Concluding remarks

Drawing on panel data of young offenders in Chile, it was shown that desistance and persistence categories are far from absolute, and are rather two ends of a continuum that individuals can move along fluidly. Indeed, 34 per cent of the interviewees changed categories between the first and the second wave, following a zig-zag pattern rather than a linear path. Ambivalent desisters and conformist offenders who persisted in order to align themselves with mainstream society emerged as new categories that challenged the traditional ways of understanding desistance and persistence from crime.

It has been demonstrated that changes in seriousness and frequency of crime, offer interesting insights to explore the process of moving away from crime. 43 per cent of the youths who persisted in crime in the second wave had lessened the seriousness of their offences, and 36 per cent of them committed crimes less frequently than in the first wave. Although these downward trends sometimes do not occur as a consequence of a definite decision to stop crime and can instead be triggered by instrumental reasons, they nevertheless activate several processes that might sustain desistance in the long term. Furthermore, changes in seriousness might imply leaving violence behind – thus prompting the reconstruction of social ties and the development of more adaptive ways of doing masculinities. The decrease in crime frequency might be related to changes in the motives that trigger crime, and can open the way to a new habitus that support changes towards conformity in the long term.

Moreover, this type of change would be, for several individuals, the furthest they can go in terms of desistance. As was shown, crime remains as a possible alternative for several desisters, and some offenders will be able only to resist crime rather than having the full capability to leave all sorts of antisocial behaviour behind. In spite of that, they may believe that they have achieved a conformist life. Indeed, occasional thefts for need, fights for self-defence, recreational drug use and vandalism as an expression of social discontent were not seen as crimes by several individuals. These behaviours were part of a lifestyle that is almost impossible to surrender, especially considering the structural restrictions of a society that has not much to offer in terms of welfare, employment, opportunities, social participation and social mobility.

Furthermore, it was observed that the division between primary and secondary desistance imposes an artificial distinction and a concretised temporal order to the process of crime abandonment which may not best reflect the way in which it actually occurs. It was shown that secondary desistance is not necessarily a long-term achievement that arises as a consequence of crime abandonment, and that even several persisters do not see themselves as offenders.

Besides the above, these findings must be considered with caution. When exploring desistance in the present chapter, I am most precisely referring to a period of temporary desistance in which interviewees stayed away from crime or continue committing crimes. If those changes would

stop, would last for another period or for a lifetime is a question that remains unanswered. Moreover, if we consider the age of the participants (16-21), it is very likely that the period in which they stayed away from the crime or showed qualitative changes in their criminal patterns, is reflecting early states of desistance or simple zig zag periods within their criminal career, and therefore the salience of ambivalence and liminality might be overstated.

Finally, some implications for the ways in which we understand, theorise and research desistance – both within the Chilean context, and extrapolated to other societies with similar market-based economic systems and liberal welfare regimes, must be discussed. Perhaps the most crucial finding is that, by giving attention to the process of crime abandonment, we turn our focus to the liminal space of ambivalences and inconsistencies that most individuals experience on their path to desistance from crime. In this research, these inconsistencies were found to be strongly related to consumerism, attachment and masculinity – factors that both pulled individuals away from crime and pushed them back towards it. Leaving behind compulsive forms of consumerism allowed them to start exploring new ways of identity reassurance and differentiation, and to develop aspirations more centred on self-development than on the accumulation of material goods. This transition could resemble a shift from expressive crime (caused by humiliation and the pursuit of identity and status), towards instrumental crime (prompted by material needs). Moreover, through the changing process, offenders learned new forms of doing masculinities by exerting control over themselves, restraining from violence and pursuing a productive life.

Nevertheless, overcoming ambivalence does not occur in a vacuum; it needs a social context that provides the opportunities for this to happen. As has been demonstrated throughout this chapter, this was not the experience of most interviewees. Their marginalisation from mainstream society and lack of opportunities allowed them to display power only through aggression, risk-taking and thrill seeking, and to acquire status and differentiation through conspicuous consumption (Veblen, 1967). Several interviewees could not get a firm foothold outside of crime because their emotional attachment to offending and their fear of failing in conformist settings impeded their departure from the safe and comfortable space between crime and conformity.

I explore these points further in the next chapter through an analysis of the factors that might be associated with desistance among the young offenders of the study, offering a preliminary identification of those factors which specifically facilitate or hinder its process.