The creative use of the ADHD diagnosis in probationers' self-narratives

Abstract

Drawing upon a narrative criminological theoretical framework, this article explores how probationers use the ADHD diagnosis in self-narratives. Eleven in-depth interviews with probationers diagnosed with ADHD were carried out, while the interviewees were under the supervision of the Danish Probation Service. The analysis of the empirical material shows that the ADHD diagnosis provides a context for their life that helps make sense of and explain their past. Although their self-narratives are in a sense personal stories, they relate ADHD as a neurobiological disorder to their criminal past, using the available cultural narratives (Loseke, D. R. (2007). The study of identity as cultural, institutional, organizational, and personal narratives: Theoretical and empirical integrations. The Sociological Quarterly, 48, 661–688). Three types of co-existing self-narratives were identified: (1) ‘ADHD as my biological destiny’, (2) ‘It should have been discovered earlier in my life’ and (3) ‘I would not have been without ADHD’. As the probationers articulated all three narratives, the particular role of ADHD in the individual self-narratives was ambiguous. The probationers stated that they would not have missed the wild experiences of ‘living on the edge’, while at the same time describing ADHD as a determining factor for their life paths as criminals. Accordingly the probationers tended to explain not the individual offences, but their lives as criminals. Following this, the final section discusses whether their use of ADHD leads to crime-reducing ‘narratives of desistance’ or whether they instead represent crime-increasing ‘neutralization narratives’ (Maruna, S. (2001). Making good: How ex-convicts reform and reclaim their lives. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association; Maruna, S., & Copes, H. (2005). What have we learned from five decades of neutralization research? Crime and Justice, 32, 221–320).

Keywords::

• ADHD
• crime
• desistance
• identity
• narrative criminology
• medicalisation
• neutralization theory
• qualitative interviews

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ ADHD is defined in the diagnostic manual (DSM-V) published by the American Psychiatric Association (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).

² Compared to research on the general population, which reports ADHD in between two and five per cent of adults in Europe (Kooij et al., 2010).

³ The author was granted access by the Department of Prison and Probation Service and the local probation offices to their ‘clients’, as the offenders are called by the frontline workers in the Probation Service while under probation, and the processing of personal data was authorised by The Danish Data Protection Agency (Act on Processing of Personal Data) [19.10.11, journal no. 2011-41-6829].

⁴ As they explained to me, they were concerned about the clients' substance abuse, or that their mental illness was too severe for them to participate constructively, and wanted to protect them. Two other reasons were probably that they were afraid, for various reasons, that I would evaluate their individual work efforts, and some of them were afraid that participation would further increase their workload.

⁵ The social workers did not participate in the interviews.

⁶ The psychiatrist had told him that those two diagnoses cannot co-exist and also supported John with regard to the schizophrenia diagnosis being wrong and him suffering from ADHD instead.