Beth Weaver

Lifelines desistance, social relations, and reciprocity

This article draws on the life stories of a friendship group of men in their 40s who offended together in their youth and early adulthood. By exploring these interrelated narratives, we reveal individual, relational, and structural contributions to the desistance process, drawing on Donati’s relational sociology. In examining these men’s social relations, this article demonstrates the central role of friendship groups, intimate relationships, families of formation, employment, and religious communities in change over the life course. It shows how, for different individuals, these relations triggered reflexive evaluation of their priorities, behaviors, and lifestyles, but with differing results. However, despite these differences, the common theme of these distinct stories is that desistance from crime was a means of realizing and maintaining the men’s individual and relational concerns, with which continued offending became (sometimes incrementally) incompatible. In the concluding discussion, we explore some of the ethical implications of these findings, suggesting that work to support desistance should extend far beyond the typically individualized concerns of correctional practice and into a deeper and inescapably moral engagement with the reconnection of the individual to social networks that are restorative and allow people to fulfill the reciprocal obligations on which networks and communities depend.This article draws on the life stories of a friendship group of men in their 40s who offended together in their youth and early adulthood. By exploring these interrelated narratives, we reveal individual, relational, and structural contributions to the desistance process, drawing on Donatis relational sociology. In examining these mens social relations, this article demonstrates the central role of friendship groups, intimate relationships, families of formation, employment, and religious communities in change over the life course. It shows how, for different individuals, these relations triggered reflexive evaluation of their priorities, behaviors, and lifestyles, but with differing results. However, despite these differences, the common theme of these distinct stories is that desistance from crime was a means of realizing and maintaining the mens individual and relational concerns, with which continued offending became (sometimes incrementally) incompatible. In the concluding discussion, we explore some of the ethical implications of these findings, suggesting that work to support desistance should extend far beyond the typically individualized concerns of correctional practice and into a deeper and inescapably moral engagement with the reconnection of the individual to social networks that are restorative and allow people to fulfill the reciprocal obligations on which networks and communities depend. Keywords: Juvenile justice Language: en

The sex offender public disclosure pilots in England and Scotland: Lessons for 'marketing strategies' and risk communication with the public

In 2009 a sex offender public disclosure scheme was piloted in England and Scotland based upon political and policy assumptions about the public’s likely take-up of such a scheme. However, the pilots found lower than anticipated public use of the scheme. By drawing on the notions of instrumental and symbolic efficacy this article explores the potential implications of the current rate of take-up. Is the instrumental efficacy of the scheme, that is, its role in providing advice and information to the public about sex offenders mitigated by low take-up? Does the scheme offer symbolic reassurance to the public about sex offender management and how might this be affected by current take-up rates? The public response to disclosure is also examined through the lens of recent risk communication research, in particular Health Promotion models that critique a simplistic ‘hypodermic’ approach to risk communication. Finally, the symbolic efficacy of public disclosure is examined with specific reference to Jackson and Gray’s (2010) ‘functional fear’.

Control or change? Developing dialogues between desistance research and public protection practices

This article aims to scope out some of the implications of desistance research for the community management of high risk offenders. Acknowledging the limited empirical research exploring this interface, this article outlines the evolving evidence base and what this tells us about the process of desistance and what supports it. The evidence as to whether ‘high risk offenders’ desist and what we know about this process is discussed prior to a consideration of the orientation of current practice approaches which can be located in the community/public protection model. Potential dialogues between desistance research and public protection practices are discussed to explore ensuing implications and opportunities for practice.

Managing high risk offenders in the community: Compliance, cooperation and consent in a climate of concern

It is increasingly accepted that the change process underpinning the intended outcomes of community supervision, namely community safety, social rehabilitation and reintegration, cannot be achieved without the service user’s active involvement and participation in the process. Their consent, compliance and cooperation is therefore necessary to achieving these outcomes and yet, when it comes to very high risk sexual and violent offenders, in the pursuit of community safety, control oriented, preventative practices predominate over change focused, participatory approaches. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 26 professionals and 26 service users to explore how, under the auspices of MAPPA, the supervisory process is enacted and experienced, and the extent and means through which it affects people’s willingness to accept or invest in not only the process but also the purpose of supervision. It is argued that how the process of community supervision is experienced and what it comprises not only shapes the outcomes of supervision but also the nature of consent, compliance and cooperation. We conclude by advocating for more participatory processes and practices to promote service users’ active engagement in, and ownership of, the process of change, and in that, the realisation of both the normative dimensions and intended outcomes of community supervision.

