David Polizzi

Heidegger, Restorative Justice and Desistance: A Phenomenological Perspective

The restorative process, which ultimately must include the potential for the desistance from subsequent criminal activity, becomes predicated upon the relationship between community, victim and offender. Though rarely discussed as complementary criminological concepts, restorative justice and desistance evoke a similar triangulated institutional and cultural relationship, which seeks to address a variety of wrongs resulting from the criminal act. However, it is often assumed that the offender is exclusively responsible for the success of the restorative process, which often overlooks other co-occurring social realities that directly influence the outcome of this encounter.

Agnew’s General Strain Theory Reconsidered A Phenomenological Perspective

Since its inception, strain theory has attempted to explore the dynamic evoked between the process of goal identification and the process of goal acquisition as this relates to subsequent criminal behavior. Over the years of its development, strain theorists have attempted to broaden the initial scope of this perspective. Robert Agnew with his general strain theory has sought to introduce a variety of other factors relative to the experience of strain and the capacity they represent concerning subsequent criminal activity. However, these recent developments have not addressed until recently, and only in somewhat limited ways, the theoretical and methodologic implications and limits of this theoretical approach. This article proposes that the way in which Agnew’s formulation of general strain, particularly in its most recent conceptualization as story lines, fundamentally transforms the theoretical and methodological grounding of this approach but fails to offer a clearly articulated alternative theoretical perspective by which to conceptualize this “turn.” Phenomenology provides such an alternative perspective and helps to greatly expand our understanding of the human experience of strain.

The Therapeutic Encounter Within the Event of Forensic Psychotherapy: A Phenomenological Hermeneutic of the Givenness of the Other Within the Therapeutic Relationship

In this article, we draw upon the works of Jean-Luc Marion and Claude Romano to offer a phenomenological hermeneutic of clinical forensics. We introduce Marion’s description of givenness and the event, and apply these ideas to clinical forensics. First, we describe Romano’s conceptualization of the transformative effect of the event, relative to the “openness” of the participants to this encounter. Second, we contextualize different possibilities of therapy relative to the openness and closedness of the therapist and patient.

Joining With the Client in an Open Event A Response to Davidson and Anstoos

In this article, we respond to the insightful commentary offered by Drs. Anstoos and Davidson. In particular, we discuss our humanist assumptions behind our original article and explicitly address the issue of uncertainty in psychotherapy relative to the event itself as well as to therapeutic outcome. We assert, however, that even in the face of this uncertainty, we can still open ourselves to the event and prompt the patient to do likewise, if they are willing. This openness is not without risk, so we detail the importance of enduring the experience. Such evential experiences can change the thrownness of the participants in that event, such that their experience of prison can change, although it does not necessarily. We also address the open/closed position of the therapist and patient by addressing the issue of action and potential, the Husserl’s “horizon” compared with Marion’s “manifest.” By doing so, we argue that using the language of the event, nonexclusive to the language of the horizon but rather inclusive of it, we can produce a compelling phenomenology of the event of offender treatment.