Recovery and desistance: introduction to the special issue

Background

In 2016, Best, Irving and Albertson reviewed the existing evidence around desistance and recovery and explored the areas of empirical and conceptual overlap across these two topics. It was apparent that desistance and recovery were poorly linked and integrated in spite of some very strong common themes such as the importance of identity change, the role of structural precipitants (including marriage and employment) and key agentic transitions (including a sense of hope, empowerment and motivation). It was also apparent that these topics are burgeoning areas that have similar underpinning assumptions about success and hope: they are antidotes to received and erroneous beliefs that either addiction is a ‘chronic, relapsing condition’ or that ‘nothing works’ in addressing offending behaviour.

While neither approach would place specialist intervention at their core, both would rather recognise the importance of professional treatment and intervention (whether this takes the form of voluntary or mandated treatment, detoxification or rehabilitation) as essential elements for at least some people in desistance and recovery. Nonetheless, recovery and desistance should both be conceptualised as strengths-based, community-focused and relational in character. In many of the theories underpinning both bodies of work, relationships are central to our understanding of how change might happen. These are relationships with family members, with partners, with peers and also with a diverse range of professionals, any one of whom could represent a ‘turning point’ in what is seen as a long-term process of change and growth.

Nonetheless, the two topics emerge from different academic heritages, with the desistance research area largely evolving out of life-course criminology with some input from theories and practice of rehabilitation; while the recovery movement has emerged from two traditions: the mental health recovery movement on the one hand, and, on the other, a growing literature that subjected mutual aid groups, in particular Alcoholics Anonymous, to scientific scrutiny. There is also an inconsistency in the role of the researcher with desistance remaining largely an academic pursuit that takes place from afar, in spite of calls from Maruna (2001) inter alia to focus more on peer-driven social movements for change. In contrast, recovery research has typically grown in partnership with the emergence of a ‘recovery movement’ (Beckwith et al. 2016) and has possibly suffered methodologically as a consequence of the focus on action and active participation as opposed to structured and planned research.

However, it is a mistake to assume that either the work on desistance or recovery today represents a simple consensus. They are broad churches and they both contain competing priorities and interests, and differences of opinion around, for instance, the importance of personal agency, and the potential role of professionals and ‘treatment’ in its broadest sense. As with all academic disciplines, they will intersect and overlap with a diverse range of existing theories and models, and will draw their subject groups and inspirations from local as well as from global issues.

In this Special Issue, we will provide an overview of the existing evidence base and direction in each area. We aim to shed light on the challenges and opportunities for synthesis and the shared opportunities for influence at a policy and practice level. While we have not consciously chosen to do this, the papers are drawn roughly equally from desistance and recovery traditions, with our only requirement that the authors acknowledge and address the implications for the ‘other’ approach, as our aim is synthesis and shared learning.

The Special Issue starts with a contribution from Steven Belenko which summarises the evidence and how it reconciles with national and international guidance. It provides a strong conceptual link between the strengths-based approaches, focusing not only on desistance and recovery, but also on therapeutic jurisprudence. So we start with an application of the principles of community-focused and strength-based working from a court context, and so are forced to consider the role of coercion in recovery, a contentious topic for practice and for policy.

The second paper in this Special Issue remains within the justice system and looks at one particular population, namely mentally-ill offenders. While therapeutic jurisprudence is the underlying model for the Belenko paper, for Ciska Wittouck and Tom Vander Beken, the criminological theory examined here is around procedural justice or the perceived equity and fairness of criminal justice systems and processes. Not only does the paper incorporate another common ‘complexity’ factor for many substance users and offenders, it also addresses the question of the therapeutic alliance and the role of professionals in supporting the change process. The dynamic of the relationship between professional and the person attempting to change, is framed in the context of perceptions of justice.

The next two papers switch from professionals to the role of peers and peer mentors. In Paula Helm’s innovative paper that draws on multiple methods, she examines the tension between cessation of behaviour on the one hand and recovery on the other. Using case studies from 12-step writings, she differentiates between abstinence and sobriety. She suggests that there is more to sobriety than not drinking. In the recovery literature this resonates with the arguments about being ‘better than well’ (Hibbert and Best 2011; Valentine 2011) and in the desistance literature with the ideas of secondary (Maruna and Farrall 2004) and tertiary desistance (McNeill 2014). What is interesting here is the implication that the person themselves will not be satisfied with merely an absence, but that there needs to be something more.

In Emma Wincup’s paper, the role of peer mentors is examined in the context of interventions for both substance use and crime, given their widespread deployment in practice in the UK in both addiction treatment and justice settings. Wincup uses a critical policy framework, based on the work of Kingdon (1995) to suggest that this political vogue cannot be justified by the evidence and is premised on very weak operationalisations of the term ‘peer’ and ‘mentor’ but indicating a move away from a traditional reliance on professionals to deliver effective interventions.

The final two papers are largely theoretical in focus, starting with Christopher Kay’s and Mark Monaghan’s outline of a “Social Identity Model of Transition”. Addressing both desistance and recovery approaches, the paper draws on narrative interviews with young offenders on an Intensive Community Order in the UK, and suggests applications of a social identity approach to understanding the transition of young offenders.

Finally, David Best and Charlotte Colman outline a model for social justice and social inclusion in their paper on Inclusive Cities. Based on the idea of Recovery Oriented Systems of Care (Sheedy and Whitter 2009), and using case examples from recovery communities around the world, the authors argue that recovery as a social movement has been based on the assumption that public celebrations challenge stigma and increases access to community resources and assets. Their ambitious model suggests that increased social engagement may well benefit a diverse range of marginalised and excluded groups, including offender populations.

Overall, this Special Issue makes an important contribution to an emerging field by both its conceptual range and the diversity of settings and populations considered, ranging from mentally-ill offenders to young offenders, 12-step meetings and drug courts. The papers incorporate an impressive range of disciplinary frameworks and conceptual foundations and offer important areas for future study challenges to orthodoxy and existing practice.