Desisters in the making? Exploring the capacity to desist during community transition among a small longitudinal panel of releasees

Abstract

Self-narratives signal readiness for change and the capacity to desist from crime. Utilizing longitudinal interviews with 39 male subjects in a small, industrialized, Midwestern US city, this study explores self-narratives to gain additional understanding about desistance and the malleable components that shape the process. In contrast to existing long-term desistance studies, this research considers the presence of desistance-promoting narratives during reentry. Data on three waves of interviews conducted shortly after release and three or more months after the first interview are presented. Results indicate that returning prisoners engage with desistance-promoting themes during the immediate reentry process, and that the prevalence and importance of these themes change with additional time in the community. The implications of these findings for reentry policy, practice, and research are discussed.

Keywords:

• Desistance from crime
• prisoner reentry
• parole
• prospective research design
• identity transformation

Acknowledgements

Any points of view or opinions expressed within this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics. The funding agency did not influence the study design, the analysis of the data, or the preparation of this manuscript.

Notes

1. The assignment of weighted scores is associated with the strength with which narrative themes are expressed. This technique enhances the inter-rater reliability and content validity of measures used in research that are constructed from interview data sources (Anderson 2006). It must be acknowledged that this study, like all research employing qualitative techniques, relies upon data that are co-produced by participants, interviewers, and researchers (Presser 2008). For transparency, the following is an illustration of the weighting procedure used to code two participants who expressed narratives consistent with the generativity theme of caring. During his Time 1 interview, Marcus addresses what will keep him from going back to prison, stating ‘… myself, basically. I’ve been known to self-destruct when things don’t go my way. I got self-destruct and put myself in a position like, dude, what was you thinking? My main thing is to focus on me. If I worry about me and get myself together, that’s when I can help everybody else. That’s going to be my main think to keep me out of prison. Basically, to focus on myself, to listen to myself.’ Responding to the same interview item during his Time 2 interview, Glen states ‘… I can honestly say that I never really want to do this situation again. Because, I got people out there that do love me, people who want to see me do right. When I keep putting myself in this situation, people have no choice but to turn their back on you because they feel like, I’m letting myself down, but I’m letting them down as well.’ Marcus was assigned a weighed score of 2, while a weighed score of 1 was assigned to Glen’s statements. Both of the independent coders scored Marcus and Glen with the same weighted score. Additional examples, including a detailed codebook used for the analyses, can be provided upon request.