Guided by the Job Demands-Resources model, this study examined how job demands and job resources were associated with turnover intention among South Korean probation officers through work-to-family conflict, depressive symptoms, and job satisfaction. This secondary analysis used probation-officer data from a broader 2024 national occupational survey covering probation and related juvenile-justice services; the analytic sample comprised 345 officers with a spouse or cohabiting partner. Structural equation modeling showed that workload burden, professional burden, and perceived physical threat were associated with greater work-to-family conflict, whereas training and development resources and safety and protection resources were associated with less conflict. Work-to-family conflict was positively associated with depressive symptoms, while relational and communication resources were negatively associated with depressive symptoms. Depressive symptoms and perceived physical threat were associated with lower job satisfaction; training and development resources and organizational resource adequacy were associated with higher job satisfaction. Job satisfaction was negatively associated with turnover intention. Bootstrap analyses indicated that job demands and resources were linked to turnover intention through distinct indirect pathways involving work-to-family conflict, depressive symptoms, and job satisfaction. Safety-related victimization was not significantly associated with depressive symptoms or job satisfaction and showed no significant indirect association with turnover intention. These findings suggest that turnover intention reflects both demanding occupational conditions and the organizational resources available to manage them. Improving workload management, safety protection, professional development, organizational capacity, and workplace relationships may contribute to a more sustainable probation workforce.
Prior studies often used a Latin American dummy variable as a proxy for violent culture. To overcome this limitation, the current research used two direct measures of attitudes toward justifying violence in general and wife-beating in particular from the World Values Survey (2017-2022) and the United Nations' homicide rate (2020-2023) across 52 countries. OLS regression analyses found no clear evidence that violent cultural attitudes predicted homicide rates. Instead, income inequality had a Latin American-specific effect, while affluence and government effectiveness maintained a global effect on the homicide rate. The Latin American dummy variable was consistently and strongly related to a high-level of homicide rate.
This study examines Moral Reconation Therapy (MRT) as a mandated narrative intervention focusing on how women on probation and MRT facilitators make sense of its emphasis on responsibility, honesty, and trust. Drawing on interviews with eight women on probation and two MRT facilitators at a Women Reentry Project, we conduct a dialogical narrative analysis. This approach examines how multiple, sometimes competing, voices emerge within the clients' accounts and those of the facilitators. Women frequently draw on institutional narratives of responsibility to account for compliance and credibility, while disclosures of trauma and addiction tend to surface later or remain only partially articulated. Facilitator narratives complicate dominant critiques of MRT by revealing how responsibility discourse is both enforced through authority and softened through care, community ties, and trauma-informed awareness. Rather than treating narrative contradictions as evidence of dishonesty or resistance, this analysis interprets them as dialogical tensions produced within a correctional storytelling regime. By centering collective storytelling, narrative competence, and power, this study moves beyond recidivism as the sole metric of effectiveness and offers a more nuanced account of MRT's impacts as multiple, contested, and relationally produced.
This paper approaches narrative criminology through the visual art produced by Carey Grayson prior to his execution by nitrogen gas in the state of Alabama in 2024. The art satirically represents Dr. Joseph Antognini, an anesthesiologist who testifies as an expert witness in favor of the safety of nitrogen gas as a method of execution. When studied through the lens of narrative sequencing and restorying, the satirical portraits by Grayson raise important ethical questions about the increasing involvement of medical professionals in executions, which undermines the Hippocratic oath these professionals take to "do no harm." Grayson's satire uses his own imminent execution as a window for exploring the absurdity of states' experimentations with new methods as they attempt to establish compliance with the Eighth Amendment in the wake of botched executions related to lethal injection. We triangulate this art with transcripts of Antognini's expert witness testimony in Grayson's legal challenge to highlight the "medicalization" of executions in the U.S.
Research into the profiles of serial killers has largely relied on generalisations derived from studies conducted in the United States and parts of Europe, limiting the applicability of such findings to culturally diverse contexts. The present study addresses this gap by examining the profiles of serial killers in India, the most populous country in the world. Adopting an exploratory descriptive research design, the study analyses 132 serial killers reported between 1997 and 2025 using a database constructed from both primary and secondary sources. Employing quantitative methods, the study examines key variables including spatial analysis, socio-economic characteristics, prior criminal history, and victim counts. The findings of the study largely aligned with existing literature while also identifying certain patterns that are unique to the Indian context.
