This post is is the 2nd in a 3 part series: Part 1: Recidivism: Is It a Real Thing? Part 3: Beyond Recidivism and Desistance

“Recidivism” (re-offending) has long been the gold standard for assessing whether “criminals” have changed their ways or continued on the path of crime. Measured in terms of new arrests, convictions or incarcerations, recidivism rates are a product of policing and judicial policies and prejudices as much or more than actual behaviors of so-called “offenders”.

In a recent post I explained that among the formerly incarcerated Massachusetts women with whom I have worked for the past decade, there are no meaningful differences in attitudes, lifestyle, or behavioral choices between those considered by the system to have recidivated and those deemed to have desisted from crime. (For more see “Beyond Recidivism and Desistance” in the latest issue of Feminist Criminology.)

Recognizing the limits of narrow measures of recidivism as a binary category (that is, an individual either does or does not recidivate), some criminologists understand “desistance” (desisting from crime) as a broader, gradual and more holistic process in which people stop or reduce the frequency or severity of committing crimes.

Turning Points and Hooks for Change?

Proponents of desistance theory emphasize the importance of life-path “turning points” such as landing a job or getting married. These socially normative events can function as “hooks for change” that facilitate and encourage personal transition from criminality to a law-abiding life-style.

Among the formerly incarcerated women whom I have come to know, these proposed turning points are not particularly influential. Rather, many of the same factors that make the women vulnerable to criminal justice contact also make turning points such as employment or marriage less available, viable or beneficial. These factors include poverty, limited educational opportunities, chronic health problems, and complex family responsibilities.

Burdened with prison records as well as all of the health, educational and social challenges that set them up for prison to begin with, none of the forty-seven women has been steadily employed throughout the years I have known them. About half of the women have worked on and off, occasionally holding a job for several months at a time. The other half has never been employed for more than a few weeks.

Typically, their jobs provide low wages, low status, and involve being yelled at by customers and managers. These sorts of jobs do not “lift” women out of the poverty and pain associated with criminalization. They do not make them “want to go straight” and they do not provide sufficient financial independence for them to support themselves without some combination of assistance from men, government services and illicit acts.

A parallel scenario plays out regarding marriage. Very few women have maintained stable relationships with gainfully employed men who are not abusive, addicts or alcoholics. Some women are legally married to men they haven’t seen for years. In a few cases, that man was abusive and introduced the woman to drugs. Some women are in long-term relationships with men they are not married to and/or not living with because their housing situation does not permit the man to spend the night with them. Some women had to leave marriages in order to retain custody of children (because the husband had an outstanding criminal charge). Several have been arrested because a husband or fiance sold drugs out of their apartment. Some have “taken the charge” (that is, pleaded guilty to a criminal charge) in order to spare a husband or fiance who would have received a longer sentence because of a more problematic criminal record.

While these women present extreme examples of the failure of marriage to function as a turning point, throughout the United States marriage marriage rates have dropped, divorce rates soar, and the benefits of marriage are increasingly concentrated among college-educated and well-to-do men and women.

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The Right Attitude?

Criminologists as well as parole and probation officers and caseworkers emphasize that the attitudes of former prisoners function as facilitators of or impediments to desistance. In a famous study of 55 male and 10 female former offenders in Liverpool, for example, Shadd Maruna (2001) observed that those who persisted in crime tended to portray themselves as victims of circumstances and not at fault for their past offenses. “Desisters” from crime, in contrast, expressed responsibility for their choices and described their future behavior and success being within their control.

In my on-going work with Boston women, I failed to see any such distinctions. While many women spoke optimistically about the future right after finishing a prison sentence or rehabilitation program, within a few months they typically lost the sense that their own decisions and abstinence from drugs would lead to jobs, child custody or housing. Whether or not they are emotionally committed to making good choices and creating positive identities, the reality is that none have any financial savings, only a handful have romantic partners who do not have criminal records, most grapple with multiple chronic health problems, and all struggle with being able to afford stable housing. It is these factors rather than their attitudes that limit their “desistance”.

At our first encounters I asked each woman what she hoped or thought her life would be like in five years. Nearly all of the women—both those who later “recidivated” and those who “desisted” from crime —described normatively gendered, middle-class lives with a job, home and their children living with them. “Desister” Francesca told me, “I will own a house; have a dog and my two boys with me.” Carly, one of the younger “desisters” hoped, “I will have obtained my GED and gone through college. I will have my own apartment. I will be working at my own desk.” Gloria, one of the older “recidivists,” told me that, “I’ll have a house, be married, have a little girl, be working in a hotel – in a higher position as a housekeeper.” “Recidivist” Livia saw herself working, being an active mom, drug free, and free of incarceration.

Nearly fifteen years later, none of these women has come close to her goals. Moreover, despite expressing similar goals and optimistic attitudes in the early days, some have “re-offended” and some have not.

I suspect that the enthusiasm with which the women offered their positive future visions had a great deal to do with recent or current involvement in a correctional or therapeutic program as well as uncertainty about my role (that is, was I a caseworker with the power to help or hurt them based on what they told me? Most now understand that I am not!)

As I’ve documented elsewhere, participants in court-ordered rehabilitation and drug treatment programs participants typically are drilled in Twelve Step recitations of accepting personal responsibility for one’s problems. This ideology emphasizes absolving intimate others as well as social and political institutions of any blame for the hardships in one’s life, and in many situations the women are expected to embrace (or at least proclaim) these ideas in order to graduate a program, get custody of their children, or avoid punishment.

In light of the power of the institutional circuit to punish, reward, distribute money, withhold access to children, incarcerate, release from incarceration, give or withhold medical treatment and require declarations of adherence to certain ideologies, “desistance” as an attitude can easily become one more stick to beat Francesca, Gloria and others with.

Coming Up Next: Ideas for Moving Forward

In the next post I will propose alternative ways for thinking about why millions of Americans are unable to escape the broad nets of the criminal justice system — and what we can do about it!