Progressive desistance
The latest (May 2025) report from HM Inspectorate of Probation’s Academic Insight examines Progressive Desistance practice in youth justice. Authored by Alexandra Wigzell & Claire Paterson-Young who reflect upon the existing desistance literature – much of which has focused upon adults – and its application to children. They set out four key requirements for the application of progressive desistance practice in youth justice.
First, it should be recognised that the relevance of desistance thinking to children’s lives is context dependent and will mean quite different things for different children.
Second, caring professional relationships must play a crucial role and be prominent within policy and practice – and we must also care for our practitioners and managers.
Third, desistance should be seen as a social justice issue, with non-stigmatising socio-structural support facilitating children’s pathways away from offending.
Finally, a child-focused understanding of desistance should be centred on fostering healthy long-term development, moving beyond a narrow focus on reducing offending.
Adolescent specific research
While desistance research has predominantly focused on adults, a number of studies have examined the desistance pathways of adolescents. The message from this body of research is that although (as one might expect) similar factors are relevant to adolescent desistance as to adults, there are important potential differences and areas of uncertainty. For example:
- there is mixed evidence about the role of identity shifts in adolescent desistance
- different types of socio-structural support and changes are likely to be associated with children’s (and young adults’) desistance, compared to older adults (for example, parents and carers may play a more significant role for adolescents)
- such support may be more important to adolescent desistance given that their age and status may render teenagers less capable of exercising agency and power
- positive professional relationships, a central plank of adult desistance thinking, may be especially important for adolescent desistance given that that this is a formational (and thus malleable) stage of identity.
A context-dependent approach
The part of the report I found most interesting and helpful was the finding that a context-dependent approach is key to promoting desistance with children. This goes beyond tailoring approaches to children’s needs. Rather it is concerned with taking a critical approach about how desistance principles may apply differently to individual children, rather than assuming that they are all relevant.
The report provides a typology of desistance groups which you see in the table I have reproduced below.
Conclusion
The report makes it clear that there remain several key research gaps on children’s desistance. The authors argue that more needs to be understood about children’s pathways away from crime across the spectrum of youth justice-involvement. They also say that research should consider the desistance needs and experiences of different ‘groups’ of children (while recognising that each child is unique). Additionally they highlight that there should be research attention to how desistance thinking is being understood and translated into practice with children and its impact. The key messages of the report are summarised in the infographic below.
Thanks to Eliott Reyna for kind permission to use the header image in this post which was previously published on Unsplash.
