Beyond the individualization of desistance
Young people primarily navigate not only their own transition to adulthood but also, as this article suggests, their own transition to desistance. The individualization of risk and of desistance is influential in theories of crime and criminal justice and I would also argue, in our understanding of the concept of assisted desistance. This concept identifies formal (practitioner) and informal (peer/mentor) sources of support in giving up crime but does not as yet include state-led assistance. In a study of desistance in Scotland, I interviewed 40 young people about what triggers offending, why and how desistance occurs, and how desistance can be sustained. This article draws specifically on these young people’s views about the most effective means of encouraging desistance, for example, in offering emotional and practical support, but the latter from a wider policy perspective than merely criminal justice. Social workers supervising individuals on probation cannot deliver on much of what should, in my view, constitute “assisted desistance”, and I argue that only by the state taking on a greater role in recognizing the needs and aspirations of young people in trouble can desistance truly be supported. This study has also been replicated in Japan where issues for young people in transition are less severe than for those in Scotland, but where their views of “what works” are remarkably similar to those of their Scottish counterparts. This study should therefore have relevance to all countries where the trajectories of youth crime and youth transitions are highly correlated.