1. Fergus McNeill Fergus.McNeill@glasgow.ac.uk Twitter: @fergus_mcneill
Seeking Recognition? Desistance, Rehabilitation and Restorative Justice
Fergus McNeill

2. Desistance A process of personal, human development
That takes place in and is shaped by its social and cultural contexts; hence also a social transition
That involves movement away from offending (volume, frequency, severity) and towards…?

3. Secondary/Substantive
Three aspects
Behaviour
Primary/Formal
Identity
Secondary/Substantive
Belonging
Tertiary/Secure

4. How we are
Who we are connected to
How we see ourselves (and how we are seen)

5. Raynor and Robinson (2009)
‘the action of restoring something to a previous (proper) condition or status’ (OED)
An action
That restores
To a desirable state
Implies…
[judgement against some normalising standard]
[third party intervention]

6. Two criminological definitions
‘…taking away the desire to offend, is the aim of reformist or rehabilitative punishment. The objective of reform or rehabilitation is to reintegrate the offender into society after a period of punishment, and to design the content of the punishment so as to achieve this’ (Hudson, 2003: 26).
I will initially assume a benign definition of rehabilitation: the return of a lawbreaker, ex-prisoner or wrongdoer to civil society (i.e. citizenship) with an enhanced capacity to lead a law-abiding life in future. (Carlen, 2013)
Outcomes and mechanisms…

7. The pains of re/habilitation
‘Reentry organizations, while not acknowledging this, engage in a logic in which former prisoners ‘prove’ their submission to a program of personal transformation by (1) completing programs designed to broker within them an ethic of transformation; and (2) sharing in treatment groups the kinds of struggles on which they are working. Thus, a changed life is one of constant (re) evaluation, (re) discovery, and above all consistent progress toward the moving target of personal transformation. Unwillingness to transform is disciplined by service providers who facilitate reentry programs, and by former prisoners participating in these groups themselves’ (Miller, 2014: 325).
The compulsory internalisation of misrecognition?

8. Blankface The clock spins, zero hour begins
This is the end, the end again
Here sits Blankface and she spins my tale
I’ve stopped listening now I know that I’ll fail
Tick by tick and line by line
Thread by thread now you weave mine
A web of shadows, a silk spun tomb
A windowless room, windowless room
Sliding doors open and they welcome me in
This is the place, the place we pay for sin
These four seasons they reflect in glass
Trapped in a jar here where the time will not pass
One day ending, a new day begins
Tick says ‘he’ll do it’, again and again
You see what you want but I know it’s not real
Anyone out there who can feel what I feel?

9. Personal Reintegration Social Reintegration
Judicial Reintegration
Moral (and Political) Reintegration
Desistance

10. Personal re/integration
The re/development of the self
‘Human capital’ or human potential
Motivation
Skills
Identity and values:
Personal development through philosophical enquiry? (Szifris, 2016)
A responsibility of all citizens?

11. Judicial re/integration
The ‘requalification of the juridical subject’ (Beccaria)
Formal de-labelling
Status elevation/restoration
A responsibility of the punishing state, when punishment is complete?
Formal recognition

12. Social Re/integration
The recognition of a new or restored social identity
The elevation or restoration of social status
The re-development of social capital, connection, resources
A responsibility of citizens and civil society (with the support of the punishing state)
Social recognition

13. Moral (and political) re/integration
Provision of redress (not to the state but…)
To the victim
To the community
To the offender?
The relational restoration of the reciprocal bonds of citizen, civil society and state
Restorative practices and (multilateral) reintegrative shaming
Moral (and political) recognition

14. Redress for Breaches of Reciprocities
Proportionality and Parsimony
Reparation
(Voluntary
contributions)
Retribution (Compulsory
losses)
Rehabilitation
(as process)
Re/integration
(as outcome:
Restoration of Reciprocities )

15. Three party search for recognition
Restorative Justice
Victim
Three party search for recognition
Community
Offender

16. Four party search for recognition
Restorative Justice
Victim
State
Four party search for recognition
Civil Society
Offender

17. Problems and possibilities
Rehabilitation and reintegration are relational
Between the people involved
Between citizen, civil society and state
Processes of mutual recognition
Structure and culture shape the relational possibilities… and the prospects of misrecognition
Dialogue (and collective) action can reform cultures and structures…
Maybe. At least it’s worth trying.
RJ is the best developed practice of dialogue we have