Shadd Maruna
Biographic Data
| ID | 378541 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Shadd Maruna |
| GIVEN NAMES | Shadd |
| FAMILY NAME | Maruna |
| SIGNATURE | MARUNA S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Queen's University Belfast |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4978-7073 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 47 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 401 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 43 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 4 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Credible Messenger Perspectives on the Skills and Traits That Support Effective Outreach and Case Management in Community Violence Intervention
Credible messengers—individuals with lived experience of violence either as perpetrators or victims—are central to many community-based violence intervention (CVI) programs. Although the use of credible messengers as case managers in CVI programs is expanding, research is limited on what contributes to their effectiveness. This study examines the skills and traits credible messengers utilize to engage participants and support behavior change. Int…
Prison Service Delivery Beyond Lockdown: Lessons Learned From People in Prison and Staff in the Offender Personality Disorders Pathway During Covid-19
The Offender Personality Disorder Pathway (OPDP) in England and Wales supports individuals in prison with complex interpersonal and emotional regulation needs. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this population faced heightened vulnerability, while prison officers encountered health risks, staffing shortages, and increased psychological strain. To explore how people living and working in prison coped under these conditions, 24 people in prison and 10 …
Can’t Use Old Keys to Open New Doors”: Relational Desistance Mechanisms Within Community Violence Interventions
Community Violence Intervention (CVI) programs show promising results in reducing health disparities such as firearm injury and violence. However, the process by which these programs bring about positive change is less well due to program variations and the focus of existing studies. Hence, program components and strategies used in day-to-day community violence intervention work are less clear. To address this gap, this study used in-depth interv…
Redeeming desistance: From individual journeys to a social movement
Early desistance research identified a key role for redemption scripts in the process of desisting from crime. This research emerged in an incredibly punitive environment at the turn of the century, when core beliefs about human redeemability were being challenged by popular and academic theories about incorrigible predators incapable of change. Desistance research made a profound impact, inspiring academic scholarship and changes to the policy a…
Desistance, Social Justice and Lived Experience
The Covid-19 Pandemic and the Future of the Prison
Since the discovery of the “jail disease,” probably typhus, in the eighteenth century, health experts have recognized that the prison is a near perfect incubator of contagious disease. Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, therefore, public health authorities and human rights groups advocated immediate and sustained decarceration of overcrowded prisons to save lives and stop the spread of the virus. Yet, decarceration efforts globally were uneven and l…
Desistance, Social Justice and Lived Experience
Beyond Recidivism: New Approaches to Research on Prisoner Reentry and Reintegration
Although there are some indicators of a recent deceleration, and even, in some states, reversal, of the recent growth of the US incarcerated populations, the past few decades of “tough-on-crime” policies have resulted in the incarceration of millions of individuals. An inevitable consequence is that most imprisoned individuals are released, reentering society. Research about prisoner reentry has advanced significantly across fields in the last de…
Where Is This Story Going? A Critical Analysis of the Emerging Field of Narrative Criminology
Over the past decade, a growing body of literature has emerged under the umbrella of narrative criminology. We trace the origins of this field to narrative scholarship in the social sciences more broadly and review the recent history of criminological engagement in this field. We then review contemporary developments, paying particular attention to research around desistance and victimology. Our review highlights the most important critiques and …
De la réhabilitation au désistement assisté: Transcender Le Modèle Médical1
Le concept de réhabilitation est parfois mis en opposition à celui du désistement « spontané » ou « naturel » du crime. Dans cet article, je soutiens que ces deux concepts découlent d’une vision du changement qui relève du modèle médical qui ne correspond pas à ce que nous savons sur les processus de désistement. La réhabilitation et le désistement spontané doivent être compris d’une manière plus nuancée et intégrative, comme on peut le constater…
The Oxford Handbook of Criminology
xxv, 1030 pages : 25 cm
Digital degradation: Stigma management in the internet age
The concept of stigma and labeling has been central to the sociology of punishment since at least the writings of Durkheim and Mead. However, the vast transformations brought on by the expansion of the internet over the past 20 years suggest the need for revisiting the dynamics of labeling. While the power to apply extralegal criminal labels is now in the hands of many, stigma in the form of a digital footprint is arguably more difficult than eve…
Justice and Penal Reform: Re-shaping the penal landscape
TEST 02 - Elsevier's Scopus, the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature. Search and access research from the science, technology, medicine, social sciences and arts and humanities fields
Desistance from sexual offending: Do the mainstream theories apply
