Imagine that you woke up this morning in the middle of a minefield. You're in the middle of a minefield, and it's smoky and foggy. You can't see ten feet in front of you. And you can't stay for long where you are, because, on every side you see danger and destruction. Landmines! You hear voices yelling, "Do this! Don't do that!" What do you do?
And the answer is...follow the footsteps of the guy who got out successfully.
I first heard this from a speaker at a conference in Atlanta in early 2022. He used this image to describe what it's like when men and women like you are leaving incarceration. People who are trying to make their way through the smoke and fog of reentry, through the landmines of isolation and alienation and stigma and chaos, shame and lack of confidence and addiction and trauma and poverty—hundreds of barriers and restrictions. There are landmines everywhere. And what that speaker was saying was that the key to getting safely out of a criminal lifestyle is to look at the personal stories of those who've actually made it out and managed to build new, healthy, thriving lives.
Researchers have been studying this for the last 25 years. It's called Desistance Theory. As in cease and desist. Stop and stay stopped. Desistance is about how men and women stop their criminal career—and stay stopped. And the thousands and thousands of stories they've researched point to four key elements that show up again and again in that pathway out of the minefield.
I remember being at a prison complex near Phoenix, Arizona, doing training with a handful of correctional officers and 35 inmates. I started my presentation with those same words for them. I said, "Imagine that you woke up this morning in the middle of a minefield, because every one of you here dressed in orange today did." And I told them there was real research about the pathway out of the minefield. And then I asked, "Do you want to know about those four key things? The pathway home to a healthy, thriving, good and new life?" And they're like, "Yeah!" And they started flipping open their notebooks and getting out their nubby pencils. Then they took notes like it was a matter of life and death because, for some of them, it was.
And maybe it is for you, too.
Do you want to hear about that pathway home? If so, read on. Here, in brief, are the things that come up again and again in stories of transformation and desistance from crime.
#1 An openness to change.
#2 Finding good hooks or turning points.
#3 Seeing a positive future new self.
#4 Seeing the old, false self and putting it away.
There's more detail on each of these four keys below, so feel free to skip to that. But, if you want to read more background, let's set the stage a bit.
A growing number of criminologists and practitioners who are working with the idea of desistance are asking different fundamental questions from those we've been asking for years. It's not: How do people get themselves into a criminal lifestyle? What factors give birth to crime? Instead, they're asking: Why and how do people stop (desist from) offending? What processes and pathways do people use to get out of a criminal lifestyle?
It turns out that the pathways out of crime aren't the same as the pathways in. So a desistance approach pays attention to success stories and explores how those who made it out of the minefield managed to do that. It's all about finding bright spots and understanding what went into making those bright spots happen, then putting that understanding to use for others to follow.
Desistance goes well beyond a goal of not recidivating, not reoffending. It raises the bar. It's about living a good life. It's about thriving, about pro-social goals, about inner motivation. This is highly personalized. It's one-size-fits-one.
Here are a few core ideas from Desistance Theory:
Think of desistance as someone's pathway toward slowing down, de-escalating, and eventually ending their criminal career. This pathway usually includes (1) some period of non-offending behavior (a time-out), (2) a coming-to-themselves moment that leads to an internal identity shift and an ongoing process of living into a new identity, and (3) new relational connections where the person belongs in a new way.
Desistance studies also clearly show that there's an age-crime curve, where the vast majority of offenders age out of crime. Desistance theorists ask the question: What is it about the aging process that encourages this change? They think that part of the answer is neurobiological maturity, the development of risk-taking adolescent brains into adult brains. Rational choice also plays a part: As time passes, people hit bottom and come to their senses. Another set of factors is a combination of more access to adult roles, cutting ties to offending peer groups, forging new ties with non-offending groups, moving away from crime-triggering locations, engaging in new routines to break old habits, and social attitudes toward accepting returning citizens—in essence, all those things we've heard from people's testimonies over the years.
Back to the four keys to leaving the minefield of a criminal lifestyle.
Putting all this together, people who study desistance point to these four key elements:
First, an openness to change.
Often, there's some sort of breakdown before a breakthrough happens. A coming-to-yourself moment. A kind of surrender. An external conviction leading to an inner conviction. Are you open to real change?
Second, finding good hooks, or turning points.
We all know that it isn't enough simply to be open to change. That open door of motivation can slam shut again if there's nowhere to go on the other side. There need to be some tangible people and places and things to hook into and explore—something bigger than ourselves. Some potential key hooks or turning points are a healthy marriage, meaningful work, the military, and a welcoming church or other faith community. What "good hooks" are you ready to reach for?
Third, seeing a positive future new self.
Researchers call this "identity work." There's a lot of scholarly writing on how important this process is, and it talks about things like redemption scripts, rituals of acceptance, making good, overcoming shame, and forging a new self. Are you ready to work on the new you?
Fourth, seeing the old, false self, and putting it away.
This means looking at our past self and saying, "That wasn't the true me, the real me. That was the old me, the false me, the me that's being overcome by the new self that God is creating in me." This is a process rather than a one-time change in a person's life. Are you ready to overcome the shame of your old, false self?
Let's take the big takeaways from desistance research and make them personal.
Many people are making it out of the criminal minefield. You can too.
This is an intensely personal process. You can forge a healthy path that fits you.
In this process, people are constructing new selves with new hope. Find your true self and start living into that new identity.
In this process, people need practical how-to hooks or turning points. Start living for something bigger than yourself.
In this process, people need to have a sense of personal agency and choice. Figure out what you can start to do today to move toward a healthy and crime-free future. Use the Inside Out Network platform to work on your own reentry.
In this process, people need acceptance and encouragement from others. There are supportive, reliable, caring people out there to connect with and be with. You're not alone.