‘Keeping busy’ as agency in early desistance
| Published date | 01 January 2022 |
| Author | Sarah Goodwin |
| DOI | 10.1177/1748895820939223 |
| Date | 01 January 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1748895820939223
Criminology & Criminal Justice
2022, Vol. 22(1) 43 –58
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/1748895820939223
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‘Keeping busy’ as agency in
early desistance
Sarah Goodwin
Sheffield Hallam University, UK
Abstract
Agency in desistance research has often been understood as deliberate action undertaken in
pursuit of a desisting identity. Through a micro-longitudinal approach, this research focuses on the
early desistance experiences of a number of mainly White British female participants. Agency was
exhibited not with a new identity in mind, but instead through ‘keeping busy’. The surprising lack
of identity concerns may be due to the early stages of the participants’ desistance experiences,
with new identities emerging later in the process. Alternatively, it may indicate a fundamental
difference to the classic desistance narrative, linked to the differences between this sample and
the frequently researched, Western, male, high-frequency offender. Finally, important aspects
of the cultures surrounding desistance research may have shaped the narratives of desisters
and the biases of researchers towards finding a concern for identity when this is not necessarily
experienced in the everyday lives of desisters.
Keywords
Agency, cultural narratives, female desistance, identity
Introduction
It is frequently understood within desistance research that agency is properly demon-
strated when people act to orientate themselves towards a desired future self. In this
article, I use my research of women’s early desistance experiences to challenge the
idea that agentic action is intrinsically tied up with a desister’s identity. The use of
retrospective narratives, however, complicates the study of agency in the everyday
lives of desisters, especially in the early stages. To mitigate this, I employed a
Corresponding author:
Sarah Goodwin, Department of Law and Criminology, Sheffield Hallam University, Heart of the Campus,
Collegiate Crescent, Sheffield S10 2BQ, UK.
Email: s.goodwin@shu.ac.uk; @SGoodwinCrim
939223CRJ0010.1177/1748895820939223Criminology & Criminal JusticeGoodwin
research-article2020
Article
44 Criminology & Criminal Justice 22(1)
micro-longitudinal approach to study the experiences of female desisters as they live
through the early stages of moving on from crime. In doing so, the idea of ‘keeping
busy’ emerged as an important aspect of agentic behaviour. I explain a variety of theo-
retical perspectives through which this idea can be understood. A desister ‘keeping
busy’ can rightly be seen as intentional action in a number of ways, albeit often
divorced from conceptions of who the desister is or is becoming. It may well be sub-
sequently built upon to form a coherent identity, but this possibility may not be con-
sidered in the day-to-day experiences of the desister. Finally, I consider the important
socio-cultural context which helps to explain why we, as desistance researchers,
struggle to separate agency from identity.
Agency
Agency, or acting like an agent, can prove straightforward to identify but more difficult
to explain and a precise definition is contested. On a basic level, people exhibit agency
when they deliberately act in accordance with their intentions. They are not just instinc-
tively reacting to circumstances, but they are guided by a particular aim. Behaviour is not
accidental or random, but intended and focused on some sort of end point. Agentic action
is therefore purposeful. Desistance theorists have come to place great importance on the
individual’s agentic role in promoting desistance (Barry, 2006; Baskin and Sommers,
1998; Giordano et al., 2002; Graham and Bowling, 1995; McNeill, 2012; Murray, 2009),
and desisters themselves often have a strong belief that personal agentic action – acting
with the aim of desistance in mind – is crucial to the success of their journey (Burnett,
1992; Haigh, 2009). While agentic language frequently appears when people retrospec-
tively tell their stories of desistance (Maruna, 2001), there is only a small amount of
prospective research that links agency and desistance. For example, definite intentions to
desist have been found to predict lower subsequent self-reported offending (Shapland
and Bottoms, 2011), and agency has been linked to more favourable life outcomes
(Paternoster and Pogarsky, 2009).
Some criticism has been levelled at desistance theory for talking about agency while
not truly integrating it, thus creating overly causational theories (Paternoster, 2017).
Such an oversight seems to be traceable to the lack of accepted definitions of the concept
of agency. Yet in recent years, there has been much work done in attempting to define
and operationalise the term (Carlsson, 2016; Healy, 2013, 2016; King, 2014). Drawing
on both cognitive work on the nature of choices and change (Giordano et al., 2002;
Prochaska et al., 1992; Vaughan, 2007; Wikström, 2010), and explanations of different
types of specific agentic action (Emirbayer and Mische, 1998), desistance theorists have
now begun to move towards a shared blueprint for understanding agency. Emirbayer and
Mische’s (1998) influential taxonomy divides agency into three temporally distinct
types. Iterational agency looks to rely on habits established in the past to guide the choice
of present action. Practical evaluative agency is grounded in the present, weighing up
factors in the moment to make a decision. Projective agency looks to the future, with an
agent acting on the basis of who they aim to become. Building on the third of Emirbayer
and Mische’s agentic types, one core aspect of the shared understanding within desist-
ance work specifically is that agentic actions are closely linked to the pursuit of a
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