Transforming Justice, Transforming Lives: Women's Pathways to Desistance from Crime

by April Bernard

Overview

What is a just response to persons seeking to desist from criminal behavior? In America, over the last several decades mass incarceration has emerged as the prevailing policy response to crime and reoffending. The majority of those who are imprisoned will be released, and those that are released tend to return to communities challenged by high rates of violence, crime, unemployment, and poverty. In these conditions, without some type of intervention, persons with criminal histories are likely to reoffend.
April Bernard, through compelling interviews and field research with formerly gang affiliated women, illuminates how through community support and their active engagement in peacemaking work in distressed neighborhoods throughout Chicago they were able to desist from crime, rebuild their lives, and become meaningful contributors to their communities. This book explores the role of community in facilitating the commitment to desist from crime, by offering critical support and opportunities for stewardship.
Bernard provides a timely analysis of the transformative potential of a new perspective on criminal justice which incorporates stewardship and community engagement as a fundamental principal in the response to persons seeking to desist from criminal behavior, particularly women. The book combines moving personal narratives with concrete practical evidence to call for an alternative to ideology that supports the existing punitive policies and practices of the criminal justice system and the corresponding lack of interventions and opportunities for persons seeking to desist from crime. This deeply informed, and perceptive analysis concludes with suggestions for alternatives that fit within a transformative justice paradigm.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781498519816
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	10/30/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	158
File size:	799 KB

About the Author

April Bernard is assistant professor of criminal justice at Chicago State University.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: The Lens
Chapter 2: Methodology
Chapter 3: Pathways to Desistance
Chapter 4: Reconstruction and Redemptive Opportunities
Chapter 5: Cultivating Community
Case: A Safe Haven
Case: Ambassadors for Christ, We are all in Need of Redemption
Case: Liberation Christian Center, An Empowerment Agenda
Case: Vida Abundante, A Community of Care
Chapter 6: The Female “Offender” as Peacemaker
Chapter 7: Transformative Justice: Changing Patterns

Editorial Reviews

April Bernard provides an insightful investigation into how ten women with deep criminal histories from Chicago, through their commitment to desistance from crime and their active engagement in community crime prevention, were able to turn their lives around. Representative of a viably emerging paradigm to the failed wars on crime, dependent as they are on counterproductive approaches of deterrence and punishment, Transforming Justice, Transforming Lives, captures the essence of the alternative pathways to reducing crime and violence. Through oral histories, organizational and community analysis, and structural examination, Bernard makes the case for why mutual stewardships and universal social concern are more humane and cost effective means of reducing landscapes of crime, conflict, and violence than are the traditional get tough approaches to street crime.

Gregg Barak

This important book recounts a tale of community-based peace-making and the lives of women determined to transform their slice of the streets of Chicago. Putting their own lives at risk, they mobilized their friends, neighbors and the faith community to directly confront the peace breakers, challenging them to also reconstruct their lives. Their victories were hard-won and the ground they gained will be hard to hold, but they were based on individual and collective commitment to change rather than fear of doing hard time. They promise to be robust and self-reinforcing, rooted in “community” in the deepest sense.

Wesley G. Skogan

In this timely volume, April Bernard, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Chicago State University, examines the process of women’s commitment to crime desistance. The research conducted for this report is based on the author’s interviews with 10 women with criminal justice histories who were working for a Chicago-based crime prevention and conflict resolution organization. In particular, the study asks: ‘What factors facilitate the women’s commitment to desist from crime?’ Bernard locates these factors while attending to both external and internal aspects of these women’s stories. In addition to her interviews, Bernard also integrates her experiences working with women at CeaseFire Illinois, an anti-violence program featured in the widely circulated documentary TheInterrupters. According to Bernard, these women’s experiences ‘challenge deep-rooted assumptions that are aligned with views on crime that support the current retributive (punitive) criminal justice system.’

Journal of Community Corrections

In this timely volume, April Bernard, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Chicago State University, examines the process of women’s commitment to crime desistance. The research conducted for this report is based on the author’s interviews with 10 women with criminal justice histories who were working for a Chicago-based crime prevention and conflict resolution organization. In particular, the study asks: ‘What factors facilitate the women’s commitment to desist from crime?’ Bernard locates these factors while attending to both external and internal aspects of these women’s stories. In addition to her interviews, Bernard also integrates her experiences working with women at CeaseFire Illinois, an anti-violence program featured in the widely circulated documentary The Interrupters. According to Bernard, these women’s experiences ‘challenge deep-rooted assumptions that are aligned with views on crime that support the current retributive (punitive) criminal justice system.’

Journal Of Community Corrections