Work

Desistance for a Long-Term Drug-Involved Sample of Adult Offenders

Year: 2015

Type: article

Abstract: Using a mixed-race sample of male and female drug-involved offenders who were released from prison in the early 1990s and re-interviewed in 2009 through 2011, this article represents perhaps the first attempt to determine the utility of the identity theory of desistance (ITD) in explaining desistance in a contemporary cohort of adult drug-involved offenders. Supporting the ITD, interview narratives revealed that the vast majority of offenders who successfully desisted from crime and substance misuse had first transformed their offender identity into a non-offender identity. Although partnership and employment did not appear to be significant turning points per se for the majority of our respondents, rekindling relationships with extended family and finding living-wage employment did serve to solidify new prosocial identities once the transformation had occurred.

Source: Criminal Justice and Behavior

DOI: 10.1177/0093854815604012

Authors: Ronet Bachman, Erin Kerrison, Raymond Paternoster, Daniel O’Connell, Lionel Smith

Institutions: University of Delaware, University of Pennsylvania, University of Maryland, College Park

Language: English

Topic: Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Open Access status: green

OpenAlex ID: W2302346177