ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the role of Jay's extant familial, social and personal relationships in supporting desistance over time, commencing with his relocation to London under the superordinate theme 'Rreligiosityty, reflexivity, relationality and desistance'. It discusses the role of employment in Jay's narrative of change under the final superordinate theme 'The meanings and outcomes of work'. The chapter reveals the centrality of Jay's conversion to Pentecostal Christianity and his internalisation of the Christian faith to his narrative of change. His initial conversion was reinforced and sustained by his participation in Christian relational networks and through religiously informed practices which enabled the expression of his faith and generative commitments and which contributed to the transformation in his personal and social identity with which continued offending was incompatible. Pentecostalism emphasizes the importance of conversion, construed as a transformative experience in which one's life is dedicated to God and one is 'born-again', often necessitating and symbolizing a complete break with the past.