Research investigating paedo-hebepho-ephebophilic sexual interests, a spectrum of atypical sexual interests toward minors under the age of 16 years old, has largely focused on men samples, while little is known about women. The present study aimed to contribute to this area by investigating the relationship between measures of experienced childhood trauma, empathy (dispositional as well as towards children), loneliness, intimacy, and paedo-hebepho-ephebophilic sexual interests or antisocial behaviour involving children in a community sample of 304 women - from the UK, Canada and USA - recruited through an online survey. Results revealed that between .7% (N = 2) and 4.6% (N = 14) reported different paedo-hebepho-ephebophilic sexual interests. Multiple regression analysis revealed that experiences of emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, physical neglect, empathy towards victims, and empathic concern were significant predictors of paedo-hebepho-ephebophilic sexual interests. These results have several implications that will be discussed in this paper.
Correctional climate—the perceptions staff and incarcerated people hold about their institution—can influence well-being for everyone living and working in prison. This study explores differences in perceptions of safety, quality of sleep, psychological and emotional wellness, physical health, and overall life outlook among 1,148 security staff, non-security staff, and incarcerated individuals across five Minnesota Department of Corrections facilities. Results indicate that both staff groups report significantly greater safety and sleep quality outcomes than incarcerated people, while security staff also reported better emotional wellness than the incarcerated population. No differences emerged across groups regarding perceived psychological wellness, physical health, or life outlook. These findings highlight both shared experiences and key disparities within correctional environments, underscoring opportunities to improve conditions, support workforce well-being, and advance institutional policies that benefit all people in prison settings.
In this research, we examine the determinants of citizens' beliefs about the severity of criminal and administrative sanctions attached to violations of COVID-19 mitigation laws in Russia, as well as extrajudicial sanctions employed in other parts of the world. Although criminological research has identified many predictors of punitive attitudes toward traditional criminal offenses, less is known about how citizens evaluate punishments for violations of newly introduced rules adopted under emergency conditions. The key explanatory variables in our study include beliefs in attribution of human behavior, self-commitment to compliance with COVID-19 mandates, trust in government, and the fear of COVID-19 infection. Data for the study come from 508 respondents from St. Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city, who participated in an online survey during the first wave of the pandemic in May 2020. Findings suggest that citizens who believe in the free-will explanations of human nature and those who are more likely to comply with pandemic-mitigating laws feel that the punishments imposed for violating the pandemic-related laws were not severe enough. Additionally, those who trust the government's effectiveness and integrity in controlling COVID-19 are more punitive, a finding contrary to crime-related punitiveness research. Together, these findings indicate that support for sanctioning pandemic-related violations is closely tied to rule-related evaluations, including responsibility attribution, institutional trust, and personal commitment to compliance. The study contributes to criminological research by showing that established explanations of punitive attitudes may operate differently when applied to newly institutionalized crisis rules.
International students' stories and perceptions of crime remain an underexplored topic within the fields of crime perception and fear of crime. This article examines how Chinese international students narrate their fear and expectation of crime in the UK and explores how these narratives reflect their acceptance or rejection of dominant crime stories. Drawing on interviews with 21 Chinese students, the study employs thematic and structural narrative analysis to identify key patterns and themes in how participants anticipate, respond to, and make sense of crime in the UK. The findings reveal how differing expectations or imaginaries of crime and lived experiences intertwine to form narrative structures through which participants interpret crime and adjust their behaviour. These structures include narratives of change, narratives of continuity as well as narratives of absence of crime as a pertinent issue.
Past research and punishment of prostitution have predominantly focused on the women selling sex, neglecting the other side of the equation, the solicitors. As many jurisdictions are now focusing more on men who solicit sex (MSS), understanding who these men are is important for more effective interventions and prevention of illegal sex solicitation. In the current scoping review, authors examined 54 works (i.e., scholarly and non-peer-reviewed, published on any date, published in English) on MSS in the United States. Based on these works, findings are categorized and discussed based on common themes, such as behavioral and psychological characteristics, motivations and potential etiology of solicitation, and prior efforts of rehabilitation. The manuscript concludes with suggestions for important next steps in research and intervention. Examination of this understudied group of MSS may serve to inform criminal justice professionals in the effort to decrease the demand of illegal sex solicitation. As a result, professionals may more effectively reduce the victimization of women involved in the commercial sex market.
