EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION SOCIAL TIES AND REENTRY Social Networks and Desistance Christy A. Visher University of Delaware S ince the early 2000s, we have witnessed a resurgence in research, policy, and practice surrounding the reintegration of individuals leaving prison and returning to the community. Almost two decades after this resurgence, researchers are making great strides to sharpen the tools needed to help individuals identify their needs and risks to their successful reintegration and desistance. Findings from reviews of the “what works” literature for adult offenders, as well as from several meta-analyses of studies on institutional- and community-based interventions and treatment programs, have presented consistent evidence that cognitive-behavioral ap- proaches that target criminogenic factors and individual needs, and that focus on individual- level change, may be most effective at reducing recidivism (Andrews and Bonta, 2006; Drake, 2013; Lipsey and Cullen, 2007; MacKenzie, 2006). Moreover, the U.S. Department of Jus- tice Office of Justice Programs provides information on its website (crimesolutions.gov) on research-based adult corrections and reentry programs and practices. Importantly, the interventions rated as “promising” are all focused on individual-level change. Yet, there is much we do not know about specific strategies and community interventions that have been focused on individual-level change processes to achieve desistance. In their article “Building the Ties that Bind, Breaking the Ties that Don’t,” John Boman and Thomas Mowen (2017, this issue) begin to address the specific factors operating at a micro-individual level that are important for successful reintegration and desistance. By framing their argument within the risk–need–responsivity (RNR) model of risk and need assessment, Boman and Mowen argue that the constructs of family support and social peers receive less attention in these assessments than do prior antisocial behavior, antisocial cognitions, substance abuse, and personality patterns. As they also note, comprehensive research on the elements of the RNR model is still in its infancy as we learn how the arenas Direct correspondence to Christy Visher, Center for Drug and Health Studies, Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, University of Delaware, CDHS - 257 East Main Street, Suite 110, Newark, DE 19716 (e-mail: visher@udel.edu). DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12331 C  2017 American Society of Criminology 1 Criminology & Public Policy  Volume 16  Issue 3