Chapter 6 Essay questions

  1. Drawing on desistance theories and research, what factors are associated with desistance? Why?
  2. How might the pathways into offending and the desistance pathways out differ for women, compared to men? Illustrate your argument with empirical evidence and examples.
  3. How might punishment harm or hinder desistance processes? Learning from desistance scholarship and lived experiences, what can criminal justice services and practitioners (a) do, and (b) avoid doing, to better support desistance?
  4. Explain primary desistance, secondary desistance and tertiary desistance (Maruna and Farrall, 2004; McNeill, 2016). What role do other people (social relationships and communities) have in recognising and enabling secondary and tertiary desistance of desisters as fellow citizens?
  5. Critically analyse how the concept of intersectionality and overlapping social identities might help us better understand the diversity of desistance processes and lived experiences? In responding to this question, focus on an example which incorporates intersections of more than one identity, characteristic or circumstance (e.g., race and ethnicity; social class and social inequality; sex and gender; age; sexual orientation; religion and worldview; political ideology; health and disability).
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