The bridge between social identity and community capital on the path to recovery and desistance
| Published date | 01 December 2018 |
| Author | Amy Musgrove,David Best,Lauren Hall |
| Date | 01 December 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0264550518790677 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
The Journal of Community and Criminal Justice
Probation Journal
The bridge between
2018, Vol. 65(4) 394–406
ª The Author(s) 2018
social identity and
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DOI: 10.1177/0264550518790677
community capital
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on the path to recovery
and desistance
David Best, Amy Musgrove and Lauren Hall
Sheffield Hallam University, UK
Abstract
It has long been recognised that changes in social networks (and the underpinning
changes in personal and social identity) are strong predictors of both desistance from
crime and recovery from substance use. Building on existing work attempting to
measure and shift social networks and transitions to prosocial groups, the current
study provides pilot data from prisoners and family members about a visualisation
technique widely used in specialist addiction treatment (node-link mapping) to map
opportunities for linkage to prosocial groups and networks. The data presented in the
paper are from a small-scale feasibility pilot. This suggests both bonding and bridging
capital in prisoner populations due for release and the diversity of community capital
opportunities that exists in this population. The implications of this work are significant
for substance users and offenders pending return to the community, and has impli-
cations around resettlement and reintegration support for probation staff in prisons
and in the community. The paper emphasises the importance of mapping con-
nectedness as a key component of planning for reintegration back into the community
for those working with offenders who are aspiring to achieve desistance and recovery.
Keywords
desistance, recovery, community connectedness, social capital, node-link mapping
Corresponding Author:
David Best, Sheffield Hallam University, Collegiate Crescent, Sheffield S10 2BQ, UK.
Email: D.Best@shu.ac.uk
Best et al.
395
Introduction
Although definitions of recovery have been elusive and contested (e.g. Best, 2011),
the Betty Ford Institute Consensus Panel defines recovery from substance depen-
dence as a “voluntarily maintained lifestyle characterised by sobriety, personal
health and citizenship” (2007: 222), while the UK Drug Policy Commission con-
cludes that recovery should be characterised as “voluntarily sustained control over
substance use which maximises health and wellbeing and participation in the rights,
roles and responsibilities of society” (2008: 6). Writers such as Valentine (2011)
have argued that ‘you are in recovery if you say you are’; however, there is a
recognition that recovery requires activity and action, that it changes over time, and
that it is socially mediated (Cano et al., 2017; Mericle, 2014; Laudet et al., 2002).
In a review in the British Journal of Psychiatry of studies showing positive results from
recovery interventions, a model was produced of ‘essential elements’ of recovery,
summed in the acronym CHIME (Leamy et al., 2011). This stands for Connected-
ness; Hope; a positive sense of Identity; Meaning and Empowerment, and provides
basic domains that recovery projects can be mapped against.
The impact of social factors is further emphasised by Longabaugh et al. (2010),
in an analysis of alcohol outcome data, asserting that a strong predictor of recovery
from alcoholism is shifting from networks supportive of drinking to networks sup-
portive of recovery. Similarly, in the UK, Best et al. (2008) found that, while initial
cessation of substance use was triggered by psychological change and trigger
events, maintaining long-term recovery was more strongly predicted by transitions
in the composition of peer groups from individuals who are using to being char-
acterised by recovery.
Similar discussions and debates have taken place around desistance from
offending. Desistance has been defined as a process that involves ‘the long term
abstinence from criminal behaviour among those for whom offending had
become a pattern of behaviour’ (McNeill et al., 2012: 3). Sampson and Laub
(1992) used a developmental approach to demonstrate that desistance-oriented
life transitions are dependent on wider social variables such as changes in
social status and an expanding repertoire of life experiences. In a review of
their life course model, Laub, Sampson and Sweeten (2011) assert that “we
recognise that both the social environment and the individuals are influenced by
the interaction of structures and choice. [ . . . ] In other words, we are always
embedded in social structures” (pp. 281–2), an issue that applies equally to
desistance from offending and recovery from substance use.
In the recovery field, the synthesis of contributing factors has been defined as
‘recovery capital’ described by Granfield and Cloud (1999) as the sum of resources
available to people to support their recovery pathways. A key aspect of recovery
capital is social capital; social capital has been referred to as the value of aspects of
social structure to social actors and how they can draw on different aspects of this as
a type of resource (Coleman, 1988); the goodwill that is generated as a result of
investment in social relations (Adler, 2002); and ‘investment in social relations with
expected returns’ (Lin, 1999: 30). It is clear that social capital can be considered
396
Probation Journal 65(4)
structurally, functionally, and in terms of the relational benefits it can manifest
(Cattell, 2001). This has provided the foundation for examining key elements of
recovery resources at the intra- and inter-personal levels as well as the community
resources required (Best and Laudet, 2010), and has introduced the idea of ‘com-
munity capital’ to refer to those resources in the lived community that can support
positive change, such as access to groups and organisations. The idea of recovery
capital draws in part on the idea of social capital (Putnam, 2000), including the
division between bonding capital (the strength of associations and relations
between existing networks) and bridging capital (the capacity of the individual or
group to link to new groups and networks). Putnam (2000) went on to suggest that it
was second-generation connections (friends of friends) who could provide access to
information about community resources that was critical in appraising the levels of
community capital. Cloud and Granfield (2008) subsequently introduced the idea
of ‘negative recovery capital’ to refer to things that could act as potential barriers to
recovery – including stigma and exclusion both on an interpersonal and on a
structural and societal basis.
Furthermore, one of the major barriers to recovery is the challenge of exiting from
using groups (and identities) to recovery groups. This transition is outlined in the
Social Identity Model of Recovery (SIMOR; Best et al., 2016) in which recovery is
characterised as a change in attitudes and values associated with the transition from
groups supportive of substance use to groups supportive of recovery. This group
transition creates new social capital through engagement with groups who have
access to more pro-social resources in the community and who are able to provide
structures and support to the recovery pathway (Moos, 2007).
This notion of identity change and the role of social networks also plays out in the
desistance literature. Farrall’s (2002) study of 199 probationers identified desis-
tance as being closely related to the offender’s motivation to change and to the
social and personal support networks that supported these changes. In Maruna’s
(2001) Liverpool Desistance study, based on interviews with...
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