Connecting desistance and recidivism:

Desistance and recidivism are obviously related, both conceptually and empirically. Desistance signals the end of a criminal career, and recidivism is the renewal of the offending career after some ‘intervention’, usually contact with the criminal justice system (arrest or incarceration, for example). Clearly, people who recidivate and ‘relapse’ into offending have not desisted from crime. Somewhat surprisingly given the unambiguous linkage between desistance and recidivism, research in one area is rarely reflective of research in the other. This is partly a function of the focus of each research agenda. On one hand, desistance research is grounded in the criminal career paradigm. ¹ Empirical desistance research tends to use representative samples of the population over a number of years to explore the causes of desistance among the subgroup who offends. ² On the other hand, recidivism research is more policy focused and is often concerned about the effect of a given criminal justice intervention on a targeted population of (usually serious) offenders in a relatively short period of time, usually one to three years.