Stephen Farrall

Criminal Careers, Desistance and Subjectivity Interpreting Men’s Narratives of Change

This article analyses the life-stories told by two men who appeared to be desisting from crime. At the time of their respective interviews, both men had reduced the frequency and intensity of their offending behaviours, although neither man had completely stopped offending. Using these men’s life-stories, the authors endorse Shadd Maruna’s argument that the study of criminal careers and desistance needs to embrace a more adequately psychosocial conception of subjectivity. However, in contrast to the cognitive approach preferred by Maruna, the authors seek to demonstrate that an interpretive approach to narrative material, sensitive to the possibility of unconscious motivations, better explains some of the contradictions evident in desisters’ life-stories, especially in relation to the heavily gendered issue of family formation. The authors draw particularly on the psychoanalytic work of Tony Jefferson to make their argument.

Afraid or Angry? Recalibrating the ‘fear’ of Crime

Studying the fear of crime is a research field that has grown enormously in the past two decades. Yet our empirical knowledge has grown at the expense of conceptual development. It is beginning to be suspected that ‘fear’ is a term encompassing a confusing variety of feelings, perspectives, risk-estimations, and which thus means different things to different people. It is additionally suggested that what we know empirically may well be largely an artefact of the fact that the questions that are put repeatedly to respondents seldom vary, and the ways that those questions are put, and the settings in which they are put seldom change. The research project which is in part reported here initially used one set of respondents to develop new questions relating to their general and specific feelings about criminal victimisation, before testing them on another, much larger sample. This latter exercise confirmed that being ‘angry’ about the threat of criminal victimisation is more frequently reported than being ‘afraid’ of it. Little is known of the meaning or range of meanings that respondents infer with the term ‘anger’, but further research — which is needed — might well show that anger about crime is as complicated a concept as fear of crime has transpired to be. In any event, research into anger should benefit from the lessons learnt from three decades of research into fear.

Social structures and desistance from crime

Desistance studies have routinely focused on issues such as family links, employment prospects and moving away from criminal friends, but they have said less about the meso- and macro-level structural issues that might facilitate or impede the transition of ex-offenders to the status of more mainstream members of civil society.Yet, in view of the necessary interaction between agency and structure in producing processes of desistance, a consideration of social structures (and the implications of changes in structures) is clearly of some importance. This paper addresses these issues, with special reference to recent structural changes in the UK in the fields of employment, families and housing, and criminal policy. The paper concludes with a discussion of conceptual foundations for social policy responses.

Theorizing structural and individual-level processes in desistance and persistence: Outlining an integrated perspective

In this paper we outline our current thinking on the processes associated with desistance from crime. This work, conducted as part of the theoretical apparatus of a fifth sweep of interviews with a cohort of ex-probationers originally interviewed for the first time in the late 1990s – but which, by implication holds lessons for those researching people leaving prison – is an attempt to build an account of the processes which help to shape the speed, nature and direction of an individual’s efforts to avoid further offending. In it we develop an account of desistance which draws on thinking about macro-level structures and meso-level influences whilst retaining sufficient room for individual agency. Our account, whilst based on what we have learnt from the previous four sweeps of interviews with this cohort and other studies we have undertaken, nevertheless remains a ‘work in progress’. We describe briefly the design and aims of the fifth sweep of interviews towards the end of the article.

Understanding ‘quality’ in probation practice: Frontline perspectives in England & Wales

In the context of ‘ordinary’ probation practice, quality is a contested concept, as well as an under-researched one. In this article we present the findings of a study which sought to capture, via interviews inspired by Appreciative Inquiry, the views of probation staff about the meaning(s) of ‘quality’ in probation practice. The interviews revealed a ‘frontline’ perspective on quality which has not previously been exposed or articulated as such. Drawing upon theoretical concepts developed by Bourdieu, it is argued that despite significant recent changes in the penal and probation fields in England & Wales, and some signs of adaptation in normative conceptions of probation work, there exists a culture or ‘probation habitus’ among frontline staff that is relatively cohesive and resilient.

