Award Date

5-1-2021

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Criminal Justice

First Committee Member

Emily Troshynski

Second Committee Member

Terance Miethe

Third Committee Member

Margaret Alexis Kennedy

Fourth Committee Member

Nicholas Barr

Number of Pages

104

Abstract

Research for this thesis seeks to understand how recently incarcerated individuals understand recidivism and how they desist from criminal activities and re-offending behaviors. It seeks to understand if desistance is occurring in a re-entry organization and if so, when. Participants from a Las Vegas, Nevada re-entry organization called HOPE for Prisoners (HFP) are the focus of this research. Overall, the purpose of this study is to see how a local re-entry non-profit organization helps assist with services and opportunities for individuals who were formerly incarcerated. Analyzing the research from this project will help provide information regarding how individuals who are participating in this local re-entry organization articulate their own desistance from crime. This research includes a convenience, non-representative sample of participants by conducting interviews with six individuals in a qualitative project seeking to understand desistance. By using the Making Good Theory by Shadd Maruna (2001), these self-narratives showed how this re-entry organization has an influence in their client’s desistance. This project seeks to dive into the self-narratives of ex-offenders to get a more descriptive answer to desistance. Future research could use this research to provide more insight on the self-narratives of offender to heighten the importance of self-agency.

Keywords

Desistance; HOPE for Prisoners; Making Good Theory; Re-entry; Recidvism; Self-Narrative

Disciplines

Criminology | Criminology and Criminal Justice | Social Work | Sociology

File Format

pdf

File Size

2011 KB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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