In explaining the trajectory of offending and desistance from crime, prominent criminological theories relied on research undertaken mainly in anglophone countries. As a result, the lens through which criminologists developed theories have been coloured by certain cultural understandings and limited by the time and place that these studies were undertaken in. There is a lack of comparative cross national studies which can shed light on the influence of social and cultural factors on the cessation of offending by exploring differences and similarities across societies.
At the UK-South Korea conference (October 2022), Dr. Dana Segev explores popular concepts in criminological theories and show how some of these do not work the same way (or at all) in different societies; under different policies and cultural contexts. In her conference paper, she focuses on maturation theories and opportunities that become available with age, illustrating how the impact of these factors shift across cultures. Her paper further discusses the influence of contextual factors on supervision settings (probation) and how participants sought to make a change and stop offending.
You can read the full conference paper here:
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