This executive summary details a white paper that considers how imprisonment shapes the desistance process for individuals who are chronically criminally active and discusses the implications of these findings for policy, practice, and research.
Research shows that imprisonment has few, if any, beneficial effects on criminal activity, except for the period when the individual is in a correctional facility. It also shows that imprisonment has disruptive effects o the life-course of individuals, leading to worse labor market outcomes, more disrupted family lives, and worse health. As a result, it seems reasonable to assume that incarceration impedes the desistance process. Virtually none of the existing research considers how imprisonment affects the desistance process for individuals who chronically engage in criminal activity. This is an important oversight because this is the group of criminally active individuals for whom desistance from crime is most important both for society and for themselves. This paper considers how imprisonment shapes the desistance process for individuals who are chronically criminally active and discusses the implications of these findings for policy, practice, and research.
Downloads
Similar Publications
- Parental Hostility as a Moderator of the Criminogenic Effect of Parental Criminal Justice Contact Among Youth Adjudicated of Serious Offenses
- A mixed methods implementation study of juvenile drug treatment courts
- “They had to change the model to fit the victim, versus the victim having to fit the model”: Innovative solutions in community response to commercial sexual exploitation