Deborah Holmes

Bio: Deborah Holmes is an academic researcher from University of Sheffield. The author has contributed to research in topics: Conformity & Criminal justice. The author has an hindex of 2, co-authored 2 publications receiving 487 citations.

Towards Desistance: Theoretical Underpinnings for an Empirical Study

Abstract: This article presents the initial theoretical underpinnings for a fresh prospective study of desistance, focused on 20-year-old recidivists. It is argued that significant crime-free gaps appropriately form part of the subject matter of desistance. An interactive theoretical framework is presented, involving 'programmed potential', 'social context' (structures, culture, situations) and 'agency'. It is argued that agency, while rightly attracting increasing interest within criminology, needs to be used with greater precision. Aspects of the social context of the research subjects' lives are summarised, with special reference to their age-transitional status and the relevance of 'community' in their lives. Since most criminal careers, even of recidivists, are short, the implications of subjects' movement from conformity to criminality and back to conformity require greater thought among criminologists and criminal justice professionals. However, these broad movements contain significant oscillations, and 'crime' is not a unidimensional concept in the lives of the research subjects. Capturing and explaining the complexity of these matters longitudinally is a significant challenge for the research.

Towards Desistance: Theoretical Underpinnings for an Empirical Study

Abstract: This article presents the initial theoretical underpinnings for a fresh prospective study of desistance, focused on 20-year-old recidivists. It is argued that significant crime-free gaps appropriately form part of the subject matter of desistance. An interactive theoretical framework is presented, involving ‘programmed potential’, ‘social context’ (structures, culture, situations) and ‘agency’. It is argued that agency, while rightly attracting increasing interest within criminology, needs to be used with greater precision. Aspects of the social context of the research subjects' lives are summarised, with special reference to their age-transitional status and the relevance of ‘community’ in their lives. Since most criminal careers, even of recidivists, are short, the implications of subjects' movement from conformity to criminality and back to conformity require greater thought among criminologists and criminal justice professionals. However, these broad movements contain significant oscillations, and ‘crime’ is not a unidimensional concept in the lives of the research subjects. Capturing and explaining the complexity of these matters longitudinally is a significant challenge for the research.

The Feuilleton of the Viennese "Arbeiter-Zeitung" 1918–1934: Production Parameters and Personality Problems

Abstract: Abstract:The Arbeiter-Zeitung feuilleton has received little attention in its own right as part of Red Vienna's literary legacy. By analysing both the feuilleton itself and unpublished correspondence between editors and journalists, the article attempts to reconstruct some of the feuilleton's aims and problems. Particular emphasis is given to the relationship of David Josef Bach to Friedrich Austerlitz, also to the struggle between the younger and older generations of the SDAP as regards influence over the party newspaper. Judged by his work for the feuilleton, Bach emerges as a pragmatic, tolerant figure, who sought to preserve what he thought valuable in literary tradition but also to promote promising new talent (Ernst Fischer) regardless of political differences. Das Feuilleton der Arbeiter-Zeitung erntete bisher wenig Aufmerksamkeit als selbständiger Teil des literarischen Lebens im Roten Wien. Der Artikel versucht eine Rekonstruktion der Probleme und Ziele dieser Rubrik und analysiert dafür einerseits Feuilletons selbst und bezieht sich andererseits auch auf unveröffentlichte Briefwechsel zwischen Redakteuren und Journalisten. Insbesondere wird auf die Beziehung David Josef Bachs zu Friedrich Austerlitz eingegangen, auch auf den Kampf um Einfluß auf die Zeitung zwischen der älteren und der jüngeren Generation der SDAP. Bach tut sich als pragmatischer, toleranter Feuilleton-Redakteur hervor, der literarische Traditionen pflegen wollte, gleichzeitig aber junge, viel versprechende Begabungen (Ernst Fischer) förderte, auch im Fall politischer Meinungsunterschiede.

The `Chicken and Egg' of Subjective and Social Factors in Desistance from Crime

Abstract: It is now widely acknowledged that progression from persistent offending to desistance from crime is the outcome of a complex interaction between subjective/ agency factors and social/environmental factors. A methodological challenge for desistance researchers is to unravel the differential impacts of these internal and external factors and the sequence in which they come into play. Towards this, the present investigation draws on a prospective study of 130 male property offenders, interviewed in the 1990s (the Oxford Recidivism Study), and followed up 10 years later. The analysis supports a `subjective—social model' in which subjective states measured before release have a direct effect on recidivism as well as indirect effects through their impact on social circumstances experienced after release from prison.

A desistance paradigm for offender management

Abstract: In an influential article published in the British Journal of Social Work in 1979, Anthony Bottoms and Bill McWilliams proposed the adoption of a ‘non-treatment paradigm’ for probation practice. Their argument rested on a careful and considered analysis not only of empirical evidence about the ineffectiveness of rehabilitative treatment but also of theoretical, moral and philosophical questions about such interventions. By 1994, emerging evidence about the potential effectiveness of some intervention programmes was sufficient to lead Peter Raynor and Maurice Vanstone to suggest significant revisions to the ‘non-treatment paradigm’. In this article, it is argued that a different but equally relevant form of empirical evidence—that derived from desistance studies—suggests a need to re-evaluate these earlier paradigms for probation practice. This reevaluation is also required by the way that such studies enable us to understand and theorize both desistance itself and the role that penal professionals might p...

Ballot Manipulation and the "Menace of Negro Domination": Racial Threat and Felon Disenfranchisement in the United States, 1850-2002

Abstract: Criminal offenders in the United States typically forfeit voting rights as a collateral consequence of their felony convictions. This article analyzes the origins and development of these state felon disenfranchisement provisions. Because these laws tend to dilute the voting strength of racial minorities, we build on theories of group threat to test whether racial threat influenced their passage. Many felon voting bans were passed in the late 1860s and 1870s, when implementation of the Fifteenth Amendment and its extension of voting rights to African‐Americans were ardently contested. We find that large nonwhite prison populations increase the odds of passing restrictive laws, and, further, that prison and state racial composition may be linked to the adoption of reenfranchisement reforms. These findings are important for understanding restrictions on the civil rights of citizens convicted of crime and, more generally, the role of racial conflict in American political development.

The place of the officer-offender relationship in assisting offenders to desist from crime

Abstract: For decades, the relationship between the officer and offender (variously labelled as the ‘casework relationship’, the ‘supervisory relationship’ or ‘one-to-one work’) was the main channel for probation service interventions. In the modernized probation service in England and Wales, this relationship element has been marginalized, on a policy level at least, by accredited groupwork programmes and case management approaches involving referrals to specialist and other services. However, there are now promising signs that policy makers are re-instating the ‘relationship’ between the practitioner and offender as a core condition for changing the behaviour and social circumstances associated with recidivism. This article traces the factors behind the paradigm shift from casework (in its broadest sense) to case management (more recently termed ‘offender management’) in order to identify why an element of practice once regarded as vital became discredited. It then briefly draws on findings in the mental health field and desistance research to relocate the relationship element within a practice model that is focused on supporting desistance from crime.

Desistance From Crime: Theoretical, Empirical, Methodological, and Policy Considerations

Abstract: In recent years, the growing literature on the topic of desistance from crime and deviant behavior has generated a large body of knowledge on this dimension of the criminal career. Despite these ef...