How to frustrate desistance

Last week I was running a workshop to provide some information about desistance and how it relates to criminal justice.  This was a multi-agency forum with members of Integrated Offender Management (IOM), Bristol IMPACT.  Part of the workshop was discussing how desistance could be supported by criminal justice agencies.  I have received quite a bit of feedback stating that desistance research isn’t new and this is how, in particular Probation, has been approaching rehabilitation for years.  This could be argued to be the case, but what the desistance research does is that it builds on the existing research and practices in order to support and accelerate the process. 
In particular the Eight Principles of Supporting Desistance in Criminal Justice in Criminal Justice (see links) provides guidance on how to do this.

One member of the workshop made a very interesting point, in that you can see how effective these principles are, if you consider the impact of working in the opposite way.  I think that it is compelling in demonstrating just how important it is to be aware of how desistance can be slowed down.  So how who it look if Criminal Justice policy and approaches were to be the opposite of the eight principles, what could that look like?:

Be unrealistic: Expecting people to change immediately.  Not supporting people through lapses and relapses.

Favouring formal approaches: Onerous interventions and sanctions, specifically at a young age.  Sentencing people to a high number of formal interventions and sanctions when this may not be necessary.

Use prisons freely: Using imprisonment as the preferred sentence.  Sentencing to prison for less serious offences or technical breaches of orders or licences.

Don’t build positive relationships: Ignore the importance of the personal and professional relationships.  Not investing in developing supervisory relationships.

Treat everybody the same: Using one approach for everyone.

Ignore social contexts: Not understanding the wider social networks, or developing new networks that support reintegration.  Approaches that develop human capital (e.g. problem solving skills) but not the social capital.

Overlook our language: Use language that confirms negative perceptions. Language that suggests that change is not possible.

Discourage ‘redemption’: Not rewarding efforts for change.  Having no mechanism for signifying re-inclusion within communities.

From looking at the representation of the principles, in opposite, it strikes me that this would involve a blanket approach that fails to appreciate an individual or their circumstances.    Although this is merely a representation, it seems to show how approaches could easily frustrate desistance.  I would like to think that most people would not intentionally want to slow down desistance, but it’s possible that approaches that frustrate desistance could be the result of not appreciating the impact that they have on the process.