Discovering Desistance

This guest post comes from Ann Mapham BA, UED, HDLS, co-author of ‘How 2 Help Johannesburg: A guide to worth while causes’ (2006); MAPP. Ann graduated at UEL the University of East London, Stratford, 2011. The title of the post comes from one of the participants in the research project it discusses.

The study discussed in this post, undertaken from a Positive Psychology perspective, suggests that desistance as described by Maruna, (2001) may be related to post-traumatic growth as described by Tedeschi (2011) and that perhaps the term “Post-traumatic growth” provides a new language for the way we look at desisting offenders.

As far as we are aware post-traumatic growth has not been studied in the offender population before. Our study uses the relatively new term “post-traumatic growth” (PTG). This is defined as “using a traumatic experience as a springboard to achieve a higher level of functioning than existed before the trauma” (Linley and Joseph, 2009). Tedeschi (2011) has found that after experiencing a trauma that shatters their assumptions about life, some people report positive change in five areas: they have a renewed appreciation for life; they find new possibilities for themselves; they feel more personal strength; their relationships improve; and they feel spiritually more satisfied. If desistance is related to posttraumatic growth it raises the possibility that rehabilitation programs that encourage posttraumatic growth could be effective in facilitating desistance.

Further research needs to be undertaken into programs that use both positive psychology interventions and posttraumatic growth methods. It is possible that some programs may be at risk of being rejected by authorities that use the “what works” and the “risks need responsivity” model (Bonta & Andrews, 2007) as a benchmark.

Our study involved 14 offenders who had attended the Silence the Violence (STV) program run in South Africa. They were asked, “What do you remember about the STV program?” and “What was the impact of the program on you?” Their responses suggested that they had experienced PTG as a result of the program. The interviews with the participants in this study were rich in evidence of positive change in all 5 domains. The 5 characteristics of PTG identified by Tedeschi (2011) relate to the characteristics that Maruna (2001) found to be common to desisting offenders. His Liverpool study suggested that there were three things that characterized desisting offenders and distinguished them from offenders who persisted in offending. Desisting offenders develop a new redemptive narrative; they express a desire to make amends and give back to their families and communities; and they experience “agency” – they feel empowered and in control of their lives.

The fact that the participants of the STV program experienced PTG was not surprising considering that it contained the 5 important elements present in Tedeschi’s program to encourage PTG in veterans of war in the USA army. The 5 recommended elements are: • Understanding the seismic nature of a trauma (for example a violent trauma). Silence The Violence tells participants of James Gilligan’s work in New York prisons and his observation that there is always a cycle of violence. Perpetrators have always been victims of violence first. To bring this home, participants see and discuss the cycle of violence in films like Slum Dog Millionaire and Tsotsi. The facilitator also reads poignant poems around the theme of the cycle of violence.

• Constructive self- disclosure – A key and challenging session in the program is sharing a deep secret with the group, a secret that has never been told anyone else before. This session also engages the participants in listening non- judgementally to the stories of the others in the group.

• Emotional regulation enhancement – there are creative drama sessions around anger management. Participants also become sensitive to the 3 levels of violence – verbal, emotional and physical.

• Creating a trauma narrative – a powerful session in the program involves the participants drawing a mask of their violent self. After drawing their mask, participants share with the group how they came to put this violent mask on and they describe the meaning of the colours and details of their mask. Non-judgemental active listening is again required by the members of the group in this session. One of the facilitators commented that participants are always able to recall the specific traumatic event that prompted putting on a (protective) violent mask.

• Developing life principles – the final session of STV is a fun, future focused exercise where participants create a hat out of paper and art materials, which is symbolic of their new liberated, “Real, True Self”. Participants also trace the milestones of the journey they have come along during the STV program and they look to the future and create a vision of the person they hope to be.

A strong therapeutic alliance marked by respect and compassion is essential in order to facilitate PTG according to Tedeschi (2011). This condition was met and all 14 participants referred to Khulisa, the organisation that runs the program, in glowing terms.

In conclusion, psychology has traditionally asked, “What is wrong with people/offenders?” Maruna’s (2001) question, “What does desistence look like?” is in line with the positive psychology/health model approach that seeks answers to more positive questions like “What does flourishing look like?” Please see http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10509674.2012.683239 for the full paper.

There is a link with more details about the film showing:

http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/researchersnight/events/leaving-crime-behind

 

This session is also running as part of the same programme of events, which I thought some might find interesting:

http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/researchersnight/events/voting-prisoners

 

For the whole programme (some of which sounds pretty whacky!) go here:

http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/researchersnight/events/by-subject

 

With best wishes,

 

Steve

This is a guest post from Chantelle Smith from Avon and Somerset Probation Trust. 

