Voices of Support: Family and Friends in Crime Desistance - CANCELLED

• In Event: Poster Session 2

Abstract

The majority of studies focusing on crime desistance are based on meetings with individuals who have committed criminal acts to understand the "how" and the "why" of their desistance. Studies on assisted desistance (recognizing the influence of formal agents and informal agents (parents, friends, partners, community workers) on the DC process) add the question "Who?". Who intervened? In what way? At what time? However, none of these studies have given a voice to this "Who?". And this is precisely what this project proposes: to give a voice to the members of the social circle who support a loved one in a desistance process. Therefore, members of the social circle (parents, partners, and friends) who support a loved one (still active, in the process of desistance, or who have desisted from crime) shared their experiences as informal agents of desistance through semi-structured qualitative interviews. The preliminary results highlight how informal assisted desistance takes place (e.g., the forms it takes, key moments), the consequences (positive and negative) that this implies, the nature of family and friends’ relationships with the judicial system, and their needs in terms of support.

Author

• Catherine Arseneault, Université de Montréal