The Ambiguities of Desistance

David Honeywell’s book provides a uniquely critical and reflective exploration of desistance which is both experientially-grounded and research-informed. Written in a direct, engaging and challenging style, it deserves to be widely read by scholars, students and practitioners — indeed by anyone and everyone concerned both with supporting desistance from crime and with changing how we do justice. This book is full of voices we need to hear and heed, not least the author's.

Desistance theory has always benefitted from both the autobiographical perspectives of former prisoners as well as systematic academic study, yet in this fascinating new work, David Honeywell combines both of these sources of expertise, drawing on his own lived experience and rigorous research. The intersection of the two makes for a challenging, original and ground-breaking work and a model for keeping criminological research relevant and vibrant.

In one of the finest books ever written about imprisonment, Men in Prison, Victor Serge declares “A victory over jail is a great victory”. In this book David Honeywell follows Serge to present his own personal victory and those of others who have emerged from imprisonment and made their way through a university education. These remarkable journeys from institutions at the base of society to those nearer its top are gathered as evidence of the complications of desistance. Dr Honeywell offers the reader rare insights drawn from his own incarceration and his subsequent contributions to convict criminology. Like Serge, Honeywell takes his own prison experience and combines it with others into a particularly vivid and triumphant account of lives that prison did not destroy. Share his victory and theirs when you read this book.