Desistance from sexual offending: Do the mainstream theories apply?
| Author | Mark Farmer,Shadd Maruna,Anne-Marie McAlinden |
| DOI | 10.1177/1748895816670201 |
| Date | 01 July 2017 |
| Published date | 01 July 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1748895816670201
Criminology & Criminal Justice
2017, Vol. 17(3) 266 –283
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1748895816670201
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Desistance from
sexual offending: Do the
mainstream theories apply?
Anne-Marie McAlinden
Queen’s University Belfast, UK
Mark Farmer
Queen’s University Belfast, UK
Shadd Maruna
University of Manchester, UK
Abstract
The literature on desistance from crime has become well established in recent years with strong
bodies of evidence supporting the role of factors such as employment, relationships and identity
change in this process. However, the relevance of this literature to individuals convicted of sexual
crimes is not known as such individuals are almost always excluded from this research. This
article presents the results from one of the first empirical studies on desistance from sexual
offending based on 32 in-depth life story interviews with adult males previously convicted of child
sex offences. In this analysis we explore the significance of work, the role of relationships and
changes in imagined selves in the self-identities of individuals successfully desisting from sexual
offending. The findings provide support for all three factors in helping to sustain desistance from
sex offending, but also suggest clear differences between desistance from sex offending and other
types of crime in these regards.
Keywords
Desistance, employment, future self-identity, reintegrative shaming, relationships, sex offending
Corresponding author:
Anne-Marie McAlinden, School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast, University Square, Belfast, BT7 1NN, UK.
Email: a.mcalinden@qub.ac.uk
670201CRJ0010.1177/1748895816670201Criminology & Criminal JusticeMcAlinden et al.
research-article2016
Article
McAlinden et al. 267
Introduction
Desistance from crime has been the subject of sustained academic attention for the last two
decades (e.g. Farrall et al., 2014; Kazemian, 2007; Laub and Sampson, 2001). Indeed,
Paternoster and Bushway (2009: 1156) have argued that ‘theorizing and research about
desistance from crime is one of the most exciting, vibrant, and dynamic areas in criminol-
ogy today’. As the study of how and why some individuals with long patterns of offending
are able to live crime-free lives, desistance research has obvious implications for those
policy-makers and practitioners interested in reducing recidivism through ex-prisoner rein-
tegration work (Burnett, 2004; McNeill, 2006; Weaver and McNeill, 2010). In particular,
the theory and practice of sex offender treatment in the United Kingdom and elsewhere has
been influenced by desistance research in the way that the therapeutic relationship is con-
ceived and delivered (see, for example, De Vries Robbé et al., 2015; Mann, 2004; Ward and
Laws, 2010). However, the majority of major research studies in desistance have either
explicitly excluded or else implicitly neglected cases of individuals convicted of sexual
offending from these analyses. As such, it is unclear whether the theories that have been
developed to account for desistance actually apply to the topic of desistance from sex
offending or if desistance is an entirely different process for this particular offender group.
In this article, we join a small but growing literature that seeks to fill this void by
exploring the complex interplay between the structural and cognitive processes sustain-
ing desistance from sexual offending from a sample of 32 individuals convicted of sexual
offences in England and Wales. As a first step in developing an understanding of desist-
ance from sex offending, this analysis applies the leading ‘mainstream’ theories to the
life narratives of our sample to explore how well the theories fit individuals convicted of
sexual crimes against children. Specifically, we explore the themes of ‘work’ and ‘rela-
tionships’ as subjectively perceived by individuals formerly convicted of child sexual
offences. As two of the key informal social controls thought to underpin desistance from
crime (Laub and Sampson, 2001), including sexual offending (Kruttschnitt et al., 2000;
Van Den Berg et al., 2014), work and relationships play an important role in individuals’
desisting narratives as part of the process of ‘reintegrative shaming’ (Braithwaite, 1989;
McAlinden, 2007). Work and relationships also play a part in the ‘imagined future selves’
(e.g. Giordano et al., 2002; Paternoster and Bushway, 2009) thought to facilitate desist-
ance by the development of an identity that is inconsistent with continued offending
(Maruna, 2001).
The article is arranged in four sections. We begin by providing a critical overview of
the literature on desistance from sexual crime, before outlining the research methods that
were employed for the present study. Following this, the main body of the article exam-
ines the themes of work and relationships for the desisting sex offenders within the study.
Finally, we discuss the implications of these variables for the future self-identities of
individuals deemed to be desisting from sexual crime.
Desistance from Sexual Crime
While ‘desistance’ can be conceptualized in a number of ways, it is generally taken to
refer to the dynamic and often complex process through which individuals who had
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