Ex-offenders: desistance, persistence and reintegration..

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Comment by Diana Johns on July 21, 2012 at 5:05

I just watched 'The Road to Crime' - thanks for the link. What a fantastic documentary, beautifully produced and thoughtfully presented by Allan Weaver. A wonderful resource for exploring the issues it raises around the long and torturous road towards desistance and the seeming mirage of 'reintegration'; a really useful teaching/educational resource.

I can also recommend a short film produced in Melbourne, Australia, by the Fitzroy Legal Service, called 'Off the Record'. Here are the links:

http://www.fitzroy-legal.org.au/cb_pages/news/Off_the_record.php

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GpgfM8DiwYQ

Comment by Suzanne Young on July 20, 2012 at 11:01

Check out the Road to Crime Film

What can we learn from those former prisoners who have successfully “desisted” from criminal behaviour or “gone straight?”
This film has been produced as part of a project to share knowledge and improve understanding about why people desist from offending.

The Road to Crime is now available to watch online http://www.iriss.org.uk/resources/the-road-from-crime

Comment by Fabio on April 11, 2012 at 19:43

Hi again, 

I am trying to find some articles or reports providing an estimate or real figures about prisoners' use of resettlement services within prison (e.g. housing, family, drug use etc). Is it there anywhere I could find those? 

I would be very grateful if someone could direct me somewhere!

Thank you very much, 

Fabio

Comment by Fabio on April 11, 2012 at 19:42

Hi Oretha!

(gosh that's bit late reply!)

Welcome to the group! I hope you'll like and will make the most of it :)

About your topic, what are you looking forward to do? 

Fabio

Comment by Oretha Ogwotu on November 2, 2011 at 15:55

Hello all,

I'm simply working on my Master Degree in Forensic Psychology and interested in this area of study and creating methods for social change.

Comment by Fabio on May 25, 2011 at 15:42

Sorry for the over crowding in the Forum but I think this merits mention: 

 

Best, 

Fabio

 

Research medal inaugural winner

The Howard League for Penal Reform is pleased to announce that Professor Shadd Maruna, Queen’s University Belfast, with Dr Anna King are the inaugural recipients of the charity’s research medal. Their research was entitled Once a criminal, always a criminal?: 'Redeemability’ and the psychology of punitive public attitude.

Professor Maruna will receive the award of £1000 at a ceremony on 14th June 2011 in central London.  At the ceremony the seven other shortlisted entries will learn whether the competition panel has decided to award them highly commended or commended trophies for their research.

Professor Maruna will deliver a lecture at the event based on the winning research.  

More information about the winners and the shortlisted entries will appear on this site next week.

Join us at the award ceremony

If you are interested in attending the award ceremony on 14th June 2011 at Clifford Chance head office (10 Upper Bank St, London, E14 5JJ) between 6.30 and 8.30pm please fill out the event booking form. Places at this event are limited.

 

Comment by Fabio on May 19, 2011 at 14:30

Dear all, 

 

I was thinking, as we're quite interested in each other's work, interests etc, we could make use of the above "discussion forum" to report of any articles, presentations, slides, articles, or any materials (also your own) that you think might be of interest to the group. using the forum instead of the comment wall, will help in keeping the forum less confusing as I'm sure (and hope) there will be plenty of comments following! 

 

(if you have a presentation you'd like to share, you can use http://www.slideshare.net/ :)

 

 

Plus, there will be two conferences that might be of interest coming up soon: 

 

- the York Deviancy Conference (29 june - 1 July)

 

http://www.york.ac.uk/sociology/about/news-and-events/department/de...

 

and the BSC one (4 July - 6 July + the PGR conference on the 3 July) in Newcastle - Northumbria university

 

http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/sd/academic/sass/about/socscience/socs...

 

I will be hopefully attending them and would be great, if you're going, to meet up in person and make some cheer...ahem, discuss critically about criminology!

 

I hope to read from you soon! 

Fabio

 

PS: please advertise the group to anybody you think might be interested in it. 

you can use the following link for this purpose: 

 

http://www.crimspace.com/group/desistance/invitation/new?

 

I find the discussion about these topics really interesting and useful to challenge the academic world we are in at the moment.. so: the more, the better!

 

 

Thank you!

