Desistance Transitions and the Impact of Probation

The Dynamics of Service User Participation and Compliance in Community Justice Settings

“…Meanwhile, some have argued quite persuasively that it is important to explore the service users’ competencies or how service users might contribute to achieving supervision objectives, such as compliance, as active agents of change (Bottoms ; Ugwudike and Raynor ). King's () study of 20 men on probation reinforces this view. The study's findings indicate that practitioners play a useful role in orientating service users towards desistance.…”

“…The aforementioned models of supervision also emphasise that service users are more likely to engage with services that are responsive to their personal attributes and capabilities, and also their social circumstances (Farrall et al . ; King ; McMurran and Ward , ). Although the article mentions some of the themes that polarise the models, by highlighting the commonalities that unify the models, this article deviates from the common trend of emphasising their differences (see, for example, Looman and Abracen ).…”

Recidivism as a Measure of the Effectiveness of Sanctions: Experience from the Czech Republic

“…Looking back in history suggests the approach to this problem changed often according to prevailing attitudes toward crime, its causes and the overall chances of offender's rehabilitation. In recent decades, however, there has been a clear trend in measuring the effectiveness of sanctions almost exclusively by recidivism (King, 2014). Some authors even write of a certain obsession with this criterion, which strikingly reflects the culture of "fear" or "risk" in which we live (McNeill, 2000).…”

“…Thus there were 39 criminal offences detected in self-reports for every one official conviction, with almost half of all offences captured in self-reports committed by individuals who had never been convicted (Farrington, Coid, & Harnett, 2006). It is precisely this type of conclusion that has led some experts to declare that recidivism (or reoffending) is a variable that cannot be objectively measured (King, 2014).…”

“…As noted by King (King, 2014), most analyses perceive recidivism as a purely dichotomous event, i.e., in the sense of "all or nothing". If an individual has a record of a new conviction, this is taken as evidence that the relevant intervention failed.…”