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Turning away from criminal intent

Reflecting on Victorian and Edwardian strategies for promoting desistance amongst petty offenders

Nottingham Trent University, UK

This article reflects upon the ideas of commentators and the experiences of those convicted in the summary courts in the late Victorian and Edwardian period (particularly the recidivist element), locating these with societal reactions to such individuals, especially via the voluntary sector. How did this period construct a concept to present, promote and explain cessation? An exploration of the strategies used to promote desistance in this period provides a range of useful insights for the modern age, removing (as it does) the focus from a formal management of the offender via prison and its associated rehabilitative strategies to the role played by the family and community context of the offender. This is illuminated through the work of those voluntary agencies associated with the criminal justice process, such as the London Police Court Mission. The formal theorisation prevalent in current criminological thinking about desistance is countered with evidence indicating success rates associated with a greater recognition of individual (and so unpredictable) choice, predicated upon the particular societal context of the individual, given impetus by the emphasis on hope as a moral driver in sustaining desistance.

Key Words: desistance strategies • historical perspectives • hope • London Police Court Mission • petty offenders

Theoretical Criminology, Vol. 13, No. 1, 105-128 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1362480608100175


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