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Beth Weaver

Bio: Beth Weaver is an academic researcher from University of Strathclyde. The author has contributed to research in topics: Criminal justice & Prison. The author has an hindex of 14, co-authored 40 publications receiving 708 citations.

Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the life stories of a friendship group of men in their 40s who offended together in their youth and early adulthood are explored, revealing individual, relational, and structural contributions to the desistance process.
Abstract: This article draws on the life stories of a friendship group of men in their 40s who offended together in their youth and early adulthood. By exploring these interrelated narratives, we reveal individual, relational, and structural contributions to the desistance process, drawing on Donati's relational sociology. In examining these men's social relations, this article demonstrates the central role of friendship groups, intimate relationships, families of formation, employment, and religious communities in change over the life course. It shows how, for different individuals, these relations triggered reflexive evaluation of their priorities, behaviors, and lifestyles, but with differing results. However, despite these differences, the common theme of these distinct stories is that desistance from crime was a means of realizing and maintaining the men's individual and relational concerns, with which continued offending became (sometimes incrementally) incompatible. In the concluding discussion, we explore some of the ethical implications of these findings, suggesting that work to support desistance should extend far beyond the typically individualized concerns of correctional practice and into a deeper and inescapably moral engagement with the reconnection of the individual to social networks that are restorative and allow people to fulfill the reciprocal obligations on which networks and communities depend. Keywords: Juvenile justice Language: en

99 citations

Book
16 Jul 2015
TL;DR: Weaver as mentioned in this paper examines the role of a co-offending peer group in shaping and influencing offending and desistance, focusing on three phases of their criminal careers: onset, persistence, desistance.
Abstract: In Offending and Desistance, Beth Weaver examines the role of a co-offending peer group in shaping and influencing offending and desistance, focusing on three phases of their criminal careers: onset, persistence and desistance. While there is consensus across the body of desistance research that social relations have a role to play in variously constraining, enabling and sustaining desistance, no desistance studies have adequately analysed the dynamics or properties of social relations, or their relationship to individuals and social structures. This book aims to reset this balance. By examining the social relations and life stories of six Scottish men (in their forties), Weaver reveals the central role of friendship groups, intimate relationships and families of formation, employment and religious communities. She shows how, for different individuals, these relations triggered reflexive evaluation of their priorities, behaviours and lifestyles, but with differing results. Weaver’s re-examination of the relationships between structure, agency, identity and reflexivity in the desistance process ultimately illuminates new directions for research, policy and practice. This book is essential reading for academics and students engaged in the study of criminology and criminal justice, delinquency, probation and criminal law.

90 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article foregrounded a re-conceptualization of the desistance process as inescapably relational and explored the extent to which extant policies variously facilitate or hinder processes of change and make relevant social supports.
Abstract: Desistance from offending is generally conceptualized as a process involving an interplay between ‘objective’, or external factors, and ‘subjective’, or internal factors, with different theoretical and empirical accounts of desistance prioritizing either the role of social contexts or agency in the process. Drawing on both the life stories of a naturally forming group of men, now in their 40s, who once offended together, but whose lives have since diverged and Pierpaolo Donati's relational theory of reflexivity, this study foregrounds a re-conceptualization of the desistance process as inescapably relational. Emphasizing the importance of the relational context of desistance necessarily has implications for social and penal policy and practice responses, and this article thus proceeds to explore the extent to which extant policies variously facilitate or hinder processes of change and make relevant social supports. In so doing, this article considers how social and penal policy might become more orientated to generating, developing and sustaining the kinds of social capital and reflexive, relational networks relevant to desistance.

75 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider the practical application of theories of personalisation and co-production by reviewing proposed and extant strategies for maximising stakeholder involvement in criminal justice social work services.
Abstract: Debates surrounding the ostensibly ‘transformative’ potential of personalisation for social work services, and service users, have variously illustrated the risks and opportunities this presents, although the implications for criminal justice social work services have received comparatively limited attention. By extending the concept of ‘service user’ to include not only offenders, but wider stakeholders (victims and communities), this paper considers the practical application of theories of personalisation and co-production by reviewing proposed and extant strategies for maximising stakeholder involvement in criminal justice services. It is argued that, in progressing beyond the more individualistic interpretations of this somewhat controversial reform agenda—in prioritising not only the individual, their rights, strengths and subjective identities, but locating the individual in situ, in the concrete realities and textures of their lives and communities—the strength of the personalisation agenda rests in its potential to develop and strengthen the collective organisation of service users, service providers and communities in a co-productive endeavour. It is argued that both this reading and the principles underpinning it resonate more widely with the empirical and theoretical literature on just and effective penal practices and, in so doing, this paper exposes the complexities that lie behind the apparent simplicity of this argument.