This Rapid Evidence Assessment investigates the risk, protective, and responsivity factors for children who commit crime to inform the design and delivery of interventions. Eligible studies published between 2015 and 2025 were searched for and assessed using the EPPI Centre Weight of Evidence framework. Thirty studies of mainly medium to medium-high quality were included. The findings identify social, biological, and psychological factors, each assessed as risk, protective, or responsivity factors, and as being well-evidenced, moderately-evidenced, or indicative but insufficiently-evidenced. The findings suggest focussing on the following areas to support desistance: developing pro-social peer associations, addressing substance misuse, managing impulsivity, overcoming difficulties with education/employment, support with adverse experiences/trauma, support with special educational needs, strengthening positive family relationships, addressing anti-social personality traits, and addressing antisocial attitudes. Priority responsivity factors include the experience of past trauma, mental health difficulties, physical health difficulties (including traumatic brain injury), psychosocial immaturity, and special educational needs.
At a moment of dramatic retreat from refugee resettlement, accompanied by anti-immigrant political discourse that criminalizes migrants, this study examines how Iraqi resettled refugees who came to the United States with Special Immigrant Visa status following the 2003 war in Iraq navigate stigmatizing welfare dependency tropes and narrate their identities. Using the lens of narrative criminology and based on interviews with Iraqi resettled refugees and social service staff, this study asks how resettled Iraqi refugees construct narratives of self and identity in relation to the organizational narratives they encounter at social services offices, and what these narratives reveal about welfare administration as a site of social harm. Findings show that while resettled refugees construct counter-narratives, these are limited in their emancipatory potential and reproduce harmful narratives of welfare. The study contributes to narrative criminology's engagement with welfare settings as sites of social harm.
High rates of recidivism persist among incarcerated men, particularly those with extensive trauma histories, while many rehabilitation programs remain primarily cognitively focused. This systematic review synthesizes evidence on experiential psychotherapies, including mindfulness-based interventions, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), yoga, meditation, and creative arts therapies delivered in forensic settings to adult males. Twenty-four studies met inclusion criteria. Thematic synthesis identified three outcome domains: (1) psychological and emotional well-being, including reductions in stress, anxiety, depression, and trauma symptoms; (2) behavioral and cognitive regulation, including improved impulse control and prosocial identity shifts; and (3) recidivism and desistance, with several studies-particularly those examining Transcendental Meditation and structured mindfulness programs-reporting reduced reoffending. Evidence for Compassion Focused Therapy and most creative arts therapies was limited or absent. Overall, findings suggest experiential psychotherapies may support emotional regulation, identity change, and desistance, though heterogeneity in study design and outcomes limits generalizability and highlights the need for more rigorous longitudinal research.
The SAPROF-SO was developed as a measure of protective factors relevant to sexual recidivism to support a balanced, holistic assessment of recidivism risk. Traditionally, sexual recidivism risk has been largely understood in terms of the density of risk factors presented by the individual, as measured by instruments like the Static-99R. This paper investigated how far the recidivism risk implied by a Static-99R score would be moderated by the presence of protective factors as measured by the SAPROF-SO Version 1. Data representing 5-year sexual recidivism, along with scores on Static-99R and the SAPROF-SO Version 1, were collated from previously collected samples of men with a history of sexual offending who had been selected for prison treatment programs designed to reduce sexual recidivism risk in Canada and New Zealand, giving a combined sample of N = 467. Fitting a logistic regression equation to predict 5-year sexual recidivism indicated that both instruments were predictive, with the SAPROF-SO powerfully moderating the level of risk implied by Static-99R scores. Implications for clinical assessment are discussed and an Excel-based calculator implementing the logistic regression equation was developed for clinical use.
In previous papers, we have explored how songs written in prison, and the process of collaborative songwriting that produced them, served as devices for solving relational and personal problems that imprisonment poses. Here, drawing on data from the same project (Distant Voices: Coming Home), we explore and analyse how humour featured both in the songwriting process and in some of the songs, focussing on two songs written by women in prison. Our analysis reveals how humour worked in these contexts as a technology of community-building and as a mode of subtle subversion, insubordination and 'soft resistance' to penal power. However, we also note the importance of attending to humour's temporariness, its deniability and its unpredictability. As such, prison humour occupies an unusual but important position in narrative terms, somewhere between the said and the unsaid; and that position allows it to do important personal, relational and political work.
