Desistance and criminal justice in Scotland

Abstract

Although research about how and why people come to stop offending (and stay stopped) has a relatively long history (see Glueck and Glueck, 1930), what we might term the popularisation of the concept of desistance, and its emergence into criminal justice discourses and practices, is largely a twenty-first-century phenomenon. A superficial reading of these developments would probably point to the significance of an increasing body of literature (and other materials) in which several authors (this one included) have made conspicuous and consistent efforts to interpret and apply desistance theory and research for and with criminal justice policy makers and practitioners, and with those who have lived experience of punishment and rehabilitation (Farrall, 2002; Maruna, 2001; McNeill, 2006; McNeill and Weaver, 2010). A more critical perspective might want to dig a little deeper, looking at the ways in which desistance research has been used both to resist and to support criminal justice reform efforts of diverse and even contradictory sorts; ranging from the marketisation of probation (in England and Wales), to the promotion of penal reductionism, to the reframing and/or displacement of punitive and risk discourses and practices, to the recognition and prioritisation of ‘user voice’ in criminal justice. This chapter cannot provide a comprehensive and critical perspective on all ofthese developments; even if space permitted such an account, as an actor in this process I am perhaps not best placed to analyse it dispassionately. However, given both this book’s critical aspirations and its specific jurisdictional locus, my intention is to provide a personal and critical reflection on the progress of and prospects for desistance research as an influence on Scottish criminal justice (and, by implication, beyond). Rather than ignoring my own role and position in these developments, I aim to draw upon my experiences as one of the sources for my analysis: but thatmeans that both the writer and the reader need to think critically about how my interests and history in this field might shape the account I offer. The structure of this chapter is as follows. After a brief account of some of thecore themes in desistance research, with a particular focus on Scottish research, I look in turn at the influence of this research on sentencing, on supervision and on imprisonment in Scotland to date. In the concluding section, I reflect on my experience in the light of contemporary debates about ‘public criminology’ (Loader and Sparks, 2010).