ABSTRACT
In recent years increased attention has been given to the later stages of criminal careers and, in particular, to the reasons why people stop offending. From both initial and subsequent explorations a number of factors have emerged as related to the termination of offending careers. For serious persistent offenders, betrayal by co-offenders, experiencing traumatic events while offending and finding prison increasingly hard to cope with have been offered as reasons for desistance (Cusson and Pinsoneault 1986; Shover 1996; Hughes 1998). For those less committed to a ‘criminal lifestyle’, leaving home, family formation, entry into the labour market and disassociation from delinquent peers appear to be more frequently associated with desistance (see Sampson and Laub 1993; Warr 1998; Farrall and Bowling 1999; Farrall 2000). Many of the results of academic investigations into desistance are corroborated by autobiographies of desistance (e.g. Devlin and Turney 1999) and analyses of those autobiographies (e.g. Maruna 1997).