Comment by Fabio on May 19, 2011 at 14:19

Hi Bart, 

 

Interesting your work! (I just had chance to catch up properly with all the messages from this discussion)

 

I am currently applying for the ethical clearance for a project on desistance/reintegration. I'm going to conduct some participant observations within a prison and, later on, continue my research with further interviews to prisoners, staff from the prison and hopefully with the prisons' family/friends (depending on availability). 

I am aiming to understand more about the process of reintegration and how this works in relation to: 

- the influence of the prison culture on the offender (how does this support or not the effort to "make good")

- the influence of the network within prison (staff and other prisoners) but also from the family. 

- In relation to the family how the relationship changes and, consequently, influences the following reintegration. 

 

I would be very much interested in learning more about your own work and the research results. 

Have you any publications I could look up to?

 

Thank you very much!

Fabio 

 

Ps: good the Belgian chocolate but I was more astonished by the finest macaroons! (I know they're not Belgian but I went to a shop in Brussels that was only great!)

 

Comment by Bart Claes on May 19, 2011 at 7:12

Hi Tania, Shadd and Fergus,

Well no professor Bart here Tania, just a phd student writing the last chapters of his PhD. Very interesting reflexion by Fergus!  

As the only country in Europe, one of the 4 counter-indications for granting a conditional release in Belgium concerns the attitude of the prisoner towards his victim. Psychologists, prison governers, and especially the prisoner has to 'give' information about this indication. Not just the concerns about risk are giving content to that indication. Why is it that we want to 'correct' the moral compass of the prisoner? Why is it that, of instead turning towards God some 150 years ago, the prisoner has to face the victim for moral introspection? And now, the prisoner is the full responsible for doing that, the prison is just the facilitator, the psychologist and the prison governor are the evaluaters,... By the use of technologies of the self in the prison context in Belgium, the prisoner has to govern himself towards adjusting himself towards an image of an new 'moraly corrected prisoner'? Why is it that the growing interest in the victim and its more important place within the criminal justice system (and in prison) is translated for a part into new 'images', responsibilities that are focused on the soul of the prisoner? Why is it that tpoics like empathy are mentioned in risk-assesment tests like SAPROV as a protective item but is translated in prison as a topic to be disciplined? Why do we want prisoners to adjust themselves by surching for new 'fronts' or 'masks' that reflects the 'image of the moral corrected prisoner'? And also, what about al those new, interesting initiatives like victim awareness programs, victim-offender mediation, sentencing circles that work in prison also for and with the prisoner but are caught within this new proces of constructing and adapting towards this new image. Just some reflections and questions after spending a lot of time behind closed doors talking to prisoners... And now I need some Belgian chocolate :-)

Greetings Bart

Comment by Fabio on May 18, 2011 at 20:50

Nice contributions for all! (and I agree with Shadd remarks "as always"). 

 

I give you my two cents (as social psychologist) on this and raise further question(s): 

 

Risk and control culture: it is always focused on the negative and it has been always as something that prisoners and ex-prisoners have been "complaining" about. Having an officer or anyone who instead of looking at what they did actually do well were asking where they did wrong. As for someone who is quitting smoking 1 cigarette is nothing compared to when he used to smoke 40 a day and perceived himself as an addict. As someone already noticed, when talking about desistance we always focus on something that is negative - the absence of crime. Is it what actually we want to focus on? it looks like the scientific attitude behind Popper: you always look at the negative to reject the theory, not much important what someone does good in life. 

 

But from another point, that's how people minds work: it doesn't matter how much good a person does, they'll always have the label/stereotype of the criminal and we will selectively pick up those behaviours that confirm our stereotype (and I could go on with this.. ). Shall we, as academic try to challenge these views and hope to bring the possibility of question these ancestral ways of thinking towards more understanding of people's issues and realities?

 

Psychologists in prison: the prison setting is surely not helping in facilitating the cooperation and the beginning of a therapeutic process of rehabilitation. But is it the same also outside of prison with "everyday" people? If there's a basic learning in your career as psychologist is that people have to be looking for help themselves otherwise does not make any sense at all. How would you feel like if any authority would put you in front of a person that is trying to "cure" a "pathology" (because, fairly speaking, when someone goes to the psychologist or is in cure could still be seen as a person with issue) you don't think or want to do anything about it. 

I think too many times we forget that prisoners and people in the Criminal Justice System probably live and think exactly as we and other people outside do. Where's the comparison group in criminological research? (I want the loyalties for this as a journal title :P)

 

thank you everybody and I hope to hear more from you. 

 

Fabio

 

 

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