Implicit Theories of Reoffending among Violent and Sexual Offenders

• In Event: Theories and Predictors of Reoffending

Abstract

Searching for the causes of criminal behavior and reoffending is one of the primary concerns of criminological research. Empirical research has identified possible pathways to delinquency and static and dynamic risk factors of reoffending. These results have greatly assisted the fields of crime prevention, offender management, offender rehabilitation, reintegration, and prognosis. However, many unanswered questions remain before criminology can completely understand the dynamics of recidivism. Additionally, in the discussion of the recent years, the notion of desistance and related concepts such as identity shift, turning points, and agency have come to the fore. A perspective that has been largely neglected is the perspective of the offenders themselves. In this paper, we present data from a qualitative analysis where we investigated implicit theories of reoffending among newly incarcerated violent and sexual offenders. First, the most prominent risk factors mentioned by the newly incarcerated offenders are presented. Second, we identified comprehensive and more abstract patterns of implicit theorizing. These results show that, for decoding conditions of reoffending, it is crucial to understand the causal and dynamic relationship between risk factors and singular desistance concepts. Furthermore, the analyses yielded some surprising findings with regard to theories of crime, desistance theory, and neutralization theory.

Authors

• Gunda Woessner, Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law

• Kira-Sophie Gauder, Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law, Freiburg, Germany