While there is growing evidence that the probation client-rated working alliance relates to recidivism, the practitioner’s view has received little attention. This study explored that association. A sample of 176 probationer-practitioner-client dyads was used. Probation practitioner and client-ratings of the working alliance (WAMCI) at two time points were used for Cox-regression analyses. Confounders were history of previous convictions and age of first conviction. The probation-practitioner-rated working alliance was found to be associated with recidivism, even when crime history was taken into account. The combined working alliance score of the dyad was found to be strongly associated with recidivism. The largest difference is caused when both score high or low. The results indicated a substantial association between the combined probation practitioner-client ratings and recidivism in the subsequent 4 years of the clients. These findings underscore the importance of a reciprocal collaboration between the client and the probation practitioner as a crucial component in the pathway toward desistance.
Narrative criminology has highlighted the role of storytelling in criminal behaviour and processes of change. In studies of intimate partner violence desistance, micro-social scholarship shows that therapeutic success often depends on negotiations between offenders' narratives and institutional narratives. Yet this literature has paid limited attention to the material and institutional conditions shaping such negotiations. Drawing on repeated life story interviews conducted with 41 men attending batterer intervention programmes in Argentina and Uruguay, this study compares participants' institutional trajectories and evolving narratives of change. Through the analysis of three cases, we show that men's accounts of desistance are shaped by their familiarity with institutional logics (such as programme expectations, timelines, and evaluative practices) as well as by their access to material resources that support change. We argue that the capacity to adapt and stabilise narratives of change is unevenly distributed and rooted in prior life trajectories and social resources, generating unequal possibilities of "successful" desistance (of passing through the hoop) across social backgrounds.
This article examines how migrants who traveled the Balkan Route use joint revenge fantasizing to make sense of border violence and reassign criminality to state actors. Based on minimally structured group conversations recorded in Trieste, Italy, it analyzes joint fantasizing as a collective narrative practice rather than an incidental expression of shared frustration. It identifies three mechanism families-symbolic reversal of hierarchies, collective moral tribunal, and contained transgressive catharsis-that show how imagined counter-violence may function as "impossible harm": morally saturated yet structurally blocked from enactment. Revenge fantasies among structurally marginalized groups are conceptualized as harm-related storytelling that exposes and contests state and border violence. Joint revenge fantasizing emerges as a mode of impossible harm through which migrants symbolically reassign criminality to state actors while keeping counter-violence in the imaginative realm. In this way, the article extends narrative criminology beyond its offender-centered, event-focused inheritance by foregrounding imagination, interaction, and lived narrative practices in contexts of border violence.
The Offender Personality Disorder Pathway was introduced in England and Wales in 2012 to manage high risk offenders with personality disorder. One of the key outcomes of the Pathway is to reduce re-offending. A national mixed methods evaluation was undertaken, and this paper presents findings from the qualitative interviews focussing on staff's perceptions of the Pathway's ability to impact on re-offending in this population. Interviews were carried out with 38 staff and analysed using a framework analysis. Staff reported that the Pathway: improved their understanding of individuals and what drives their offending; developed their confidence to manage this population; and enhanced inter-agency communication. They were less convinced of any direct impact on re-offending. Early indicators of the Pathway show it has value in improving engagement, risk management, staff skills, and inter-agency working. Whether this is enough to reduce re-offending will take time to establish.
This meta-analysis examined the effectiveness of experiential interventions in reducing persistent externalizing behavior among adolescents and adults, and whether integrating cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) components enhances outcomes. Following PRISMA guidelines, a systematic search of ERIC, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and Ovid identified 39 studies, yielding 123 effect sizes (N = 2,323). A three-level meta-analytic model with moderator analyses was conducted. Experiential interventions showed a significant medium effect in favor of the interventions compared to control conditions (g = 0.66). Interventions integrating CBT produced larger effects (g = 0.83) than those without CBT (g = 0.43), with the strongest effects for responsive CBT (g = 1.04 vs. g = 0.59). Treatment fidelity and active system involvement significantly moderated outcomes. Findings support integrating CBT within experiential approaches while ensuring high treatment fidelity and system involvement. Clinicians should combine CBT with experiential techniques and engage others to enhance responsiveness and therapeutic safety.
