Desistance, Social Capital and Community Penalties

1
Desistance, Social Capital and Community
Penalties

• Fergus McNeill
• University of Glasgow
• f.mcneill_at_sccjr.ac.uk

2
Structure

• Understanding desistance
• Understanding social capital
• Exploring the links
• Social capital, offending and desistance
• Some recent research on probation, desistance and
  social capital
• Implications for community penalties?
• For a written version, see chapters 3 and 9 of
  McNeill, F. and Whyte, B (forthcoming), Reducing
  Re-offending Social Work and Community Justice
  in Scotland. Cullompton, Devon Willan.

3
Understanding desistance 1

• Problems of definition primary and secondary
  desistance
• Desistance is a process characterised by
  ambivalence and vacillation. It is not an event.
  This suggests the need for motivational work.
• Desistance may be provoked by life events,
  depending on the meaning of those events for the
  offender.
• Desistance may be provoked by someone believing
  in the offender. This underlines the importance
  of workers sustaining an optimistic and
  persistent approach through periods of lapse and
  relapse.
• Although the development of better cognitive
  skills may be a part of the process, desistance
  probably involves a broader change in narrative
  identities (or self-stories). This suggests the
  need for interventions which support narrative
  reconstruction.

4
Understanding desistance 2

• If desistance requires discovering (or
  developing) agency, supervision should respect
  this agency by seeking to maximise involvement
  and participation. The discovery of agency may
  also imply a prospective focus for practice,
  drawing on solution-focussed interventions that
  capitalise on strengths, resilience and
  protective factors.
• Desistance requires social capital
  (opportunities) as well as human capital
  (capacities). This suggests an advocacy role for
  practitioners seeking to support change and
  underlines the need to target systems beyond the
  individual offender.
• Desistance is about redemption or restoration
  and often involves finding purpose through
  generative activities. This implies the need,
  at an appropriate point in the process, to
  support the development of a more positive
  identity by accessing opportunities to make a
  positive contribution to local communities.

5
Age and Maturity
Identity and Desistance
Subjective Narratives, Attitudes and Motivation
Life Transitions and Social Bonds
6
The desistance paradigm
7
Understanding social capital

• Putnam (2000) Woolcock (2001) Lin (2001)
• Bonding social capital (horizontal) denotes ties
  between people in similar circumstances
  (families, close friends, neighbours). Strong
  ties (homophily), serving expressive purposes.
• Bridging social capital (horizontal) includes
  more distant ties (loose friendships and
  workmates). Weak ties (heterophily), serving
  instrumental purposes.
• Linking social capital (vertical) connects to
  unlike people in dissimilar situations, enabling
  access to a much wider range of resources,
  external to the community. Serving instrumental
  purposes?

8
Social capital, offending and desistance

• Webster et al. (2006)
• Socio-economic decline and embedded disadvantage
  Neighbourhoods with bonding social capital -
  tends to mean close ties but limited mobilities
• Repeat offenders Diminishing and disrupted
  capital and problematic networks that frustrate
  desistance

9
Probation and social capital

• Farrall (2002, 2004)
• Importance of indirect probation work on
  relationships and employment
• POs as links to SC, activators of SC
• Families (of origin) a key resource in desistance
  
• POs as agents for re-establishing access to
  family resources
• POs and development of families (of formation)
• Pos and developing the work prospects of
  probationers (via job creation schemes (SC), as
  well as employability (HC) work)

• McCulloch (2005)
• Social problems, offending and offence-focussed
  work
• Methods onward referral direct work
  task-centred, problem solving approaches family
  work and home visits
• What mattered? Being listened to, talking about
  problems, advice and guidance, working in
  partnership, involving families
• Impacts related to links between interventions
  and wider processes in offenders lives opening
  up pathways for change

10
Generativity and desistance (McNeill and Maruna,
forthcoming)

• Generativity The concern for and commitment to
  promoting the next generation, manifested through
  parenting, teaching, mentoring, and generating
  products and outcomes that aim to benefit youth
  and foster the development and well-being of
  individuals and social systems that will outlive
  the self (McAdams and de St. Aubin, 1998 xx).
• In terms of the life course, generativity
  develops at the time that delinquency dissipates
  generative commitments fill a void, making
  criminality pointless or too risky
• Civic volunteering, pro-social socialisation and
  desistance (Uggen and Jankula, 1999)
• Redemption scripts (Maruna, 2001) are
  care-oriented, other-centred and focused on
  promoting the next generation something to show
  for ones life rewards, respectability, and
  recognition all linked to generative pursuits