While working as a Probation Officer in an Offender Management Team, I have worked with individuals who have moved away from committing crimes and those struggling to make these changes.  Without doubt the most rewarding part of this job has been seeing the changes, no matter how small.  There are so many variables that influence how desistance may progress and as practitioners we must continue to commit to work with people to support changes when they are ready and support access to opportunities.

The increasing interest in desistance research is encouraging as it is putting the focus back onto the people that we work with and their unique experiences and needs.  Instead of “one size fits all” methods, the research demonstrates that approaches and interventions need to be tailored to the individual.

I am involved in an exciting project as the Desistance Development Officer in Avon and Somerset Probation Trust.  The aim of this role is to explore why individuals desist from crime and to explore how to encourage this within the work that we do.  Part of the outcomes of this work will be to reduce re-offending.

A significant aspect of the work will be consultation with service users and staff in establishing what approaches support desistance.  The focus will be on the service users with extensive offending histories who have demonstrated desisting behaviour.  Further consultation will be with staff from all grades within Avon and Somerset Probation Trust, but focusing on those who have face to face contact with the service users.  There will also be detailed interviews exploring the approach of staff who have a caseload with statistically lower re-offending rates than would be expected.  Essentially, I am looking at developing a comprehensive understanding of what is influencing desistance by looking beyond the statistics and exploring personal experiences.

There are a number of plans to use The Road from Crime film in increasing awareness of desistance with service users, staff and others.  This resource can stimulate more interest in this important area and hopefully encourage more openness to supporting integration into the community.

The findings are going to be channelled into our work in Avon and Somerset Probation Trust and will be shared through my blog www.desistanceaspt.blogspot.co.uk and via Twitter @ChantelleSmith

 

All feedback will be very welcome.

We tend to think of and write about confinement in relation to imprisonment these days, but the word also applies to the position of women immediately after the delivery of their babies (at least in some cultures at some times). I’ve never noticed the connection before, but in both pregnancy and imprisonment there is a kind of incubation of a new post-partum life, for better or worse. Jenny Wick’s amazing womb-like photos of criminologists, criminal justice practitioners and prisoners caputre the suspended nature of this ‘hysteresis’ — the pregnant pause while we wait for the future to happen. See if you can spot me:  http://punishingphotography.wordpress.com/2012/08/15/photography-depersonalisation-in-contemporary-society-self-categorisation-theory/

However, that wasn’t what I meant to write about. The confinement in question here is the confined view of ‘evidence-based practice’ about which the Discovering Desistance team have just published a new paper in the US journal Justice Research and Policy. See: http://www.jrsa.org/pubs/journal/index.html  The editors have been kind enough to allow us to re-publish the published version here, which is a bit different from an earlier draft that I blogged about several months ago.

The paper explores the relationships between the purposes of sanctions and different forms of evidence, before going on to ask which evidence counts and whose evidence counts? Many of the arguments we have debated in this blog over the last year make an appearance. I guess you might say that we are urging evidence-based practice to grow beyond an umbilical reliance on too few forms and sources of evidence and too limited an intepretation of them.

If you’d like to read the paper, here it is: McNeill et al Final

Erstwhile Discovering Desistance blogger Reuben Miller from Chicago emailed to alert us to a special edition he guest edited on poverty, incarceration, and neoliberal social welfare policy in the Journal of Poverty (Issue 16:3). The issue is titled “Poverty, Incarceration: Managing the Poor in the Neoliberal Age” and it covers lots of ground (from the making of legal subjects in maternity clinics for the medically indigent to prison siting). There’s even an interview with the legendary Frances Fox Piven. Here’s the link to the Journal (http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/wpov20/current). Sounds worth checking out.

The film will be shown at 8pm in the Richard Roberts Building Auditorium.

As well as the film, there will be a Q&A session afterwards with the following:

Allan Weaver

Charlie Smith

Paula Hamilton

 

Both Allan and Charlie appear in the film, and both now work in criminal justice or drugs counselling. Paula used to work as a probation officer and now lectures at Sheffield Hallam University where she helps to train probation service staff. The session will be chaired by Stephen Farrall. The film showing free – not a word you hear much these days.

