ABSTRACT

This chapter provides the background to a project which has attempted to open this ‘black box’ so as to investigate the role that probation supervision, individual motivation and wider social and personal circumstances play in helping some people to stop offending. Research by criminologists such as Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck, Alfred Blumstein, Marvin Wolfgang and Thorsten Sellin in the USA and David Farrington in the UK has suggested that whether or not an individual participates in offending is closely associated with his or her age and a number of social and psychological variables. A number of researchers have focused their attention specifically upon the later stages of offending careers, and in particular on the factors conductive to desistance from offending. An individual’s motivation to avoid further offending is another key factor in accounting for desistance. The gender of the probationer was, however, more commonly noted to be associated with probation outcomes.