ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the study of criminal careers, desistance from crime, and discuss comparative research in the field. Critical consideration is given to the influence of the epistemological heritage of criminal careers studies on academic understanding of desistance from crime. I start by introducing the concept of offending over the life-course and continue the chapter with a discussion of studies that examined differences across gender and ethnicity. Insights from these studies have alerted criminologists that cultural attributes and social-structural factors can influence desistance processes differently across groups. I then make the argument that it is of value to undertake further comparative research across societies. Thereafter, I turn discuss the theoretical approach adopted for the purpose of this cross-national study. This study draws from sociological theories that address the dynamics of individual behaviour within a given society. Namely, Bourdieu’s theory of practice, Foucault’s late work in The History of Sexuality, and Giddens’s theory of structuration. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how the sociological theories are brought together to compare and understand desistance processes in cross-national comparative research.