A series of maps of Sheffield and the University are available from the following link:

http://www.shef.ac.uk/visitors/mapsandtravel

 

A link to a trailer for the film is available here:

https://vimeo.com/43519157

 

Academic publishers seem to be becoming more and more enlightened about the benefits of open access! Steve and I have just finished a chapter entitled ‘A Moral in the Story? Virtues, Values and Desistance from Crime’ for an edited collection on ‘The Value(s) of Criminology and Community Justice’, edited by Malcolm Cowburn, Marian Duggan, Anne Robinson, Paul Senior (all Sheffield Hallam University). The collection is forthcoming from Policy Press. We’re grateful to the people at Policy Press and to the editors for permission to reproduce some of the chapter in this blog post — and for allowing us to make the the full draft available in our ‘Useful Resources’ page. So, see if this Introduction whets your appetite…

In this chapter, we draw on theories of desistance and research into desistance to argue that ceasing to offend is a process that involves the development of the motivation, capacity and opportunities to live well, in both a moral and a prudential sense. We present an argument that supporting people to desist from crime is likely to require forms and styles of penal practice that model ways of being and becoming ‘good’; and that central to such practice are questions of the legitimacy of criminal justice processes and of the moral performance of practitioners. In developing these arguments, our aim is to contribute to policy and practice debates about how best to configure and deliver key penal institutions and practices, particularly those associated with sentencing and sanctioning. However, since those institutions and practices inevitably reflect and refract their social, political and cultural contexts, the question of how to support the acquisition of virtues in the process of desistance inevitably forces us back to questions about the values, virtues and vices of society itself.

The relationship between virtue and necessity – between the moral and the prudential – has been much debated in moral philosophy. Although some philosophers draw a clear distinction between the two, for example in Immanuel Kant’s insistence that only actions motivated by a sense of duty can be morally praiseworthy, others regard the two concepts as overlapping. Indeed, Aristotle’s account of ethics implies that we cannot truly flourish as human beings unless we live well in the moral sense, so being a good or virtuous person is inevitably good for a person: Virtue is a necessity if we are to live a life that is good for us.

The relationship between necessity and virtue is also frequently discussed in literature. Though the origins of the phrase ‘to make a necessity of virtue’ may be unclear, its most famous use was by Shakespeare in Two Gentlemen of Verona. The scene in question finds our hero Valentine, having been banished (unjustly) by the Duke of Milan, wandering in a forest, where he is set upon by other outlaws. But though these outcasts are living beyond the law, and beyond the state, they seem somehow to know virtue (and beauty) when they see it. Moreover, seeing virtue, they seek it and willingly submit to it.

‘First Outlaw

                […] But to the purpose–for we cite our faults,
                 That they may hold excus’d our lawless lives;
                And partly, seeing you are beautified
                With goodly shape and by your own report
                A linguist and a man of such perfection
                As we do in our quality much want–

Second Outlaw

                Indeed, because you are a banish’d man,
                Therefore, above the rest, we parley to you:
                Are you content to be our general?
                To make a virtue of necessity
                And live, as we do, in this wilderness?

Third Outlaw

                What say’st thou? wilt thou be of our consort?
                Say ay, and be the captain of us all:
                We’ll do thee homage and be ruled by thee,
                Love thee as our commander and our king.

[…]

VALENTINE

                I take your offer and will live with you,
                Provided that you do no outrages
                On silly women or poor passengers.

Third Outlaw

                No, we detest such vile base practises.
                Come, go with us, we’ll bring thee to our crews,
                And show thee all the treasure we have got,
                Which, with ourselves, all rest at thy dispose.[1]

Shakespeare’s observations on human character were often acute, sometimes anticipating the development of subsequent social science, but is it reasonable to suppose that experiencing virtue and even beauty can have a similar effect on contemporary ‘outlaws’; on people who have offended? While it seems unlikely that such exposure to virtue could be a sufficient condition in and of itself of producing positive change, there are reasons to suggest that it might nonetheless be a necessary one.

In a recent film about desistance from crime, one of the most compelling moments features Bobby Cummines OBE, founder of UNLOCK, the National Association of Reformed Offenders. Bobby explains the starting point of his desistance process in a way that resonates with the Shakespearean scene above:

‘I was lucky. I had a good probation officer and a good education officer in prison who said to me ‘You’re worth more than that’ and gave me a bit of belief in myself. And also, in a way, being banged up all that time, and seeing people that was kind to me, and there was prison officers as well, and people when I came out that were really supportive of me, and they were just decent people. And I saw the beauty of society, and the beauty of those people in society, cause my world was an ugly world. We didn’t trust no-one, we injured each other – it was a violent and terrible dark place I was in and life meant nothing. But to see these people that was really there for no other reason than they was nice people – I saw the beauty of society, and I wanted to be part of that beauty. I wanted to be part of that society, not the society I was in.’[2]

This seems to be a contemporary example of exposure to virtue and beauty prompting and supporting change, but it is only one example. To explore the evidence for and arguments about the role of virtue in supporting desistance further, we begin with a brief overview of some research about the process of desistance from crime itself, examining the relationship between the moral and the prudential in the desistance process. Next, we focus move on to our substantive focus on what we know from research about how desistance is best supported, exploring what role the virtues and values of practitioners may play in the process. We conclude the chapter by suggesting some of the ways in which the cultural, social and political contexts of contemporary criminal justice might militate against the modelling of virtue by criminal justice practitioners, and thus the acquisition of virtue by those they supervise and aim to support.

