Turning away from criminal intent
| Published date | 01 February 2009 |
| Date | 01 February 2009 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1362480608100175 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Turning away from criminal intent
Reflecting on Victorian and Edwardian strategies for
promoting desistance amongst petty offenders
JUDITH ROWBOTHAM
Nottingham Trent University, UK
Abstract
This article reflects upon the ideas of commentators and the
experiences of those convicted in the summary courts in the late
Victorian and Edwardian period (particularly the recidivist element),
locating these with societal reactions to such individuals, especially
via the voluntary sector. How did this period construct a concept to
present, promote and explain cessation? An exploration of the
strategies used to promote desistance in this period provides a
range of useful insights for the modern age, removing (as it does)
the focus from a formal management of the offender via prison and
its associated rehabilitative strategies to the role played by the family
and community context of the offender. This is illuminated through
the work of those voluntary agencies associated with the criminal
justice process, such as the London Police Court Mission. The formal
theorisation prevalent in current criminological thinking about
desistance is countered with evidence indicating success rates
associated with a greater recognition of individual (and so
unpredictable) choice, predicated upon the particular societal
context of the individual, given impetus by the emphasis on hope as
a moral driver in sustaining desistance.
Key Words
desistance strategies •historical perspectives •hope •London Police
Court Mission •petty offenders
Theoretical Criminology
© 2009 SAGE Publications
Los Angeles, London,
New Delhi and Singapore
www.sagepublications.com
Vol. 13(1): 105–128; 1362–4806
DOI: 10.1177/1362480608100175
105
Introduction
The interest in desistance studies is generally characterised as a relatively
‘new’ development, receiving its substance from Laub and Sampson’s (1993)
study of criminal careers. As an identifiable and discrete area of criminolog-
ical study, apart from (if complementary to) recidivism, that may be a rea-
sonable stance. Yet it belies the reality that, as an aspect of recidivism, it has
a long pedigree as an issue of concern to both society affected by career crim-
inals and commentators and policy-makers reflecting on this. Unlike recidi-
vism, desistance was not a term familiar (in this context) to 19th- and early
20th-century commentators, yet the concept it encapsulates—of the ceasing
of criminal activity amongst law-breakers and especially those convicted on
more than one occasion (habitual criminals was then the term)—was a key
concern. An historical investigation into the issue of ex-offenders and how
to encourage desistance amongst them may seem of little practical value to
today’s criminologists, yet, discussing the importance of including an histor-
ical dimension, one early criminological commentator, William Hoyle,
pointed out that that ‘there are great practical advantages resulting there-
from, as it enables us to gauge the influences which conduce to the national
well-being, and also to detectthose which are detrimental thereto’. He added
that ‘Every patriotic and enlightened statesman will therefore avail himself
of any experience which a retrospect of history may afford’ (Hoyle, 1876:
1)—a message modern policy-makers seem, sadly, to have overlooked.
Apart from anything else, such historical explorations contribute to the
‘long term longitudinal studies of crime over the full life span’, whose
absence Laub and Sampson once regretted (Laub and Sampson, 2001: 1).
Now, the work of others (notably Farrall, Godfrey and Cox in this issue;
Godfrey et al., 2007) providestestimony to the value of the historical dimen-
sion; indicating thereby the usefulness of work such as this, involving a qual-
itative, rather than quantitative, investigation of the conclusions reached
during the late Victorian and Edwardian period. Burnett has highlighted the
need for an identificationof the processes which have traditionally promoted
desistance (Burnett, 2004: 182). This article explores the wider structural
background which contextualises both formal and informal late Victorian
and Edwardian attempts to aid desistance, especially in the period up to
1907, including the contribution of the vast voluntary philanthropic sector.
Most significantly, though, this was the era which saw the impact of the
London Police Court Mission (LPCM), which provided a formalisation of
ideas and strategies already extant in the criminal justice system about how
to promote desistance amongst petty offenders, while maintaining the com-
munity-orientated informal approaches which characterised the voluntary
sphere. It is a measure of their impact that the state formally took on key ele-
ments of the LPCM’s work in 1907 with the establishment of the probation
service under the terms of the Probation of Offenders Act 1907.
This Act made desistance strategies a statutory obligation, but did not dis-
pense with the services of the voluntary sector. The essence of voluntarism
Theoretical Criminology 13(1)
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