RT Article
T1 ‘F*ck it!’: Matza and the mood of fatalism in the desistance process
JF The British journal of criminology
VO 57
IS 5
SP 1041
OP 1060
A1 Halsey, Mark
A2 Armstrong, Ruth
A2 Wright, Serena
LA English
YR 2017
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1564848671
AB Drawing on interview data from three countries (Australia, United States and England), this article examines setbacks and recovery in desistance from crime. We show that giving up crime is a fragile project and that the implications of fragility in desistance are rarely integrated into pre- and post-release support options. To shine a light on the ‘phenomenological foreground’ of this fragility, we use Matza’s concepts of desperation and infraction and analyse how and why would-be desisters come unstuck. We find that derailment in the desistance process (frequently articulated by interviewees as ‘fuck it’ moments) rarely signifies the desire to reoffend and more often equates to the loss of the practical and emotional capacity to desist from crime.
K1 Matza, David
K1 Desistance
K1 Recidivism
K1 Phenomenology
K1 Fatalism
K1 Rückfallkriminalität
DO 10.1093/bjc/azw041