The Failure of Recall to Prison: Early Release, Front-Door and Back-Door Sentencing and the Revolving Prison Door in Scotland

This article seeks to explain the reasons for the sharp rise in prison recall rates in Scotland. It argues that recall practices need to be understood not as a technical corner of the justice system, but as part of a wider analysis of the politics of sentencing and release policy. While there are sound reasons for a policy of ‘early release’ (incentivizing good behavior and enabling the resettlement of prisoners), in practice early release has increasingly been used as a tool to try to limit the growth in the custodial population. Unable to control prison numbers through the ‘front door’ (judicial sentencing and bail/remand), successive governments have increasingly relied on early release as a surreptitious way of, in effect, re-sentencing prisoners. We argue that this political strategy is ultimately self-defeating, not least in feeding public cynicism about the penal system and community supervision in particular. This article reviews the changing legislative, policy and practice landscape of the regulation of non-compliance and recall practice, and draws on the desistance literature to illustrate how offender-supervisor relationships can be undermined by recall policies which threaten the legitimacy of both the supervisory relationship and the conditions of supervision orders.

Autobiography, empirical research and critical theory in desistance : a view from the inside out

This article seeks to combine an autobiographical account of desistance with research and theory on the subject, to show how they are mutually illuminating, and of equal, complimentary relevance to criminal justice policymakers and practitioners with offenders.

Risky business? Supporting desistance from sexual offending

The aim of this chapter is twofold: to scope out some of the implications of desistance research for the community management of sexual offenders in the current UK policy and practice context and to identify what works (and why and how) in controlling and/or changing offending behaviour, drawing on the views and experiences of what Wood and Kerns hall (2007) term ‘MAPPA-eligible offenders’, in this instance, high-risk sex offenders. Recognizing the limited empirical research on desistance from sexual offending, this chapter begins by outlining the principal themes emerging from desistance research in general, through which lens studies examining desistance from sexual offending are discussed.

Book review: Sex Offenders: Punish, Help, Change or Control? Theory, Policy and Practice Explored

author highlights how race was absent from the narratives on boots camps yet the majority of prisoners were from black communities. She introduces the concept of diffusion in which state government copy initiatives from one another. A further development that is discussed is that the drivers for adult boot camps were different to those behind juvenile camps with the development of the latter linked to socially and economically poorer states with higher African-American and Hispanic populations. The case studies looked at two contrasting states. In Illinois the move to adult boot camps followed a conventional narrative involving state politicians wanting to be tough on crime and facing a prison overcrowding issue. New Jersey was more interesting as the Department of Corrections opposed the adult boot camp for a number of years on the grounds of effectiveness until it was pushed through by local politicians and opinion formers influenced by the neighbouring state of New York. For a non-academic audience the book is more interesting when looking at development of boot camps. The book identified the role of the political climate and the actions of individual politicians irrespective of political party on driving the policy forward. The book is less strong on why boot camps disappeared from the United States. It would have completed the study if the reasons behind this rapid decline had been explored further. I was disappointed with the book’s claim to look at other ‘evidence based failings’. I was hoping for a chapter on electronic monitoring as the cover of the book claimed. The author devoted only a page to this and did not add a great deal to current published material. At the time of writing a review of the future direction of the probation world in England & Wales had been announced by the government. The book provides an interesting template to look at these changes. The author identified the role of key political leaders in driving forward a policy and how when these people moved on that drive was lessened. The book tries to look for the deeper trends that stand the test of time and suggests that evidence eventually triumphs, although some key policy drivers survive political change. I suspect competition would fit into that category and it will continue to be a policy driver irrespective of political party.

