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Desistance and Identity Repair: Redemption Narratives as Resistance to Stigma

British Journal of Criminology

Published online on

Abstract

Recent research has examined the role of the narrative construction of identity in desistance from criminal offending and substance use. The narrative identity theory of desistance was developed with a population of male offenders. The present analysis explores the applicability of the theory to a sample of substance-using pregnant women and mothers, a highly stigmatized and increasingly criminalized group. The analysis of in-depth interview data reveals that desisting women constructed narrative identities that emphasized their moral agency and resisted the stigmatizing discourse surrounding substance-using mothers. The results support the narrative identity theory of desistance by demonstrating its applicability to a population for which the theory was not specifically designed and have implications for future research on identity theories of desistance as well as offender supervision practices.