Exploring Empirical and Theoretical Sensibilities Towards Persistent Young Offenders and Intensive Interventions

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A longitudinal study of the first recipients of intensive supervision Doctor of Philosophy in Criminology March 2014 Keele University Emily V Gray 1 Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................... 6 List of Tables ........................................................................................................ 8 List of Figures ...................................................................................................... 9 Part 1: Approaching persistent and serious young offenders through an intimate and longitudinal lens ..........................................................................................11 Chapter 1: Introduction .................................................................................................. 11 1.1 Fresh eyes ................................................................................................................ 11 1.2 Political context and establishment of intensive supervision.................................. 12 1.3 Intensive supervision on a statutory footing ........................................................... 15 1.4 Theoretical promiscuity: the range of penal discourses associated with intensive programmes ................................................................................................................... 17 1.5 ISSP: The research background ................................................................................ 19 1.6 Research objectives ................................................................................................. 20 1.7 Research methods.................................................................................................... 21 1.8 Structure of the thesis.............................................................................................. 22 Chapter 2: Literature Review: Exploring empirical and theoretical sensibilities towards persistent young offenders and intensive interventions ................................................ 25 2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 25 2.2 The longevity of the notorious young offender ........................................................ 26 2.3 Youth crime and youth justice: theoretical reflections ........................................... 28 2.4 The cultural and emotional U-turn .......................................................................... 30 2.5 Searching for an evidence base: The seduction of facts .......................................... 32 2.6 Desistance and the revival of subjectivity................................................................ 34 2.7 New directions in research on young people and crime ......................................... 36 2.8 The turn to intensity ................................................................................................ 37 2.9 Catch him! Identifying persistent offenders ............................................................ 41 2.9 Shifts in the youth justice framework ...................................................................... 44 2.10 Policing and surveillance ........................................................................................ 45 2.11 A political culture of fear and anxiety .................................................................... 48 2.12 Connecting structure and agency: employing the work of Pierre Bourdieu ......... 51 2.13 A reflexive approach .............................................................................................. 56 Chapter 3: Research design, a cross-methodological framework in search of trust, meaning and validity ...................................................................................................... 60 3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 60 2 3.2 The starting point – ISSP .......................................................................................... 61 3.3 The rationale ............................................................................................................ 63 3.4 Quantitative research methodology ........................................................................ 74 3.5 Qualitative research methodology .......................................................................... 89 Chapter 4: Ethics, the search for trust, meaning and validity ........................................ 96 4.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 96 4.2 The rationale ............................................................................................................ 99 4.3 Retracing and making contact with the sample .................................................... 101 4.4 Incentives ............................................................................................................... 102 4.5 Researcher safety ................................................................................................... 103 4.6 Approaching the interviews as a collaborative exercise ........................................ 104 4.7 Renegotiating confidentiality ................................................................................. 106 4.8 Disclosure and management of sensitive data ...................................................... 107 4.9 The politics of representation ................................................................................ 109 4.10 Quantitative data security ................................................................................... 112 4.11 Funding................................................................................................................. 113 4.12 Final thoughts ...................................................................................................... 113 Part 2 The long-term trajectories of ISSP: Results from the quantitative data .... 118 Chapter 5: a preface to the sample and data .............................................................. 118 5.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 118 5.2 The ISSP Sample: a quantitative introduction ....................................................... 120 5.3 Previous involvement in the criminal justice system .............................................. 122 5.4 Exploring Asset ....................................................................................................... 124 5.5 Persistence and seriousness .................................................................................. 135 5.6 Methodological and theoretical blind spots .......................................................... 139 5.7 Multiple Deprivation .............................................................................................. 141 6.1 Frequency of offending .......................................................................................... 145 6.2 Seriousness of offending ........................................................................................ 152 6.3 Reconviction ........................................................................................................... 157 6.4 Summary ................................................................................................................ 162 Chapter 7: Viewing long-term offending trajectories through latent growth curve and mixture models ............................................................................................................. 166 7.1 Latent growth modelling: Incorporating temporal processes ............................... 166 7.2 Modelling strategy ................................................................................................ 171 3 7.3 Exploring variation within the sample: Mixture modelling ................................... 186 7.4 Summary ................................................................................................................ 195 7.5 Discussion ............................................................................................................... 198 Part 3: Yesterday’s rebels: A narrative account of persistent offending from childhood to young adulthood in Liverpool ....................................................... 210 Chapter 8: Introduction ............................................................................................... 210 8.1 Structure and analytical orientation ...................................................................... 211 8.2 Presentation of the data: Two notable reminders ................................................ 212 8.3 Note on text ..........................................................................................................

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