NCJ Number
190244
Journal
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume: 88 Issue: 4 Dated: Summer 1998 Pages: 1399-1422
Date Published
1998
Length
24 pages
Annotation
This paper argued that theory and research on desistance from crime was absolutely necessary to advance scientific and policy goals. The goal was to examine desistance among criminal offenders and attempt to present a systematic explication of the argument for desistance research.
Abstract
Because criminological theory was concerned primarily with the causes of crime, criminologists were viewed as having devoted little attention to understanding the desistance process. Yet, desistance research was seen as potentially proving more rewarding for theory and policy, in part because it was more manageable conceptually and methodologically. This paper was concerned less with why people commited crime than with the conditions promoting social reintegration and desistance from crime. The following assertions were made: (1) that the causes of desistance likely differed from the causes of crime; (2) that knowledge of the true causes of desistance would be easier to obtain than knowledge of the true causes of crime; and (3) that it would be possible to translate scientific knowledge about desistance into specific policy interventions. The paper began with a general discussion of crime and causality and proceeded with a case for and against desistance research. Desistance research was seen as offering critical tests of existing theory and the potential for new breakthroughs and concrete policy guidance. There were several desistance-oriented interventions whose evaluations documented their content, suggested their crime control potential, and for some, specified the offenders for whom the interventions might be most effective. The most fundamental irregularity in the study of crime and desistance was researchers ability to intervene and isolate the respective causes of these phenomena.