The literature on desistance from crime has become well established in recent years with strong bodies of evidence supporting the role of factors such as employment, relationships and identity change in this process. However, the relevance of this literature to individuals convicted of sexual crimes is not known as such individuals are almost always excluded from this research. This article presents the results from one of the first empirical stu…
Commentary: Time to Get Rid of the Skid Bid? What Good Are Short Stays of Incarceration
reentry; jail; short sentences; social networks
Helping Others as a Response to Reconcile a Criminal Past: The Role of the Wounded Healer in Prisoner Reentry Programs
Anecdotal evidence suggests that many of the staff members working for prisoner reentry programs are formerly incarcerated persons. Moreover, criminologists have written that the strengths-based role of the “wounded healer” or “professional ex-” is exemplified by released prisoners who desist from a deviant career by replacing it with an occupation as a paraprofessional, lay therapist, or counselor. Despite these observations, there is a paucity …
Castigo en Sociedad: La Improbable Persistencia De La Probation Y Otras Sanciones Y Medidas Comunitarias
This paper aims to explore and explain the key "adaptations" by which community sanctions have sought legitimacy in the wake of the decline of penal welfarism and of the Texto publicado, traducido y reproducido con el permiso de
The Effects of Imprisonment
TEST 02 - Elsevier's Scopus, the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature. Search and access research from the science, technology, medicine, social sciences and arts and humanities fields
After Crime and Punishment
‘Less than the average citizen’: stigma, role transition and the civic reintegration of convicted felons
The Oxford Handbook of Criminology
The most comprehensive and authoritative single volume guide to criminology Brings together contributions from leading academics detailing the relevant theory, recent research, policy developments, and current debates, enabling students to fully appreciate the diverse array of viewpoints in criminological discourse Includes detailed references enabling readers to further research the topics discussed Features an extensive online resource centre p…
Legitimacy Through Neutrality: Probation and Conflict in N orthern I reland
The conflict in N orthern I reland known as the Troubles presented numerous challenges for the administration of traditional forms of criminal justice and has led to a variety of adaptations that have been widely discussed in the literature in criminology and transitional justice. The role of N orthern I reland's probation service is often forgotten or ignored in such analyses. This brief article is intended to begin to fill this gap by exploring…
Elements of Successful Desistance Signaling
Putting a price on prisoner release: The history of bail and a possible future of parole
In this article, we argue that the history of bail foretells the future of parole. Under a plan called the Conditional Post-Conviction Release Bond Act (recently passed into law in three states), US prisoners can secure early release only after posting ‘post-conviction bail’. As with pre-trial bail, the fledgling model would require prisoners to pay a percentage of the bail amount to secure their release under the contractual responsibility of a …
Lessons for justice reinvestment from restorative justice and the justice model experience: Some tips for an 8‐year‐old prodigy
Reentry as a rite of passage
Mary Douglas argues that, 'There are some things we cannot experience without ritual.' Ex-prisoner reintegration may be one of them. The punishment process involves an inordinate amount of ritual behavior, from the drama of the courtroom to the elaborate de-individuation processes involved in institutionalization. Durkheim argues that these rituals serve a distinct purpose for society: engendering social solidarity and shaping penal sensibilities…
What Have We Learned from Five Decades of Neutralization Research
Neutralization theory, though a popular framework for understanding deviant behavior, remains badly underdeveloped. Few attempts have been made to connect it to narrative and sociocognitive research in psychology and related fields. From this wider perspective, one reason neutralization theory has received only mixed empirical support is that it has been understood as a theory of criminal etiology. This makes little sense (how can one neutralize …
Reentry as a rite of passage
Mary Douglas argues that, 'There are some things we cannot experience without ritual.' Ex-prisoner reintegration may be one of them. The punishment process involves an inordinate amount of ritual behavior, from the drama of the courtroom to the elaborate de-individuation processes involved in institutionalization. Durkheim argues that these rituals serve a distinct purpose for society: engendering social solidarity and shaping penal sensibilities…
Digital degradation: Stigma management in the internet age
The concept of stigma and labeling has been central to the sociology of punishment since at least the writings of Durkheim and Mead. However, the vast transformations brought on by the expansion of the internet over the past 20 years suggest the need for revisiting the dynamics of labeling. While the power to apply extralegal criminal labels is now in the hands of many, stigma in the form of a digital footprint is arguably more difficult than eve…
Elements of Successful Desistance Signaling
Is a conservative just a liberal who has been mugged: Exploring the origins of punitive views
As in the adage that `a conservative is just a liberal who has been mugged', many presume that punitive public attitudes are derived from the direct experience of crime and victimization. People become `fed up' with criminality and seek to strike back at lawbreakers. Social theories of punitiveness, on the other hand, typically portray punitiveness as a form of scape-goating in which offenders are just a stand-in population, masking more abstract…
N = 1: Criminology and the person
Where Is This Story Going? A Critical Analysis of the Emerging Field of Narrative Criminology
