Exploring Reconvictions and 'Crime-Free' Gaps Over Time: What Were the Experience of One Cohort of English Probationers?

Many, but not all, reconviction studies are undertaken over relatively short periods of time (such as two or five years) and are usually used to gauge the impact of various disposals against one another. This study, based on one cohort of probationers who started being supervised in England during 1997-98, takes a different tack, and explores their reconvictions between 1997 and 2022, a period of 25 years, and touches upon a range of topics germane to this field, such as: how many reconvictions were racked up?, who was reconvicted?, which offences were they convicted of? and what accounts for their reconvictions? The second half of the paper focuses on the issue of ‘crime-free gaps’ and provides further insight into this recent development in criminal careers research and in so doing builds upon an earlier paper by Joanna Shapland

Space, place and desistance from drug use

As centres of human existence, places and spaces are vital for individuals’ understanding of themselves and who they might become. We explore these aspects of existence through a longitudinal study of 43 current and former drug users. First, we identify the differences between those who have desisted from drug use and those who continued. These differences manifested themselves in the routines that frequently governed desisters’ lives. Persisters had very little in the way of routines that served to structure their time and where they did these were more likely to be seen as a burden. Further, the places our respondents occupied served as indications of their own understandings of their self and their efforts to desist. Second, we investigate in detail one individual’s desistance from drug use and the accompanying change in his existential geography. As Peter desisted his goals and aspirations changed, becoming less focused on avoiding drug use and directed to more positive desires. We discuss the implications of this work for desistance research

Governing Against the Tide: Populism, Power and the Party Conference

In this paper we argue that a tendency to treat populism as a ubiquitous, mechanistic characteristic of contemporary penality has impeded systematic theoretical discussion of how populist ideologies find contingent expression within national penal systems. Drawing upon an agonistic perspective we seek to show that the intersection between populism and punishment must be understood as a structured process that is shaped by struggle between actors with different types, and amounts, of political power. We illustrate these claims with reference to a historical case study of the 1981 British Conservative Party Conference; a political calendar ritual that facilitated symbolic conflict and provided an institutional point of entry for populist movements seeking to disrupt the prevailing liberal consensus on crime and secure substantive policy concessions from government.N/

Emotions, future selves and the process of desistance

Desistance research emphasizes that offenders identify a future self that aids desistance efforts. However, it is unclear how future selves operate when offending opportunities arise. To explore this we employ qualitative accounts of instances when offenders and ex-offenders abstained from offending, and the emotions this evoked. Offending was avoided to preserve aspects of offenders’ lives or avoid negative consequences but, for some, avoiding offending brought frustration. Finally, those who had made the most progress towards desistance were less likely to identify opportunities for offending. These findings suggest future selves inform the desistance process, highlighting particular ways to be. However, time is needed to build up valued aspects of the life that may be feared lost if engaging in crime. Before the benefits of abstaining are recognized, there may be a tension between the future and current self

The politics of crime, punishment and justice: Exploring the lived reality and enduring legacies of the 1980's radical right

This book explores the impact of right-wing political ideology on crime, the criminal justice system, and attitudes towards punishment in Britain. Grounded in a rigorous analysis of repeated cross-sectional surveys such as the British Social Attitudes Survey and the British Crime Survey, as well as individual-level cohort data such as the 1958 National Child Development Study and the 1970 British Cohort Study, it examines changes in long-term crime rates, criminal justice policies, and their integration with social and economic policies in Britain over four decades. It offers a detailed discussion of how radical social and economic changes affected the fear of crime and attitudes to punishment, and how well Thatcherite social and economic values were embedded in contemporary British society. Drawing on a wide literature across criminology, political science, sociology, and social policy, this book demonstrates how a thorough understanding of crime cannot take place without an examination of the wider social policies enacted, the life-courses of the individuals affected, and their communities and the political environment in which they live. It is essential reading for criminologists, sociologists, political philosophers, and social theorists alike since it combines thinking from political sciences, life-courses theories, and detailed analyses of the outcomes of social policy change

Life after crime and punishment? Lifestyles changes and quaternary desistance

Studies of why people stop offending have been one of the considerable growth areas of criminology and life-course studies since the early-1990s. Initially the research focused on assessing the extent to which people who had offending did cease offending. Having established this, the field then sought to account for why and how they ceased. Of late, a new question has come to the fore: what sort of lifestyles develop for people after they have desisted? This question, in some respects, begs another about the legitimacy of asking or encouraging people to desist and, by implication, the promotion of academic studies which conceive of and represent desistance as a goal in and of itself. This paper's contribution to these debates is to assess the lives of people not as they desist or in the immediate aftermath of their desisting, but several years after they have stopped offending. Using longitudinal data from a nationally representative sample of British people born in 1970, this paper finds that, by their early 40s, the lifestyles of people who have desisted start to differ from those of people who have persisted in offending, and have started to take on some of the characteristics of non-offenders' lifestyles. 76 Life after crime and punishment? Lifestyles changes and quaternary desistanc