The meaning of life in the stories of discontinuity of the criminal career: qualitative analysis of two cases
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47741/17943108.315Keywords:
Criminal career, desisting, persistence, meaning of life, narrative criminologyAbstract
The study of the relationship between the meaning of life and the persistence or withdrawal of the criminal career, as well as its applicability in the treatment of offenders, has received little attention in the field of Criminology. The aim of this work was to explore the presence or absence of the meaning of life from the paradigm of narrative criminology. To do this, we studied the stories of two Spanish men with extensive criminal careers: one who stopped committing crimes 21 years ago and another who persists today. A qualitative analysis was carried out on three categories indicating the meaning of life: understanding of one’s own life, life purpose and feeling of importance. The results indicated that the withdrawal report contained multiple references to the finding of a sense of life, while the interviewee observed that its finding contributed to the end of the illicit behavior. On the contrary, the story of persistence highlighted an experience
of existential emptiness, which conditioned the criminal continuity. Intervention programmes, whose purpose is the prevention of crime or recidivism, could benefit from the contributions of a model focused on the meaning of life that favours the development of new resilient narratives.
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