Strategies of Desistance through Zimbardo’s “Time Perspective”

• In Event: Narrative Criminology 3: Desistance and behaviour

Abstract

Harris (2017) articulated three main strategies of desistance used by 74 men convicted of sexual offences: Retirement, Regulation, and Recovery. One of the most intriguing features of that work was the unexpected way in which Tense-Aspect-Modality (TAM) (Bybee, et al., 1994) correlated so closely across strategies. Men using a Retirement strategy had “knifed off” and spoke about their offending in the distant (and unitary) past. Men struggling to implement a Regulation strategy used a continuous aspect in the present tense. Men who demonstrated a strategy of Recovery used future tense and a modality of possibility. Time Perspective Theory (Zimbardo & Boyd, 2008) has the potential to account for the changing temporal identities of justice-involved men, and this study is the first to apply it within a Narrative Criminology framework. Thematic Analyses on a subset of 26 men subject to preventative detention revealed that interviewees who used a retirement desistance strategy were overwhelmingly “Past Negative/Future Fatalistic;” the men who used a regulation desistance strategy were predominantly “Future Fatalistic/Past Negative;” and the men who described their desistance as recovery were “Past Positive/Future Focused.” This paper examines positionality over time and the ways in which men remember, identify, and imagine themselves as they navigate community reentry. Practical implications for narrative therapy are discussed.

Authors

• Benjamin Rhodes, Griffith University

• Danielle Arlanda Harris, Griffith University