Reimagining rehabilitation: assisted desistance in the Irish context
Research on rehabilitation and on desistance has traditionally coexisted in an uneasy alliance. For the most part, these tensions can be attributed to the use of different theoretical lenses to view change processes. While rehabilitation researchers typically focus on the impact of interventions within the criminal justice system, desistance researchers tend to emphasize changes that take place outside the criminal justice system, including changes in social circumstances and personal agency. Assisted desistance scholars have recently begun to bridge the gap by exploring the impact of criminal justice interventions on desistance processes. The current paper contributes to this emerging field by providing a critical reflection on mechanisms of assisted desistance in Ireland, with a particular focus on the role of probation supervision. It provides a brief overview of the probation policy and practice landscape and presents empirical research findings that explore the impact of probation supervision on desistance and concludes with a discussion of how this research contributes to knowledge about assisted desistance.