Promoting desistance

A workshop exploring desistance and how best to support it’s development

Dave Wood

Overview and objectives

● Consider what desistance is.● Explore the nature and findings of the

research.● Think through what desistance

understandings mean for practice.

A little about me

• Probation – 13 years• PhD research• Development of

Metanoeo: Coaching Academic Training Future direction

Session ethos

We all bring different concerns perspectives and experiences:● Listen● Share● Engage● ReflectBe prepared to challenge your own preconceptions and understandings.

Introduction

● Allan Weaver – The Road from Crime

● Social nature – back to probation roots

● Paradigm as opposed to a practice theory

What is desistance?

● Journey● Difficult● Lapse and relapse● When has someone

desisted?

Onset

Persistence

Desistance

Exercise 1

Have you ever asked someone why they stopped committing crime?

If so, what did they say?

A look at the research

Qualitative - internal and external factors:• Maturity• Family / relationships• Sobriety• Employment• Hope and motivation• Giving• Place in society• Identity• Being believed in

Relating this to theory

• Negative self-scripting• Becker and master /

auxiliary status• Redemption scripts• Strain theory and

onset• S

tories are similar but they’re not the same

Exercise 2

Listening to the stories in the video; what are the issues which are important for people in terms of keeping them in crime?How does this match with your experience?

Summarising the research

Enablement

Identity

ReconciliationHope

Developing assisteddesistance

Fergus McNeill:• Enablement instead of control• Meaningful relationships• Optimistic and avoid labelling• Strengths not just risks• Recognising achievement• Practical assistance• Working with family• Role of communities

Emergence of Good Lives

Emergence in sex offender treatment

• Primary goods• Human well-being• Cultural context ... but

some basic needs• Individualised weighted

planPositive psychology

A case study

Rudi Richardson – Founder of Streetlytes

Exercise 3

What does this mean for your practice?• Relationship quality• Facilitating change• Kind of journey• Nature of journey• Identity and diversity

Conclusion

Liberation not management