ABSTRACT
Based on 14 life stories collected from young Brazilians involved in delinquency, this chapter analyses their desistance processes by exploring how they are structured by the deviant career, on the one hand, and by penal institutions, on the other. Three types of desistance processes emerge from the analysis: desisting through identity transformation, desisting through skills transfer, and desisting in spite of the penal institutions. Each type is illustrated with a case study, and I end with a reflection upon the social mechanisms that appear to make it very unlikely, if not impossible, for some young people to desist from delinquency.
My findings underline the importance of taking seriously not only the objective resources but also the meanings and actual experiences of both delinquency and the penal system if we are to understand the various types of desistance from offending. The youths’ trajectories and narratives highlight the variable impact of penal responses, which can sometimes produce forms of negative labelling and sometimes make it possible to acquire new assets. These different dimensions must be viewed dynamically, since the same event will not have the same meaning or impact, depending on when it occurs within the individual’s trajectory. Finally, my results reaffirm that desistance should be considered a process made of practical and symbolical continuities rather than of radical changes.
