From Ex-Offenders to Hopefuls: Exploring Changing Narratives and Personal Stories of Desistance

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