Thesis
The story of the Del : from delinquency to desistance
- Creator
- Awarding institution
- University of Strathclyde
- Date of award
- 2013
- Thesis identifier
- T13559
- Qualification Level
- Qualification Name
- Department, School or Faculty
- Abstract
- This thesis explores the individual, relational and structural contributions to the desistance process as they occur within and between six individuals in Scotland who comprised a naturally forming group. Contemporary theoretical explanations of the desistance process share a tendency to view social relations as a by-product of, or interplay between, individual action and structure. Equally, contemporary methodological approaches to desistance research tend to study individuals rather than groups, precluding an analysis of the role of the group in shaping and affecting offending and desistance, and thus how individual, relational, cultural and social contexts influence onset, persistence, and desistance. The unique methodological approach of studying a naturally forming group in this thesis has generated new empirical and theoretical insights into the dynamics of offending and desistance. This study has revealed the role of friendship groups, intimate relationships and families of formation and employment in, differently, triggering individuals' reflexive evaluation of concerns, priorities and practices - resulting, variously, in a diminution of the desirability of offending, or in influencing, consolidating and sustaining commitments to desist. Both the manner of relating and the reciprocal and mutual orientation for these individuals-in-relation towards the maintenance of a given social relation emerged as significant in understanding the relational contributions to the change process. This thesis advances an alternative conceptual and investigative framework that gives proper recognition to individual actions, social relations and social systems and their particular inner characteristics, properties and influences. This thesis further extends current theoretical understandings of processes of desistance by elaborating what triggers reflexivity and what different forms of reflexivity entail, both of which have received limited attention in the literature to date.
- Resource Type
- DOI
- Date Created
- 2013
- Former identifier
- 1001509
Relations
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