The `Chicken and Egg' of Subjective and Social Factors in Desistance from Crime

Thomas P. LeBel, Ros Burnett, Shadd Maruna, Shawn Bushway
2008 European Journal of Criminology  
This is the first new issue of EuroVista to be freely available online. As anticipated in earlier editorials, from now on whole issues and/or individual articles may be downloaded without charge from the EuroVista website (http://www.euro-vista.org/). This includes those back issues that before only were available on the website behind a paywall. We are grateful to the CEP, that has made this possible. The main reason for this change is to make the journal more easily accessible and therefore,
more » ... e hope and expect, much more widely read. Do please tell all your friends and colleagues the good news! And what a start we have for this new formula! This issue has been compiled and edited by a member of our Editorial Board, Dr Beth Weaver, University of Strathclyde, Scotland. As she writes in her introduction, we believe this to be the first journal ever to devote an entire issue to contributions made by people who have desisted from offending, some of whom may indeed describe themselves as in a continuing process of desistance. People who have committed crimes have usually been treated as subjects of research and sometimes even as its objects, but their own voice has not often been easy to hear. This issue, by contrast, includes writings by people from a large number of countries who set out a diverse range of accounts of and reflections on their own experiences. About the only thing they all have in common is that they have been convicted of offences and are now or have been on a journey towards ways of living in which offending has no place. As these papers eloquently demonstrate, people move away from crime by finding motives and purposes and by drawing on their personal qualities and talents. Our contributors are much more than exoffenders and, like anybody else, should not for all time be defined in terms of past actions that they are trying to put behind them. When Dr. Weaver first approached us with the idea for this issue, we were very excited. What she has achieved in bringing this collection together has exceeded all our expectations. In her own Introduction, she thanks the many people who have made this possible, but it is our privilege to offer our warm thanks to her. It was she who had the original idea, many of the contacts, the commitment and the skill to make it all happen. We as editors, and indeed all involved in EuroVista are proud to be associated with this project. Rob Canton
doi:10.1177/1477370807087640 fatcat:7g7y7p5fvbdsfnugxkx4relyx4