11
Summary

• Social capital appears to be implicated in
  offending and desistance in a number of ways
• Bonding
• Family (of origin) resources may be inaccessible
  bonds may need repair
• Old friends may represent strong negative ties
• Family (of formation) resources may be merely
  nascent and fragile, but critical to identity
  reformation
• Bridging
• Wider networks often limited, hindering access to
  opportunities, new identities and social mobility
• Linking
• Very limited hierarchical mobility in
  disadvantaged communities
• Limited power and status

12
Implications 1 Families of origin

• Engagement with families (of origin)
• Home visits
• Family work
• Renew positive bonds and therefore access the
  resources of bonding social capital
• BUT the suitability of this strategy depends on
  the age and stage of the offender, and the nature
  of the family and its dynamics

13
Implications 2 Families of formation

• The significance of generativity suggests a
  productive focus for work around
• New and developing relationships
• Parenting (and preparation for it)
• Other potential generative activities, including
  civic volunteering
• Such work may help (ex-)offenders to build new
  bonding social capital and to develop new
  bridging social capital, via wider associations
  related to generative activities

14
Implications 3 Community Development

• Probation needs to engage communities in order
  to
• Prepare (ex-) offenders for and assist them in
  accessing wider social networks, including
  through employment (bridging)
• Prepare communities (including employers and
  other agencies) for (ex-) offenders and support
  them in working with (ex-) offenders
• This mediation and advocacy is necessary in order
  to facilitate the development of bridging social
  capital within communities and in the development
  of linking capital across social groups and
  social hierarchies

15
Implications 4 Public attitudes

• Developing the social capital of a vilified group
  is not easy in insecure, late-modern societies,
  but cf.
• Re-assurance policing, signal crimes and control
  signals (Innes, 2004)
• Links between control signals and
  non-punitiveness (Bottoms and Wilson, 2004)
• So, what are the prospects for probation sending
• Control/Protection signals
• Restitution/Reparation signals
• Reformation/Redemption signals
• The success of such signals may have major
  consequences for the capacity of probation to
  generate wider opportunities for the development
  of social capital, in support of reduced
  re-offending

16
References

• Bottoms, A. and Wilson, A. (2004) Attitudes to
  punishment in two high-crime communities, in A.
  Bottoms, S. Rex and G. Robinson (eds.)
  Alternatives to Prison. Options for an insecure
  society, pp. 366-405. Cullompton Willan.
• Bourdieu, P. and Wacquant, L. (1992) An
  Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Polity Press
  Cambridge.
• Coleman, J. (1994) Foundations of Social Theory.
  Cambridge, MA Belknap Press.
• Farrall, S. (2002) Rethinking What Works with
  Offenders Probation, Social Context and
  Desistance from Crime. Willan Publishing
  Cullompton.
• Farrall, S. (2004)Social capital and offender
  reintegration making probation desistance
  focused in S. Maruna and R. Immarigeon (eds.)
  After Crime and Punishment Pathways to offender
  reintegration, pp.57-82. Willan Cullompton.
• Innes, M. (2004) Reinventing tradition?
  Reassurance, neighbourhood security and
  policing, Criminal Justice, 4(2) 151-171.
• Lin (2001) Social Capital a theory of social
  structure and action. Cambridge University Press
  Cambridge.
• McAdams, D. and de St. Aubin, E. (1998)
  Introduction in D. McAdams and E. de St. Aubin
  (eds.), Generativity and adult development How
  and why we care for the next generation (pp.
  xixxxiv). American Psychological Association
  Washington, DC.
• McCulloch, P. (2005) Probation, social context
  and desistance Retracing the relationship,
  Probation Journal 52(1) 8-22.
• McNeill, F. and Maruna, S. (forthcoming) Giving
  Up and Giving Back Desistance, Generativity and
  Social Work with Offenders in G. McIvor and P.
  Raynor (eds.) Social Work with Offenders. London
  Jessica Kingsley
• Maruna. S. (2001) Making Good How Ex-convicts
  Reform and Rebuild their Lives. Washington, D.C.
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• Putnam, R. (1993) Making Democracy Work civic
  traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, University
  Press Princeton.
• Putnam, R. (2000) Bowling Alone the collapse and
  revival of American community. Simon and
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• Uggen, C. and Janikula, J. (1999) Volunteerism
  and Arrest in the Transition to Adulthood.
  Social Forces, 78, 331-62.
• Woolcock (2001) The Place of Social Capital in
  Understanding Social and Economic Outcomes,
  Isuma Canadian Journal of Policy Research, 2(1)
  1-17.
• Webster, C., MacDonald, R. and Simpson, M. (2006)
  Predicting Criminality Risk Factors,
  Neighbourhood Influence and Desistance, Youth
  Justice, 6(1) 7-22.