Over the past decade, a growing body of literature has emerged under the umbrella of narrative criminology. We trace the origins of this field to narrative scholarship in the social sciences more broadly and review the recent history of criminological engagement in this field. We then review contemporary developments, paying particular attention to research around desistance and victimology. Our review highlights the most important critiques and …
Disowning Our Shadow: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Understanding Punitive Public Attitudes
Punitive public attitudes cannot be easily explained by pointing to instrumental concerns (e.g., fear of crime, personal victimization, or real or perceived levels of crime). Instead, numerous observers have suggested that public punitiveness is more a symptom of free-floating anxieties and insecurities resulting from social change than a rational response to crime problems. We argue that these public concerns might be better understood by drawin…
The kindness of prisoners: Strengths-based resettlement in theory and in action
This article explores the notion of so-called ‘strengths-based’ offender reintegration for prisoners returning to the community. First, we briefly explore the normative and empirical theory underlying this approach. Next, we present evidence from a case study the authors have undertaken on a particularly interesting example of strengths-based resettlement in action. It illustrates the tensions that occur when risk-based policies collide with stre…
Ontological insecurity’ and ‘terror management’: Linking two free-floating anxieties
In this article, we seek to clarify and develop the concept of ontological insecurity by linking it to the better developed, empirical literature on ‘terror management theory’ in social psychology. We argue that the understanding of both ontological insecurity and terror management can be improved through this overdue integration. In particular, merging these literatures can have important explanatory power when it comes to understanding punitive…
Lessons for justice reinvestment from restorative justice and the justice model experience: Some tips for an 8‐year‐old prodigy
Redeeming desistance: From individual journeys to a social movement
Early desistance research identified a key role for redemption scripts in the process of desisting from crime. This research emerged in an incredibly punitive environment at the turn of the century, when core beliefs about human redeemability were being challenged by popular and academic theories about incorrigible predators incapable of change. Desistance research made a profound impact, inspiring academic scholarship and changes to the policy a…
Desistance from sexual offending: Do the mainstream theories apply
The literature on desistance from crime has become well established in recent years with strong bodies of evidence supporting the role of factors such as employment, relationships and identity change in this process. However, the relevance of this literature to individuals convicted of sexual crimes is not known as such individuals are almost always excluded from this research. This article presents the results from one of the first empirical stu…
Castigo en Sociedad: La Improbable Persistencia De La Probation Y Otras Sanciones Y Medidas Comunitarias
This paper aims to explore and explain the key "adaptations" by which community sanctions have sought legitimacy in the wake of the decline of penal welfarism and of the Texto publicado, traducido y reproducido con el permiso de
The revolving door at the prison gate: Exploring the dramatic increase in recalls to prison
In this article we draw attention to the recent and extraordinary increase in the number of people in England and Wales recalled to prison during the licence period of their sentence (by examining the published Parole Board and prison statistics). This is followed by a description of the existing law and the recent changes to it, which we suggest will exacerbate the current trend. We seek then to explain the increase by looking primarily at the U…
Contemporary penality and psychoanalysis
In The Culture of Control Garland describes the ‘policy predicament’ of late modern society as involving the normality of high crime rates and the acknowledged limitations of the criminal justice system. This combination has triggered a contradictory range of policy responses that Garland describes as adaptive and non‐adaptive, with the non‐adaptive responses characterised as ‘denial’ and ‘acting out’. Garland’s invocation of these Freudian const…
The Covid-19 Pandemic and the Future of the Prison
Since the discovery of the “jail disease,” probably typhus, in the eighteenth century, health experts have recognized that the prison is a near perfect incubator of contagious disease. Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, therefore, public health authorities and human rights groups advocated immediate and sustained decarceration of overcrowded prisons to save lives and stop the spread of the virus. Yet, decarceration efforts globally were uneven and l…
De la réhabilitation au désistement assisté: Transcender Le Modèle Médical1
Le concept de réhabilitation est parfois mis en opposition à celui du désistement « spontané » ou « naturel » du crime. Dans cet article, je soutiens que ces deux concepts découlent d’une vision du changement qui relève du modèle médical qui ne correspond pas à ce que nous savons sur les processus de désistement. La réhabilitation et le désistement spontané doivent être compris d’une manière plus nuancée et intégrative, comme on peut le constater…
Putting a price on prisoner release: The history of bail and a possible future of parole
In this article, we argue that the history of bail foretells the future of parole. Under a plan called the Conditional Post-Conviction Release Bond Act (recently passed into law in three states), US prisoners can secure early release only after posting ‘post-conviction bail’. As with pre-trial bail, the fledgling model would require prisoners to pay a percentage of the bail amount to secure their release under the contractual responsibility of a …
Commentary: Time to Get Rid of the Skid Bid? What Good Are Short Stays of Incarceration
reentry; jail; short sentences; social networks
Making good: How ex-convicts reform and rebuild their lives.
