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A Decade Of Desistance: An Exploratory Study In Desistance Theory, Brendan Marsh

Dissertations

The purpose of this research paper is to explore the lived experience of five ex-offenders who have not offended for a minimum period of ten years. How, and why, these individuals have maintained their crime free status shall be explored in detail in an attempt to understand the causal process that permits successful long term desistance from crime. Furthermore the desisting ex-offenders in this study are also ex-drug addicts. Exactly how criminal offending and drug addiction interacted in the past lives of the people is documented, as is the impossibility of abstaining from one of these behaviours only. This necessitates …