Social Networks and Desistance

• Date: 01 August 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12331
• Author: Christy A. Visher
• Published date: 01 August 2017

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION

SOCIAL TIES AND REENTRY

Social Networks and Desistance

Christy A. Visher

University of Delaware

Since the early 2000s, we have witnessed a resurgence in research, policy,and practice

surrounding the reintegration of individuals leaving prison and returning to the

community. Almost two decades after this resurgence, researchers are making great

strides to sharpen the tools needed to help individuals identify their needs and risks to their

successful reintegration and desistance.

Findings from reviews of the “what works” literature for adult offenders, as well as

from several meta-analyses of studies on institutional- and community-based interventions

and treatment programs, have presented consistent evidence that cognitive-behavioral ap-

proaches that target criminogenic factors and individual needs, and that focus on individual-

level change, may be most effective at reducing recidivism (Andrews and Bonta, 2006; Drake,

2013; Lipsey and Cullen, 2007; MacKenzie, 2006). Moreover, the U.S. Department of Jus-

tice Office of Justice Programs provides information on its website (crimesolutions.gov)

on research-based adult corrections and reentry programs and practices. Importantly, the

interventions rated as “promising” are all focused on individual-level change. Yet, there is

much we do not know about specific strategies and community interventions that have

been focused on individual-level change processes to achieve desistance.

In their article “Building the Tiesthat Bind, Breaking the Ties that Don’t,” JohnBoman

and Thomas Mowen (2017, this issue) begin to address the specific factors operating at

a micro-individual level that are important for successful reintegration and desistance. By

framing their argument within the risk–need–responsivity (RNR) model of risk and need

assessment, Boman and Mowen argue that the constructs of family support and social

peers receive less attention in these assessments than do prior antisocial behavior, antisocial

cognitions, substance abuse, and personality patterns. As they also note, comprehensive

research on the elements of the RNR model is still in its infancy as we learn how the arenas

Direct correspondence to Christy Visher, Center for Drug and Health Studies, Department of Sociology and

Criminal Justice, University of Delaware, CDHS - 257 East Main Street, Suite 110, Newark, DE 19716 (e-mail:

visher@udel.edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12331 C2017 American Society of Criminology 749

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 16 rIssue 3