Theorizing Community Integration as Desistance-Promotion
| Author | Kathryn J. Fox |
| DOI | 10.1177/0093854814550028 |
| Published date | 01 January 2015 |
| Date | 01 January 2015 |
| Subject Matter | Modes of Rehabilitation |
research-article2014
Theorizing CommuniTy inTegraTion as
DesisTanCe-PromoTion
KATHRyN J. FOx
University of Vermont
Recent criminological studies have focused on what promotes desistance from crime, ranging from internal promoters (such
as narrative identity shift) to external promoters (such as employment and marriage). An understudied promoter is the role of
ordinary community members in integrating released offenders into community life. This article draws on qualitative data
collected from a Circles of Support and Accountability (CoSA) program in Vermont, which uses community volunteers to
create a circle around selected medium-to-high risk offenders (often sex offenders) who present a risk for reoffense due to
their isolation. The nature of the forged relationships is examined, and the article asserts that desistance can be achieved
through the actions of community members who communicate a sense of shared moral space, and a genuine sense of belong-
ing. By actively integrating offenders into community life, CoSA model normative lives, create normative and ordinary
relationships of mutual obligation and respect, and aid in the de-labeling process by focusing on the other attributes of offend-
ers beyond their criminality. This article concludes by theorizing the role of community integration as an antecedent to
desistance, rather than an outcome. In so doing, our knowledge of offender reintegration and desistance processes can be
more fully understood.
Keywords: desistance from crime; offender reentry; reintegration; Circles of Support and Accountability; rehabilitation
The shift in culture away from a “penal-welfare” system to a “culture of control” has
been well documented by historians and criminologists (Garland, 2001). Neoliberal
discourse, which includes a focus on individual responsibility rather than social causes of
crime, has been characterized as emphasizing several features of crime control: decentral-
ization of control, shifting blame to individual offenders, an obsession with risk calculation
and control, and governing crime in everyday life (Garland, 2001; Loader & Sparks, 2002;
Simon, 2007). Although sociologists may lament this drift away from social and structural
understandings of criminal behavior, what Loader and Sparks (2002, p. 87) call the “new
governance of crime” provides a locus for analyzing the ways that communities engage in
crime control and discourse about criminality.
Communities’ fear of crime and their attitudes toward what they perceive as the lenience
of the criminal justice system have been well documented (Sasson, 1995; Surette, 2006). The
punitive impulse, “get tough” policies, and experiment with mass incarceration has brought
auThors’ noTe: The author thanks the Vermont Department of Corrections, especially Derek Miodownik
and John Perry, for the facilitation of this research. The findings presented here are not necessarily endorsed
by nor supported by the Vermont Department of Corrections or any of the Community Justice Centers. This
work would not have been possible without the cooperation of the reentry programs and their participants and
volunteers. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Kathryn J. Fox, Department of
Sociology, University of Vermont, 31 S. Prospect Street, Burlington, VT 05405-0176; e-mail: kfox@uvm.edu.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR, 2015, Vol. 42, No. 1, January 2015, 82 –94.
DOI: 10.1177/0093854814550028
© 2014 International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology
82
Fox / CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR 83
with it a host of additional social problems, including high rates of recidivism and a burdened
justice system (Clear & Frost, 2013). Beyond the practical problems that offenders face in
returning from prison, community attachments and the power of informal control mecha-
nisms that stem from community engagement are often ruptured by a long prison term (Clear,
2007). Re-engaging formerly incarcerated individuals with the communities to which they
return is a challenge only recently recognized by funding agencies and human services.
In recent years, reentry programs have emerged at the federal level in the United States
designed specifically to address the socialand community-level impediments that offenders
face on prison release. The federal government, states, and municipalities have begun to
recognize the challenges posed by the large numbers of returning offenders in finding hous-
ing, employment, and relationships that would allow for successful desistance from crime.
