I Am the Person Now I Was Always Meant to be': Identity Reconstruction and Narrative Reframing in Therapeutic Community Prisons

• NCJ Number: 241632
• Journal: Criminology & Criminal Justice Volume: 12 Issue: 5 Dated: November 2012 Pages: 527-547
• Author(s): Alisa Stevens
• Date Published: November 2012
• Length: 21 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United Kingdom

Annotation

This article explores desistance in process among serious offenders residing in democratic therapeutic communities.

Abstract

Drawing upon semi-ethnographic research, this article explores desistance in process among serious offenders residing in democratic therapeutic communities. It is argued that offender rehabilitation in therapeutic communities involves a process of purposive and agentic reconstruction of identity and narrative reframing, so that a 'new' and 'better' person emerges whose attitudes and behaviors cohere with long-term desistance from crime. This is possible because the prison-based therapeutic community, with its commitment to a radically 'different' culture and mode of rehabilitation, socially enables, produces and reinforces the emergence of someone 'different'. The article therefore develops existing understandings of change in forensic therapeutic communities, and reaffirms theories of desistance which emphasize the importance of pro-social changes to the offender's personal identity and self-narrative. Abstract published by arrangement with Sage Journals.