1st Edition
How Offenders Transform Their Lives
Biography
Bonita Veysey, Johnna Christian, and Damian J. Martinez are all based at the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University.
'This collection of 11 articles reflects the enduring significance of symbolic interactionism as a source of insights worth putting into practice with incarcerated populations and those facing the challenges of reentry to society. Each contribution addresses the pressing concern for evidence-based approaches that can convincingly respond to the "what works?" question, which continues to dominate criminal justice debates. Some are more convincing than others are, but the rich detail of mostly qualitative data about offenders' navigation away from stigmatized identities is thought provoking. The applications of theory are appropriate and affecting, achieving an intelligent prescription for more attention to the dynamics of relationship and interpersonal communication in both prison and community-based programs. Understandably, extensive concerns with addiction recovery efforts are explored as essential to the prospects for desistence from crime. The authors share compelling illustrations of how group interactions influence individual narratives and self-transformation. Concern with the currencies of socially constructed meaning is connected to more distant outcomes of lifestyle change more by persuasion than by available longitudinal data, leaving the answer to "what works?" still a work in progress. Nevertheless, their logic bears broad consideration by professionals in corrections. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.' – R. Zingraff, James Madison University in Choice
