Towards Desistance: Theoretical Underpinnings for an Empirical Study ANTHONY BOTTOMS, JOANNA SHAPLAND, ANDREW COSTELLO, DEBORAH HOLMES and GRANT MUIR Anthony Bottoms is Professorial Fellow in Criminology, Joanna Shapland is Professor of Criminal Justice, Andrew Costello, Deborah Holmes and Grant Muir are Research Associates in Criminology, Department of Law, University of Sheffield Abstract: This article presents the initial theoretical underpinnings for a fresh prospective study of desistance, focused on 20-year-old recidivists. It is argued that significant crime- free gaps appropriately form part of the subject matter of desistance. An interactive theoretical framework is presented, involving ‘programmed potential’, ‘social context’ (structures, culture, situations) and ‘agency’. It is argued that agency, while rightly attracting increasing interest within criminology, needs to be used with greater precision. Aspects of the social context of the research subjects’ lives are summarised, with special reference to their age-transitional status and the relevance of ‘community’ in their lives. Since most criminal careers, even of recidivists, are short, the implications of subjects’ movement from conformity to criminality and back to conformity require greater thought among criminologists and criminal justice professionals. However, these broad movements contain significant oscillations, and ‘crime’ is not a unidimensional concept in the lives of the research subjects. Capturing and explaining the complexity of these matters longitudinally is a significant challenge for the research. In November 2002, we began a fresh empirical study of desistance from crime, based at the University of Sheffield. Fuller details and results from that research project will, in due course, be published elsewhere. Here, we offer some initial theoretical reflections on the subject of desistance, which constitute, in various ways, an important framework or underpinning for our empirical project. 1 Two aspects of the empirical research must, however, be mentioned at the outset, as they are relevant to much that follows. First, our Sheffield project, though it has some stand-alone features, is part of a wider ESRC- funded Research Network on the Social Contexts of Pathways in Crime (SCOPIC), led by the University of Cambridge (research director: Professor Per-Olof Wikstro ¨m). 2 As its title makes clear, the overall purpose of SCOPIC is to analyse criminal careers, not only in the traditional The Howard Journal Vol 43 No 4. September 2004 ISSN 0265-5527, pp. 368–389 368 r Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA