Making Good: Desistance Theory, Research, and Implications for Practice

This event will be recorded and the link will be sent to all registrants afterwards. It will be available for three weeks only. Please note that all registrations have to be paid in full before the event takes place.

The last 25 years have seen an explosion of research on desistance from crime and considerable interest from the world of criminal justice practice. A huge number of interventions, especially in the UK, claim to be “desistance-focused” or “desistance-informed” in their approach, yet it is not always clear what this means – even to the staff delivering the interventions. This workshop will review what is known about desistance from crime and the major theoretical explanations for these patterns. Next, the focus will shift to what, if anything, can be learned from this research for correctional practice – what does being “desistance-informed” mean in this context? How is this different from traditional approaches to evidence-based justice or “what works?” The workshop will involve both lecture and discussion, and Prof. Maruna particularly welcomes a robust, two-way conversation rather than a top-down sermon.

Presenter: PROF SHADD MARUNA (UK)

Shadd Maruna received his Ph.D. in Human Development and Social Policy from Northwestern University (Chicago, USA) in 1998. His first book Making Good: How Ex-Convicts Reform and Rebuild Their Lives (American Psychological Association Books, 2001) was named the “Outstanding Contribution to Criminology” by the American Society of Criminology in 2001. His second book, Rehabilitation Beyond the Risk Paradigm with Prof. Tony Ward helped to popularise the Good Lives Model of correctional treatment. Maruna is currently Professor of Criminology at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) but will be beginning as the Head of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology at the University of Liverpool in September 2024. Previously, he has worked at the University of Cambridge, the State University of New York and Rutgers University Newark, where he was the Dean of the Rutgers School of Criminal Justice. In 2022, he was elected the President of the American Society of Criminology (2022-24). According to Google Scholar, his research has been cited almost 25,000 times (10,000 times since 2019; h-index 64; i10 index 126). He was the recipient of the inaugural Howard League for Penal Reform Research Medal in 2012 for his research’s impact on penal policy. He is the Editor of the book series “Psychology, Crime and Justice” for American Psychological Association Books and on the editorial boards of Criminology, Punishment & Society, Theoretical Criminology and numerous other journals. He has delivered invited plenary addresses at the Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology Annual Meeting in 2007, the British Society of Criminology Annual Meeting in 2008, the European Society of Criminology Annual Meeting in Slovenia in 2009, the Netherlands Society of Criminology Annual Meeting in 2019, the Asian Society of Criminology Annual Meeting in 2020, and the Japanese Society of Criminology’s 50^th Annual Meeting in 2023.