Lifelines

• DOI: 10.1177/0093854814550031
• Date: 01 January 2015
• Published date: 01 January 2015
• Author: Beth Weaver,Fergus McNeill
• Subject Matter: Forms of Reconciliation

CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR, 2015, Vol. 42, No. 1, January 2015, 95 –107.

DOI: 10.1177/0093854814550031

© 2014 International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology

95

LIFELINES: DESISTANCE, SOCIAL RELATIONS,

AND RECIPROCITY

BETH WEAVER

University of Strathclyde

FERGUS MCNEILL

University of Glasgow

This article draws on the life stories of a friendship group of men in their 40s who offended together in their youth and early

adulthood. By exploring these interrelated narratives, we reveal individual, relational, and structural contributions to the

desistance process, drawing on Donati’s relational sociology. In examining these men’s social relations, this article demon-

strates the central role of friendship groups, intimate relationships, families of formation, employment, and religious com-

munities in change over the life course. It shows how, for different individuals, these relations triggered reflexive evaluation

of their priorities, behaviors, and lifestyles, but with differing results. However, despite these differences, the common theme

of these distinct stories is that desistance from crime was a means of realizing and maintaining the men’s individual and

relational concerns, with which continued offending became (sometimes incrementally) incompatible. In the concluding

discussion, we explore some of the ethical implications of these findings, suggesting that work to support desistance should

extend far beyond the typically individualized concerns of correctional practice and into a deeper and inescapably moral

engagement with the reconnection of the individual to social networks that are restorative and allow people to fulfill the

reciprocal obligations on which networks and communities depend.

Keywords: social relations; desistance; corrections; restorative justice; reciprocity

In recent years, theories of desistance from crime (exploring how and why people stop and

refrain from offending) have been much developed, discussed, and debated, not just in

relation to their various interconnected explanations of the process but also in relation to

their implications for penal policy and practice. Underlying this developing scholarship lies

an aspiration and an expectation that better understandings of desistance can and should

enable the development of better approaches to punishment, rehabilitation, and reintegra-

tion, and thus the creation of safer and fairer societies.

In what follows, Donati’s relational theory of sociology is presented as a new theoretical

lens through which to conceptualize processes of change. We illustrate this through an anal-

ysis of the life stories of a friendship group, revealing the centrality of social relations in the

desistance process. Social relations are those bonds maintained between people that consti-

tute their reciprocal orientations toward each other; Donati considers them key to under-

standing society and social change.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Beth Weaver, School of

Social Work and Social Policy, University of Strathclyde, Lord Hope Building L6 Glasgow, Scotland; e-mail:

beth.weaver@strath.ac.uk.

550031CJBXXX10.1177/0093854814550031Criminal Justice And BehaviorWeaver and McNeill

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