Living with Desistance

"""David Honeywell’s fascinating new book combines memoir and scholarship, spanning the sometimes problematic and controversial divide between ‘lived experience’ and ‘academic expertise’ in trying to make sense of how and why people can and do move on from both crime and criminalisation. It deserves to be widely read by anyone who cares about and wants to enable that sort of mobility, as we all should."" Fergus McNeill, Professor of Criminology and Social Work, University of Glasgow ""It would be difficult not to be impressed by Honeywell’s achievements. Living with Desistance is detailed and intelligent and full of honesty and pathos. The book outlines the problems Honeywell faced during his youth, how he became embroiled in crime, his experiences of imprisonment, and how he managed to push his life on a new course. It is sure to be a key text for all of those interested in the growing field of convict criminology, especially in Britain."" Simon Winlow, Professor of Social Science, Northumbria University ""In previous books, Honeywell has written an eloquent autobiography about his lived experience of the justice system and also a sophisticated analysis of the concept of desistance. Here, he combines both of these into one fascinating work that perfectly captures the movement toward lived experience in criminology and beyond."" Shadd Maruna, Author of Making Good: How Ex-Convicts Reform and Rebuild Their Lives ""It is perhaps rare to describe an academic text as confronting, rigorous, original – and moving, all at once. Yet Honeywell’s detailed and reflective prose deftly weaves together his own autobiographical journey with analysis of desistance and imprisonment scholarship to provide us with a carefully crafted and affective account of why (better) understanding desistance narratives must matter to us all. Themes of identity, masculinities, isolation and transformation feature prominently in this book – but above all, it is the theme of belonging which is most pervasively distilled throughout its pages. This is a book about the historic and enduring pains of imprisonment; it is about frailty and resilience; and ultimately, it is about our shared human desire for a sense of belonging. Honeywell takes the position that ‘no one can become a different person’ and that desisters in particular are engaged in a perpetual process of ‘managing’ their impulses and behaviours, which are often derived from histories of trauma and abuse. Understanding how Honeywell himself has come to reflect on and navigate these deeply personal aspects of his own identity is both poignant and revealing, while providing great depth and richness to existing bodies of work on desistance narratives. To all those with an interest in desistance, or to those who yet know little about the subject, Honeywell’s book is a must read."" Jane Donoghue, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Arden University ""There are very few scholars in criminology that can combine and illustrate desistance theories with features of their own life experience. David Honeywell does that in every chapter of this book. Personal testimony and theoretical insights make this a rare and exceptionally valuable resource for students and the wider criminological community."" Rod Earle, Senior Lecturer in Youth Justice, The Open University"