farrington, 2006, 2018). Lifetime bans against individuals with a
criminal record have no empirical basis.
Second, the degree of involvement in crime (i.e., the total number of crimes
committed) is also an important factor in the assessment of risk. Combined with
recency, a higher frequency of past crimes is more likely to indicate a pattern
of persistent ofending (Moftt, 1993; Piquero, Farrington, & Blumstein, 2003).
Individuals who ofended only once pose a reduced risk of reofending when
compared with individuals who have committed a higher number of crimes in
the past (Zara & Farrington, 2016). Hester (2019, p. 370) concluded that “if prior
record is being used in some part as an indicator of recidivism risk, then at a
minimum, jurisdictions should validate their criminal history scores and adjust
accordingly.”
Travis (2000, p. 8) ofered a new vision for reintegration in the form of “reentry
courts.” In an ideal world without budgetary constraints, these post-prison courts
would feature “a ‘contract’ drawn up between court and ofender, discretion
on the judge’s part to impose graduated sanctions for various levels of failure
to meet the conditions imposed, [and] the promise of the end of supervision
as an occasion for ceremonial recognition.” Importantly, this model would
provide positive reinforcement in the form of public ceremonies to acknowledge
success. Te National Research Council (2008) noted the implementation
Tere are several promising intervention models that are consistent with a
desistance-promoting reintegration framework. For instance, the Reentry
Partnership Initiative involves collaborative eforts between law enforcement
and correctional agencies. Tis model is based on a problem-solving approach
and entails police involvement at all three phases: the institutional phase, the
structured reentry phase, and the community reintegration phase. Police “visit
ofenders in prison prior to release … and when police interact with ofenders
once they return to the community, it is before, not afer, a problem occurs”
(Byrne & Hummer, 2004, p. 68). Tis approach highlights the benefts of
interagency collaborations in fostering desistance from crime, both for juvenile
and adult reentry eforts (Watson, 2004).
Finally, reintegration can be most efective when it draws on the strengths and
skillsets of the community that has been directly involved in the criminal justice
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 189
system. Individuals who have successfully transitioned from incarceration to life
on the outside serve as excellent mentors to those who are in the early phases of
reentry. Terapeutic communities and programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous
and Narcotics Anonymous, which are led by credible messengers, ofer valuable
and crucial support to individuals as they face the challenges of returning to
society. Such mentoring initiatives can cultivate desistance eforts and help both
the person providing the help and the person being helped (Riessman, 1965;
Maruna, 2001; LeBel, 2007).
Conclusion
Tis paper summarized the state of knowledge on desistance from crime,
particularly as it pertains to the transition from adolescence to adulthood,
and ofered applications to various areas of criminal justice. Some concluding
observations are ofered below.
Evidence-based programs in juvenile justice are scarce and, among those that
do exist, few have been adopted at the national level (Elliott et al., 2020). Elliott
and colleagues (2020, p. 1320) noted that “it is naive to assume that once a new
innovative program or practice has been demonstrated to be more efective than
existing institutional practice it will be widely disseminated within a year or two,
and within a few more years will be frmly embedded in any institutional system.”
Tis is true not only in juvenile justice but in institutional systems more broadly.
Ultimately, social policy reform takes time, and the impact of our eforts may not
be immediately detectable on a large scale. If rehabilitative interventions have
failed to exert a signifcant impact on recidivism rates, it may be that we have not
yet achieved the type of broad implementation that would be required to see a
change in aggregate reofending rates.
Tere will inevitably be a small proportion of individuals who will defy the
predictions of the age-crime curve and remain active in crime later in life. We
cannot ignore the risk that these individuals pose to public safety, and they
should be assessed on a case-by-case basis. However, it would be unwise to
implement criminal justice policy and practice on the basis of these outlier cases.
Imposing more punishment than what is necessary needlessly delays the process
of desistance from crime for individuals who would have otherwise desisted
naturally.
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 191
Many of the ideas suggested in this paper can be efective only if we reduce the
number of people under correctional control. Some of the desistance-promoting
supervision strategies that have been embraced in Europe cannot be realistically
adopted in the United States if parole and probation ofcers continue to be
responsible for an exceedingly high workload. We need to reassess the extent
to which we punish all individuals who ofend, even those who have engaged
in violent crimes; they represent more than half of those incarcerated in state
prisons (Carson, 2020). Mauer (2015) called for a 20-year cap on federal prison
sentences, with provisions to extend these sentences in exceptional cases. Tis
is a laudable suggestion, but given that incarceration rates are mostly driven
by state-level criminal justice policies, states need to be at the helm of criminal
justice reform.