72 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a comprehensive review of theories and research into desistance is presented, and the importance of social relations in desistance and offending is discussed, as well as the role of desistance in social relations.
Abstract: Informed by a comprehensive review of theories and research into desistance (Weaver, 2015. Offending and desistance: The importance of social relations. Oxon: Routledge), this article advances a cr...

53 citations


Cited by
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TL;DR: In the 1966 paperback edition of a publication which first appeared in 1963 has by now been widely reviewed as a worthy contribution to the sociological study of deviant behavior as discussed by the authors, and the authors developed a sequential model of deviance relying on the concept of career, a concept originally developed in studies of occupations.
Abstract: This 1966 paperback edition of a publication which first appeared in 1963 has by now been widely reviewed as a worthy contribution to the sociological study of deviant behavior. Its current appearance as a paperback is a testimonial both to the quality of the work and to the prominence of deviant behavior in this generation. In general the author places deviance in perspective, identifies types of deviant behavior, considers the role of rule makers and enforcers, and some of the problems in studying deviance. In addition, he develops a sequential model of deviance relying on the concept of career, a concept originally developed in studies of occupations. In his study of a particular kind of deviance, the use of marihuana, the author posits and tests systematically an hypothesis about the genesis of marihuana use for pleasure. The hypothesis traces the sequence of changes in individual attitude

2,650 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: GARLAND, 2001, p. 2, the authors argues that a modernidade tardia, esse distintivo padrão de relações sociais, econômicas e culturais, trouxe consigo um conjunto de riscos, inseguranças, and problemas de controle social that deram uma configuração específica às nossas respostas ao crime, ao garantir os altos custos das
Abstract: Nos últimos trinta trinta anos, houve profundas mudanças na forma como compreendemos o crime e a justiça criminal. O crime tornou-se um evento simbólico, um verdadeiro teste para a ordem social e para as políticas governamentais, um desafio para a sociedade civil, para a democracia e para os direitos humanos. Segundo David Garland, professor da Faculdade de Direito da New York University, um dos principais autores no campo da Sociologia da Punição e com artigo publicado na Revista de Sociologia e Política , número 13, na modernidade tardia houve uma verdadeira obsessão securitária, direcionando as políticas criminais para um maior rigor em relação às penas e maior intolerância com o criminoso. Há trinta anos, nos EUA e na Inglaterra essa tendência era insuspeita. O livro mostra que os dois países compartilham intrigantes similaridades em suas práticas criminais, a despeito da divisão racial, das desigualdades econômicas e da letalidade violenta que marcam fortemente o cenário americano. Segundo David Garland, encontram-se nos dois países os “mesmos tipos de riscos e inseguranças, a mesma percepção a respeito dos problemas de um controle social não-efetivo, as mesmas críticas da justiça criminal tradicional, e as mesmas ansiedades recorrentes sobre mudança e ordem sociais”1 (GARLAND, 2001, p. 2). O argumento principal da obra é o seguinte: a modernidade tardia, esse distintivo padrão de relações sociais, econômicas e culturais, trouxe consigo um conjunto de riscos, inseguranças e problemas de controle social que deram uma configuração específica às nossas respostas ao crime, ao garantir os altos custos das políticas criminais, o grau máximo de duração das penas e a excessivas taxas de encarceramento.

2,183 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A systematic review of 122 articles and books (1987-2013) of co-creation/co-production with citizens in public innovation is presented in this article, where the authors analyze the objectives and outcomes of the process.
Abstract: This article presents a systematic review of 122 articles and books (1987–2013) of co-creation/co-production with citizens in public innovation It analyses (a) the objectives of co-creation and co-production, (b) its influential factors and (c) the outcomes of co-creation and co-production processes It shows that most studies focus on the identification of influential factors, while hardly any attention is paid to the outcomes Future studies could focus on outcomes of co-creation/co-production processes Furthermore, more quantitative studies are welcome, given the qualitative, case study, dominance in the field We conclude with a research agenda to tackle methodological, theoretical and empirical lacunas

1,257 citations