The Unmaking of Crime

The Unmaking of Crime documents the pathways of offenders reforming their journey and desisting from crime, and assesses the opportunities and limitations of the criminal justice system in aiding this process. Starting with known factors involved in desistance ? the influence of family, relationships, employment, or geographical relocations ? it expands the lens to include new perspectives, such as the impact of drug abuses on the post-sentence period, the interaction of religion with delinquency, and the reconfigurations of citizenship.

Building on original qualitative research in Paris, the book considers a range of factors in the process of desistance, such as spheres of socialisation, the role of stigma and the opportunities offered or denied after a time in a criminal lifestyle, and the relationship between those seeking to desist from crime and key institutions and resources.

"Beginning with a Durkheimian understanding of crime and punishment, Benazeth has produced a fully French reconceptualization of the desistance concept that is theoretically sophisticated and critically nuanced in way that few can do as well as the French. A gift to criminology akin to the Statue of Liberty."

Shadd Maruna, Professor of criminology, Queen?s University Belfast.

"Prison overcrowding is a problem as old as the prison itself, but in the late modern period it has reached unprecedented heights and combined with long sentences and aging prisoners is creating a humanitarian disaster in many countries.  In this much needed book, Valerian Benazeth points to a hopeful way out too often abandoned or overlooked by contemporary prison services, learning from the many former prisoners who have desisted from crime and no longer need prison bars to protect safety.?

Jonathan Simon, Lance Robbins Professor of Criminal Justice Law, Berkeley University.