Annotation Annotation
Desistance from Crime: A Theoretical Reformulation
Pygmalion in the reintegration process: Desistance from crime through the looking glass
The study of desistance from crime has come of age in recent years, and there are now several, competing theories to account for the ability of long-term offenders to abstain from criminal behavior. Most prominently, recent explanations have borrowed elements from informal social control theory, differential association theory and cognitive psychology. In the following, we argue that labeling theory may be a neglected factor in understanding the …
So ‘Prison Works’, Does It? The Criminal Careers of 130 Men Released from Prison under Home Secretary, Michael Howard
A 1992 study, The Dynamics of Recidivism, was cited by the Home Secretary of the Conservative government during the 1990s to support the political doctrine that ‘prison works’. This claim drew on qualitative data from pre‐ and post‐prison interviews of 130 male offenders to uphold a narrow rational choice perspective that emphasised the perceived ‘costs’ of imprisonment to the offender. A ten‐year reconviction study was carried out as a follow‐up…
Desistance‐Focused Criminal Justice Policy Research: Introduction to a Special Issue on Desistance from Crime and Public Policy
From a very small base of empirical studies in the 1940s and 1950s, the literature on how and why people stop offending has grown rapidly in the last two decades (see Laub and Sampson (2001) for a comprehensive review). Only recently, however, have researchers started to forge links between studies of desistance from crime and ‘What Works’ in offender management policy (see especially, Maruna and Immarigeon 2004 ). This ‘coming together’ of resea…
Contemporary penality and psychoanalysis
In The Culture of Control Garland describes the ‘policy predicament’ of late modern society as involving the normality of high crime rates and the acknowledged limitations of the criminal justice system. This combination has triggered a contradictory range of policy responses that Garland describes as adaptive and non‐adaptive, with the non‐adaptive responses characterised as ‘denial’ and ‘acting out’. Garland’s invocation of these Freudian const…
Disowning Our Shadow: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Understanding Punitive Public Attitudes
Punitive public attitudes cannot be easily explained by pointing to instrumental concerns (e.g., fear of crime, personal victimization, or real or perceived levels of crime). Instead, numerous observers have suggested that public punitiveness is more a symptom of free-floating anxieties and insecurities resulting from social change than a rational response to crime problems. We argue that these public concerns might be better understood by drawin…
What Have We Learned from Five Decades of Neutralization Research
Neutralization theory, though a popular framework for understanding deviant behavior, remains badly underdeveloped. Few attempts have been made to connect it to narrative and sociocognitive research in psychology and related fields. From this wider perspective, one reason neutralization theory has received only mixed empirical support is that it has been understood as a theory of criminal etiology. This makes little sense (how can one neutralize …
A fundamental attribution error? Rethinking cognitive distortions †
The notion of ‘cognitive distortion’ has become enshrined in the offender treatment literature over the last 20 years, yet the concept still suffers from a lack of definitional clarity. In particular, the umbrella term is often used to refer to offence‐supportive attitudes, cognitive processing during an offence sequence, as well as post‐hoc neutralisations or excuses for offending. Of these very different processes, the last one might be the mos…
Why God Is Often Found Behind Bars: Prison Conversions and the Crisis of Self-Narrative
The kindness of prisoners: Strengths-based resettlement in theory and in action
This article explores the notion of so-called ‘strengths-based’ offender reintegration for prisoners returning to the community. First, we briefly explore the normative and empirical theory underlying this approach. Next, we present evidence from a case study the authors have undertaken on a particularly interesting example of strengths-based resettlement in action. It illustrates the tensions that occur when risk-based policies collide with stre…
The revolving door at the prison gate: Exploring the dramatic increase in recalls to prison
In this article we draw attention to the recent and extraordinary increase in the number of people in England and Wales recalled to prison during the licence period of their sentence (by examining the published Parole Board and prison statistics). This is followed by a description of the existing law and the recent changes to it, which we suggest will exacerbate the current trend. We seek then to explain the increase by looking primarily at the U…
Rehabilitation
Over the last two decades, empirical evidence has increasingly supported the view that it is possible to reduce re-offending rates by rehabilitating offenders rather than simply punishing them. In fact, the pendulum’s swing back from a pure punishment model to a rehabilitation model is arguably one of the most significant events in modern correctional policy. This comprehensive review argues that rehabilitation should focus both on promoting huma…
