Traumatic experiences, juvenile crime and desistance factors: a qualitative approach

• In Event: Narrative Criminology 3: Desistance and behaviour

Abstract

This contribution, based on an ongoing clinical-criminological research on desistance from crime among adult subjects conducted through unstructured interviews (FANI – Free Association Narrative Interview) with an approach inspired by narrative and psychosocial criminology, describes the traumatic experiences suffered in childhood and adolescence, and the onset and development of the criminal career before reaching adulthood. It then considers the most significant desistance factors and the quality of the process itself. The Authors underscore that a narrative-psychosocial approach is important, as longitudinal studies, as repeatedly noted by criminological research, overlook the subjective dimension and rely on quantitative data, losing the complexity and uniqueness of each individual path. Based on the collected data, the work offers an illustration of the relationships between the peculiarities of the desistance process and its output, and hypothesizes that the process may be linked to the quality of the investment in relationships with significant others during the journey, which in turn is correlated to the severity and intensity of the suffered evolutive traumas.

Author

• Alfredo Verde, University of Genoa