[Read more here: Moral_in_the_Story]

A fascinating new study has found that “greening” up vacant lots (check out those cool pictures to know what I mean) reduces the fear of crime in urban neighbourhoods.

http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/early/2012/08/06/injuryprev-2012-040439.full.pdf+html

This ‘greening’ wasn’t done as part of community service type interventions, but there is no reason why it shouldn’t be. Restorative prisons projects and other reparation-based initiatives have shown enormous skill in ‘greening’ efforts. Individuals I have interviewed say they take particular pride in community service work that is meant to improve their own neighbourhoods or those similar to the ones they grew up in, and use the opportunity to “give something back” as a way of proving themselves as being more than the sum of their crimes. If this research is right (and more research is needed to confirm this, but it certainly makes logical sense), it seems to me that it is further evidence that directed ‘payback’ types of community service (and yes I hate that name) may be more effective than short expensive incarceration stays at making communities feel safer. Or is this all too evidence-based?  Shadd

A friend of mine alerted me to this US website the other day and said that as a result of this their local church group was using the film for a discussion forum about prisons:

http://www.theocpm.org/the-road-from-crime

I couldn’t imagine a more interesting outcome. This is part of the beauty of putting the film out there on the web for free. Anyone’s website can link to the film (like this one did), no questions asked, and the message can reach places where individual academics can’t for geographic and other reasons. Delightful. Make a link to your own website if you’ve got one and we can do the same back. This world wide web stuff just might catch on after all. great fun

This guest post comes from Alexandra Cox, formerly a doctoral researcher at the Institute of Criminology in Cambridge, and now  Assistant Professor of Sociology at SUNY-New Paltz (coxa@newpaltz.edu). Here, she summarises some key findings from her PhD. A full draft version of the paper from which this post is drawn is included in our ‘Useful Resources’ page or can be accessed here: Doing Programme or Doing Me.

Discovering the processes of desistance for young people charged with crimes and incarcerated in residential treatment facilities can be complex: in these institutions, ‘treatment’ and ‘punishment’ are often two sides of the same coin.  In an ethnographic research study I conducted over the course of one year in an American state’s juvenile justice system, I sought to understand how young people attempt to grow up, get out, and stay out of custody.  I focused my research on the experiences of 39 young people who were serving sentences in residential facilities. These facilities employed a mix of cognitive behavioral change treatment modalities, token economies, and physical restraints to both ‘punish’ and ‘treat’ the young people in their care. 

Over the course of my research, I observed young people adopt the treatment program language, behaviors, and philosophies of the residential facilities in ways that helped them to alleviate the pains of confinement while also assisting them in managing their relationships and status with their peers.  Thus, for many young men in particular, ‘doing good program,’ which would involve exhibiting deference to authorities, self-control, and the display of a quiet and respectful demeanor, would help them to accrue benefits within the program but also amongst their peers, with whom they gained respect for their abilities to demonstrate qualities highly prized in the world of the streets—those of restraint and quiet power. 

In this research, I was concerned with whether a young person’s compliance with the treatment and behavioral change program inside custody actually facilitated their desistance process.  To be clear: this was not an evaluation study, but rather a qualitative examination of some of the ways that young people coped with treatment, in an attempt to find out what this may reveal about their ability to desist from offending, based on what knowledge we have about desistance. 

What I found, and continue to find, is that the programs of behavioral changed I studied –particularly those aimed at young people and which are comprised of an uneasy mix of paternalistic and liberal aims – may actually constrain young people’s development.  The programs require that young people exhibit forms of self-control and responsibility in order to advance through the behavioral stages of the facility, but these forms of self-control and responsibility are highly deferential and circumscribed, and allow little room for kids to express the messiness of young adulthood.  The programs are highly individualized in their focus on young people’s abilities to comply with the program mandates, but they are actually limited in their ability to allow young people to demonstrate their individuality.  Thus, I argue that rather than allowing teenagers to individuate and to develop themselves as young adults with identities outside of their families and peer groups, to build generative relationships with others, and to cope with disappointment and difficulty, these programs may instead force young people to comport with the program’s expectations in order to gain the small rewards that exist in confinement, such as more commissary money, or even less staff surveillance.

I explore some of these issues in an article I wrote for a special issue of Punishment and Society on the pains of imprisonment.  The published article can be found here: http://pun.sagepub.com/content/13/5/592.abstract.