Desistance from organized crime: a narrative psychosocial perspective

• In Event: Narrative Criminology

Abstract

Desistance from crime is a complex process, which also varies depending on the nature and characteristics of the specific criminal career. In particular, desistance from organized crime, given the specific characteristics of the latter and the presence of well-defined organizations from a cultural and anthropological point of view, requires a theorization that takes into account these complex aspects.
The organizations that have developed in Italy are many and very different from each other: the Sicilian Mafia, the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta, the Neapolitan Camorra and the Apulian Sacra Corona Unita cannot be considered as a whole, but must be studied separately. From this point of view, it seems necessary to understand the peculiarities and differences of each individual desistance process according to the characteristics of the organization to which each subject belongs: in this paper we will consider the desistance of four members of the ‘Ndrangheta.
The subjects to which we will refer are part of a larger sample in the project: Lives on the Edge. The Genoa Study of Desistance, which uses an approach inspired by psychosocial narrative criminology, and in which desisters are subjected to three qualitative interviews according to the methodology developed by Hollway and Jefferson and called FANI (Free Association Narrative Interview).
For each subject studied, reference will be made to the factors of entry into the criminal organization and to those of exit, analyzing the way in which each subject locates himself from the point of Self changements and of the defense mechanisms used (both individual and psychosocial), comparing the results obtained with the recent theorizations of the desistance process.

Authors

• Alfredo Verde, University of Genoa

• Giulia Gibelli, Criminological Unit, Department of Health Sciences (University of Genoa, Italy)

• Alessandro De Santis, Criminological Unit, Department of Health Sciences, University of Genoa (Italy)