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Appendix 1: Concepts of the Developmental Perspective in
Criminology
Concept Description
Descriptive Parameters
Prevalence/ Proportion of individuals in a population or
Participation sample who committed one or more crimes; can be
current (e.g., one year) or cumulative (i.e., lifetime
prevalence)
Frequency/Lambda Number of crimes committed by an individual
within a given time period; can be annual or
cumulative (i.e., the entire criminal career)
Crime mix Number of individuals who have committed each of
the diferent categories of crimes considered
Seriousness Can be determined based on legal classifcations
(e.g., misdemeanor vs. felony) or by ratings of
severity by experts or the population
Variety Number of categories of crimes committed by an
individual
Temporal Boundary
Age at onset Age at which an individual commits his or her frst
crime
Age at termination Age at which an individual commits his or her last
crime
Duration Time interval between the frst and the last crime
Transfer Transfer from one type of criminal activity to
another or from juvenile delinquency to adult
criminality
Dynamic Mechanisms
Activation Process by which the development of criminal
activities is initiated and stimulated
Acceleration Increase in frequency over time
Diversifcation Increase in variety over time
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 213
About the Authors
Danielle Boisvert
Danielle Boisvert, Ph.D., is a professor and the senior associate dean in the
College of Criminal Justice at Sam Houston State University. She obtained her
Ph.D. in criminal justice from the University of Cincinnati, her master’s degree
in forensic sciences from the George Washington University, and her bachelor
of science degree in biology from the University of Western Ontario. Her key
research interests include life-course/developmental criminology, biosocial
criminology, and behavioral genetics. Dr. Boisvert is part of a cross-disciplinary
working group with faculty and students from various departments (e.g.,
psychology, biology, forensic science) and universities to study the genetic and
environmental infuences on a variety of delinquent and criminal behaviors. She
has published over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and her work has appeared
in various scientifc outlets.
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 215
Stephen Farrall
Stephen Farrall is a professor and research chair in criminology at the University
of Derby, England. He is known for his research into why people stop ofending
(as well as the fear of crime and politics and crime). His most recent publication
is “Politics, Social and Economic Change and Crime: Exploring the Impact of
Contextual Efects on Ofending Trajectories,” with Emily Gray and Phil Jones,
in Politics and Society. His recent book, Respectable Citizens — Shady Practices,
with Susanne Karstedt, won the American Society of Criminology’s White Collar
and Corporate Crime Division’s 2020 book award. He is one of the editors of
the British Journal of Criminology and will serve on the award committee for
the American Society of Criminology’s Sellin-Glueck Award in 2022. Also in
2022, the second edition of his frst book on desistance, Rethinking What Works
With Ofenders: Probation, Social Context and Desistance From Crime, will be
published with critical commentaries from leading experts on desistance from
crime.
Lila Kazemian
Lila Kazemian, Ph.D., is a professor of criminology at John Jay College of
Criminal Justice in New York. She is a graduate of Université de Montréal in
Canada, and she earned her Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge’s Institute of
Criminology. She has published on the topics of desistance from crime, long-
term incarceration, reintegration, life-course and criminal career research, and
comparative criminology. Her recent book, Positive Growth and Redemption in
Prison: Finding Light Behind Bars and Beyond, examines the process of desistance
from crime among individuals who were incarcerated for long periods of time.
Dr. Kazemian has served as an expert in several legal cases involving housing
discrimination against individuals with a criminal record.
Michael Rocque
Michael Rocque, Ph.D., is an associate professor of sociology at Bates College in
Lewiston, Maine. His research interests are life-course criminology, corrections,
and race and justice. He is the author of fve books, including Desistance From
Crime: New Advances in Teory and Research and Great Debates in Criminology,
with Chad Posick.
Marie Garcia
Marie Garcia, Ph.D., the editor of this volume, is a senior social science analyst
in the Ofce of the Director at the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). In this role,
she serves as a senior advisor on matters related to research, evaluation, policy,
and project management. Dr. Garcia’s research portfolios at NIJ have focused on
institutional and community corrections, assessing the efectiveness of reentry
programs, the management of special populations of individuals convicted of
crimes, and risk and needs assessments. In her current position, Dr. Garcia is the
staf lead for NIJ’s implementation of the First Step Act of 2018. Prior to joining
NIJ, Dr. Garcia worked as a mental health counselor at Valley State Prison for
Women in Chowchilla, California. She earned her Ph.D. in criminal justice from
Temple University.
Benjamin Adams
Benjamin Adams, contributing editor of this volume, is a senior advisor in
the Ofce of the Director at the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). Mr. Adams
provides technical guidance on scientifc programs covering a range of crime
and justice issues. His portfolios at NIJ and previously at the Ofce of Juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention have focused on national data collection,
analysis, and dissemination programs and research examining the efectiveness
of interventions and system improvement eforts, with an emphasis on youth
involved in the justice system. Prior to joining the federal government, he
was a senior associate with the Public Safety Performance Project at the Pew
Charitable Trusts and a research associate at the National Center for Juvenile
Justice. Mr. Adams holds a master’s degree in criminology from the University of
Pennsylvania.
Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice • 217
D. Michael Applegarth
D. Michael Applegarth, contributing editor of this volume, is a research assistant
at the National Institute of Justice. He is pursuing his Ph.D. in social welfare
at the University of California Los Angeles, Luskin School of Public Afairs.
He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in social work. Mr. Applegarth’s
scholarly work has included examining the desistance process for individuals
sentenced to life without parole as juveniles, exploring the reentry concerns of
individuals with severe mental illness who are exiting prison, and identifying the
reentry needs of youth with limited justice involvement. His primary areas of
interest include studying the reentry process, examining the needs and barriers
individuals with severe mental illness and justice involvement experience, and
evaluating how the environment and programming of correctional facilities
relate to individuals’ desistance and reentry journeys.
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