Amputation or Reconstruction? Notes on the Concept of “Knifing Off” and Desistance From Crime
Several scholars have suggested that life changes—such as desistance from crime—may be shaped by social structures through a process of “knifing off.” Individuals are thought to change their lives by severing themselves from harmful environments, undesirable companions, or even the past itself. Despite the frequent use of this terminology in criminology and other fields, the concept of knifing off remains underdeveloped. Few studies have consider…
N = 1: Criminology and the person
Crime, Punishment and the Search for Order in Ireland
Imagine if there were no criminology in Britain. No institutes of criminology, no undergraduate or graduate programmes in the subject, no society of criminology. And, imagine you wanted to build the foundations for such a field of inquiry. Where would you start? How would you fill the blank canvas? This is precisely the daunting challenge faced by a new generation of Irish criminologists over the last decade and Crime, Punishment and the Search f…
The `Chicken and Egg' of Subjective and Social Factors in Desistance from Crime
It is now widely acknowledged that progression from persistent offending to desistance from crime is the outcome of a complex interaction between subjective/ agency factors and social/environmental factors. A methodological challenge for desistance researchers is to unravel the differential impacts of these internal and external factors and the sequence in which they come into play. Towards this, the present investigation draws on a prospective s…
Giving Up on the Young
In this commentary we explore the psychology behind the punitive criminalisation of young offenders that appears to characterise so much criminal justice policy in recent years. We draw from the findings of a mixed-method study of public attitudes in the UK. We highlight two particularly striking findings that emerged in the quantitative aspect of this work, which we illustrate using quotes from the qualitative data collected. When considered tog…
Once a Criminal, Always a Criminal?: ‘Redeemability’ and the Psychology of Punitive Public Attitudes
Is a conservative just a liberal who has been mugged: Exploring the origins of punitive views
As in the adage that `a conservative is just a liberal who has been mugged', many presume that punitive public attitudes are derived from the direct experience of crime and victimization. People become `fed up' with criminality and seek to strike back at lawbreakers. Social theories of punitiveness, on the other hand, typically portray punitiveness as a form of scape-goating in which offenders are just a stand-in population, masking more abstract…
Ontological insecurity’ and ‘terror management’: Linking two free-floating anxieties
In this article, we seek to clarify and develop the concept of ontological insecurity by linking it to the better developed, empirical literature on ‘terror management theory’ in social psychology. We argue that the understanding of both ontological insecurity and terror management can be improved through this overdue integration. In particular, merging these literatures can have important explanatory power when it comes to understanding punitive…
Escape Routes: Contemporary Perspectives on Life after Punishment
Escape Routes: Contemporary Perspectives on Life After Punishment addresses the reasons why people stop offending, and the processes by which they are rehabilitated or resettled back into the community. Engaging with, and building upon, renewed criminological interest in this area, Escape Routes nevertheless broadens and enlivens the current debate. First, its scope goes beyond a narrowly-defined notion of crime and includes, for example, essays …
Lessons for justice reinvestment from restorative justice and the justice model experience: Some tips for an 8‐year‐old prodigy
Reentry as a rite of passage
Mary Douglas argues that, 'There are some things we cannot experience without ritual.' Ex-prisoner reintegration may be one of them. The punishment process involves an inordinate amount of ritual behavior, from the drama of the courtroom to the elaborate de-individuation processes involved in institutionalization. Durkheim argues that these rituals serve a distinct purpose for society: engendering social solidarity and shaping penal sensibilities…
The Oxford Handbook of Criminology
The most comprehensive and authoritative single volume guide to criminology Brings together contributions from leading academics detailing the relevant theory, recent research, policy developments, and current debates, enabling students to fully appreciate the diverse array of viewpoints in criminological discourse Includes detailed references enabling readers to further research the topics discussed Features an extensive online resource centre p…
Criminology (38 works) · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis (35 works) · Psychology (30 works) · Sociology (30 works) · Crime Patterns and Interventions (25 works) · Political science (24 works) · Law (20 works) · Social Psychology (17 works) · Psychopathy, Forensic Psychiatry, Sexual Offending (14 works) · Homelessness and Social Issues (12 works)