A Life Course and Networks Approach to Prison Therapeutic Communities

Abstract

Life course criminology, the branch of the discipline aimed at understanding within-individual offending across time, has gained considerable traction over the past two decades. Central interests for life course criminologists have been explaining if, why, and how offenders desist from crime as they age. Consistent with the broader life course perspective, desistance researchers have focused much of their efforts on understanding how social role transitions (e.g., marriage, parenthood, and employment) coincide with crime deceleration or cessation. More recent desistance theorists have expanded the area to emphasize another life course theme, human agency, arguing that offenders actively select themselves into social roles that create opportunities for identity transformation and criminal desistance. This chapter connects therapeutic community (TC) philosophy and practice in prison settings with social network and life course principles. Specifically, it draws on the concept of linked lives and social network analysis to understand the mechanisms underlying prison TC effectiveness. In so doing, the authors build a research agenda for investigating and evaluating prison TCs that may also inform other network interventions. Finally, the chapter demonstrates the feasibility and promise of such an approach with a pilot study conducted in a single TC housed in a men's maximum-security Pennsylvania prison. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)