Assisted Desistance? The Effect of Probation Officers as Seen by Canadian Offenders Who Are No Longer Involved in Criminal Activities
The growing amount of research on desistance makes it possible to determine which processes are effective in leading individuals to abandon a criminal career. It is generally recognized that probation officers can assist (or undermine) this process, but there are still only a few studies that look specifically at the role of probation officers in desistance. Existing studies generally draw on the experiences of primarily (criminal behavior only) desisters. This article highlights the views of 22 secondary (criminal identity) desisters on interventions by probation officers that helped or hindered their process of desistance during a conditional sentence in the province of Quebec in Canada. The results indicate that their perceptions of these interventions varied accordingly to the type of desistance process provided.