Review: Offenders on Offending: Learning About Crime from Criminals: W. Bernasco (ed.) Willan Publishing; 2010; pp 322; £25, pbk ISBN 978—1—84392—776—1

Bernasco and the various contributors to this collection of essays draw on their own experiences of undertaking offender-based research with various types of offender populations in various settings to address methodological concerns surrounding the process of conducting qualitative research with offenders. The central theme uniting this collection of essays is the focus on how to maximize the validity of offenders’ accounts of their offending behaviour. In so doing, the essays variously review the strengths and weaknesses of different methods used to elicit information on offending from offenders and discuss strategies to obtain the collaboration of offenders and to maximize the validity and reliability of the data. As Bernasco summarizes in the introductory first chapter, Offenders on Offending is organized into five distinct parts that broadly correspond to the various settings in which offender based research is undertaken, with the first part oriented to ‘setting the stage’ more generally. In the second chapter, Hank Elffers discusses particular issues that can threaten the validity of the offender interview, notably ‘misinformation’ (in that the respondent him/herself does not have access to the source of information), ‘misunderstanding’ (referring to different interpretations of questions and answers between researcher and researched) and ‘misleading’ (where people actively or passively mislead the interviewer). In the third chapter, Jacques and Wright extend the theory of offender based research that they developed in earlier work and in which they discussed the hypothesized effects of relational distance between researched and researcher on the amount of required remuneration, and the quantity and quality of information provided. The authors use Donald Black’s pure sociology approach to examine how law and normative status affect offender The Journal of Community and Criminal Justice

Review: Ranking Correctional Punishments: Views From Offenders, Practitioners and the Public May, D.C. and P.B. Wood Carolina Academic Press; 2010; pp168;

Ranking Correctional Punishments is the culmination of a comprehensive and methodical analysis of a series of empirical studies undertaken by the authors over the past decade with convicted offenders, criminal justice practitioners and the public, to elicit their views on the relative severity of correctional punishments. Taken together, the authors present, rank and analyse the ‘punishment exchange rates’ across these interest groups. In so doing, they challenge the concept of a continuum of corrections, as proposed by Morris and Tonry (1990) in Between Prison and Probation which, as the title suggests, places prisons and probation at opposing ends of a continuum of sanction severity. Essentially, the exchange rate refers to the amount in months of an alternative sanction that the offender, or other stakeholders, would endure to avoid a specified length of actual imprisonment. Thus, the exchange rate is the punishment equivalency between imprisonment and the alternative sanction in question. As the authors point out, the idea that people hold different views about the severity of various forms of punishments is not itself new; debates on the issue manifest in various guises in prison cells, public houses, government offices, judicial cloisters and academic circles, with various justifications being forwarded and explored. What is perhaps new, as Michael Tonry points out in the foreword, is May and Wood’s commitment to systematically eliciting and comparing the views of different interest groups on the severity or punitiveness of different correctional sanctions, as well as their ensuing findings, which, amongst others provide evidence of racial and gender differences in punishment exchange rates. May and Wood provide a transparent account of the methodology underpinning their empirical enquiries in Chapter 2, and the survey instrument they developed in consultation with offenders with experience of multiple correctional punishments is contained in the appendices. Chapters 3–6 examine the punishment exchange rates among their sample populations; Chapter 3 is based on the views of male and female prisoners in Oklahoma and Chapter 4 on the views of Indiana probationers and probationers and parolees in Kentucky. In Chapter 4, May and Wood present exchange rates by gender and race, and, in Chapter 5, by levels of prior correctional experience. In Chapter 6, the authors expand the discussion of punishment exchange rates from the offender populations to key stakeholders in Kentucky, notably judges, probation and parole officers and the general public. In Chapter 7, drawing on data from prisoners in Mississippi, May and Wood consider the implications of differences in exchanges rates for offender recidivism by considering the possible criminogenic effects of punishment experience. They address this issue by linking self stated assessments of the likelihood of future crime to offenders’ perceptions of the certainty and severity of future sanctions. Chapter 8 pulls all these strands Reviews 429