Several federally funded initiatives attempt to address those needs for offenders, and aid in
the transition to community life.
Although agencies have collaborated on providing housing assistance, employment
training and referral options, education programs, and substance abuse and mental health
programs, the reentry services have been administered by professionals whereas the role of
nonprofessional community members has been underutilized and unexamined. Moreover,
in a climate of community-based fear of “habitual” offenders fueled by mass-mediated
rhetoric about the intransigence of offenders, true reintegration into community life remains
largely elusive.
This article will attempt to fill the void in the criminological and programmatic literature
on the potential role that ordinary community members can play in advancing desistance
among offenders by enabling their integration into community life. Drawing on data from a
program that utilizes the Circles of Support and Accountability (CoSA) model, this article
will describe the relationships formed between CoSA volunteer teams and their “core”
member: a recently released medium- to high-risk offender (typically a sex offender)
deemed in need of social supports. Analyzing the model and how it functions provides
insights into the potential role of communities in offender reentry, and provides food for
thought as to the implications of the “new governance of crime” (Loader & Sparks, 2002,
p. 87). Moreover, the dynamics between offenders and their community volunteers demon-
strate the processual aspects of desistance. Rather than thinking of community volunteers
as harnessing “turning points,” as Sampson and Laub (1993) suggest, or capitalizing on
desistant hooks (Carlsson, 2012), volunteers help create desistance signals to cement them,
and they do so by communicating that the social distance between “them” and “us” is
smaller than even core members would expect; in fact, they share the same moral space as
ordinary citizens. This article argues that community inclusion can precede and promote
desistance.
In this article, I will describe three dimensions of an integrative model of desistance
(such as CoSA) that can be extrapolated to desistance generally, with the objective of dem-
onstrating the potential role of community members in maintaining desistance. First, civi-
cally-engaged integration serves to model normal and normative life for released offenders.
Second, communities communicate the prospect of sharing normative space by engaging
deeply with offenders. And third, communities expedite a de-labeling process with offend-
ers by sharing normative space with them. Of primary importance is an assertion that com-
munities are undertheorized and understudied in the process of reintegration for offenders
(see Farrall & Calverley, 2006). Beyond the belief that it is just “a good idea” to utilize
84 CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR
communities, the theoretical contribution stems from two points. Thus far, the desistance
literature includes explanations about the significance of life course in external stabilizers,
in narrative identity reconstruction, and in situational factors in desistance. The potential for
constructing a positive self-identity can be harnessed with community engagement, as can
employment and relationship stabilizers. I would suggest that the support of unpaid volun-
teers can be a more powerful prompt to desistance than paid professionals. In addition,
more broadly, civil society is affected negatively by the exclusion of offenders upon release
from prison. From a criminal justice ethics standpoint, values can be produced and rein-
forced through civic engagement. A discussion follows about the moral imperative of com-
munity integration.
meThoD
There is a small but solid body of literature out of Canada that measures the impact of
CoSA in studies that compare quasi-experimental groups to control groups. These studies
have found a significant reduction in recidivism for high-risk sexual offenders—at times as
great as a 70% reduction in reoffending among those with a CoSA compared with those
without one (Bates, Saunders, & Wilson, 2007; Duwe, 2013; Wilson, Cortoni, & McWhinnie,
2009; Wilson, Picheca, & Prinzo, 2005, 2007; Wilson & Prinzo, 2001). Although there is
evidence that CoSA works to reduce recidivism, how CoSA works (in other words, what the
nature of the relationships forged is) has not been well documented, particularly in the
United States (See Hanvey et al., 2011; Nellis, 2009). I was contracted by the State of
Vermont’s Department of Corrections to conduct a qualitative evaluation of its CoSA pro-
gram in 2010. Vermont Corrections began CoSA in 2005 and has created over 100 CoSAs,
more than any other state in the United States. Data on their effectiveness are being ana-
lyzed, but...
To continue reading
Request your trial