Alcohol, Drug Use and Sexual Behaviour of Young Adults on a Mediterranean Dance Holiday

Aim: To measure the extent of drug, sex and other health risks among a group of young people travelling from the UK on a foreign dance holiday. Methods: A cross-sectional sample of 160 young people on a dance holiday compared with a crossectional sample of 90 young people at home. All respondents completed a quantitative questionnaire relating to their risk behaviours in the previous seven days. Qualitative interviews were also conducted whilst on holiday. Settings: Balearic Islands, (Spain), and a dance club in Scotland, (UK). Results: A significantly greater number of those on holiday reported using alcohol (91 %) and ecstasy (77 %), compared with 69 % and 63 % respectively of those at home. Approximately half of those who had sex with new partners whilst on holiday, and at home, used condoms. of those on holiday, 45 % reported sickness and diarrhoea compared with 23 % at home; 49 % of hol-idaymakers reported sunburn. Conclusions: As with other studies, this group of holidaymak-ers experienced increased...

Theorising the Fear of Crime: The Cultural and Social Significance of Insecurities about Crime

This paper outlines the theoretical positions adopted to explain the fear of crime. We start by outlining the broad theoretical approaches taken to account for levels of fear of crime since the 1960s. We structure our review into five sections: The victimisation thesis; Imagined victimisation and the psychology of risk; Disorder, cohesion and collective efficacy - environmental perception; Structural change and macro-level influences on fear; and, Connecting anxieties about crime to other types of anxiety. We then, in preparation for the next two Working Papers, outline the framework that we pursue in the rest of this project - a framework that draws upon a range of insights generated by both quantitative and qualitative research in this area.

Road lighting and pedestrian reassurance after dark: A review

This paper concerns road lighting for pedestrians and how this aids reassurance, their confidence when walking alone after dark. Evidence from past studies that lighting enhances reassurance is supported by the findings of an unfocussed approach that aimed deliberately to avoid focus on lighting or fear, thus to counter the unintended potential for focussed, quantitative methods to lead towards such a finding. Review of the characteristics of lighting suggests an optimum illuminance of 10 lux, of high S/P ratio, and aimed toward the pedestrian and natural elements of the environment, will enhance reassurance. Further research is needed to validate the optimum illuminance, the appropriate metric for characterising lamp spectral power distribution, and the most desirable aims of spatial distribution.

Officially recorded convictions for probationers: The relationship with self‐report and supervisory observations

Objectives. For the past 20–25 years the assessment of the outcomes of probation supervision and its associated variants has relied upon officially recorded offending as the chief determinant of ‘success’ and ‘failure’. A recent assessment of the impact of accredited programmes aimed at reducing offending called for reconviction rates to be supplemented with other outcome measures to give a more accurate picture of treatment effectiveness. Methods. Self-reports of offending are one such alternative outcome measure, and this paper responds to recent calls for developments in this field. This paper throws further light on the frequency of offending by probationers during their probation orders, the extent to which their officers knew of this offending and the relationship between self-reported offending and subsequent convictions. Results. The data suggest that about a half of the probationers committed at least one offence during the time they were on probation and that about a third of the probationers reported that they had committed more than four offences during this same time. In the main, probation officers reports mirrored the reports gained from the probationers. Generally speaking, the relationship between self-reported offending and officially recorded convictions was also very close. However, this varied by the offences/convictions under consideration. Conclusion. There were slightly more probationers found guilty of property offences than had admitted to such offending during their interviews. The explanation for this appeared to have been deliberate concealment on the part of the probationer, rather than recall failure.

Thatcher’s Children, Blair’s Babies, Political Socialization and Trickle-down Value Change: An Age, Period and Cohort Analysis

To what extent are new generations ‘Thatcherite’? Using British Social Attitudes data for 1985–2012 and applying age-period-cohort analysis and generalized additive models, this article investigates whether Thatcher’s Children hold more right-authoritarian political values compared to other political generations. The study further examines the extent to which the generation that came of age under New Labour – Blair’s Babies – shares these values. The findings for generation effects indicate that the later political generation is even more right-authoritarian, including with respect to attitudes to redistribution, welfare and crime. This view is supported by evidence of cohort effects. These results show that the legacy of Thatcherism for left-right and libertarian-authoritarian values is its long-term shaping of public opinion through political socialization.