ABSTRACT
The chapter explains the spatial dimensions of criminal desistance and the meanings and justifications of prisoner resettlement. Raja's narrative plays out according to a common frame of spatial reference. Evidence suggests that large numbers of persistent offenders grow up in poor, marginalised urban neighbourhoods, experience imprisonment for a significant number of times, and return repeatedly to the same or similar places after release. In tracing the 'pathways' taken by persistent offenders between the community and prison, the aim is to tease out experiences and social circumstances central to the lives of persistent offenders while exploring how more generally criminality and place are mutually constituted. New reflexive relationships between global and local processes have caused the 'dissolution of traditional spatial identities and their reconstitution along new lines'. The chapter also presents some of the key concepts discusses in this book.
