CHANGE
Is possible
Yes. People change. And the evidence is clear on what makes the difference.
Change rarely happens overnight and it rarely happens because of punishment alone. It happens when the right combination of circumstances, relationships and opportunities come together at the right moment in someone's life.
What is desistance?
Desistance is the process by which someone moves away from offending and towards a different kind of life. It is not a single decision or a single moment. It is a gradual shift — in behaviour, in identity, in how a person sees themselves and what they believe is possible for them.
Research on desistance has been building for decades and the findings are remarkably consistent. The factors that help people leave crime behind are human, relational and practical.
Does the fear of prison stop people?
Sometimes — and it is important to be honest about this rather than dismiss it entirely.
Fear of arrest, prosecution and custody does act as a deterrent for many people. The majority of people who never offend factor consequences into their thinking. The prospect of a criminal record, a prison sentence, losing a job or being separated from family genuinely shapes behaviour for a significant proportion of the population. That is real and it matters.
But that deterrent gets overridden in specific circumstances — and understanding when and why is where the real work begins.
When fear stops working
When the reward feels bigger than the risk. Money, status, belonging, excitement — when these feel sufficiently large the calculation shifts. This is particularly true for young people whose brains are still developing the capacity for long term risk assessment.
When poverty overrides everything. If the choice is between feeding your children and following the rules the rules lose. Survival — whether your own or your family's — is a more immediate and powerful driver than the abstract threat of future punishment. People in genuine poverty are not making irrational decisions when they offend. They are making desperate ones.
When overconfidence takes over. The I won't get caught mentality is one of the most consistent features of offending behaviour. It is not stupidity — it is a cognitive bias that affects most people under pressure and is especially pronounced in adolescence and early adulthood.
When thrills become the point. For some people the excitement and adrenaline of the act itself is part of the reward. The risk is not a deterrent — it is part of the appeal.
When there is nothing left to lose. The threat of losing something only works when you have something worth protecting. Housing, relationships, employment, reputation — these are what make consequences feel real. Remove them and the deterrent can lose its power almost entirely.
Can custody change someone?
Sometimes — but not for the reasons the system tends to assume.
Custody does not change people through punishment or deterrence alone. What it can do — when it works — is create a pause. A space away from the immediate environment, relationships and pressures that drove the offending in the first place. In that space some people begin to reflect seriously for the first time. Some access education or treatment they could not reach on the outside. Some form relationships with mentors or other prisoners in custody who challenge their thinking or offer a different perspective.
It is also worth being honest about who ends up in prison. The prison community is far more diverse than people assume. Alongside those who have made harmful choices you will find people who are there through miscarriage of justice, accident, poverty or coercion — people who never intended to cause harm and who had few options when it mattered most. And across any prison population you will find former judges, police officers, teachers, business people, members of parliament and people from every profession and background. Prison does not belong to one type of person. It reflects the full complexity of human life and the many ways the system can fail people as much as people can fail the system.
Custody can also coincide with what researchers call a hook for change — a relationship, a pregnancy, a bereavement, a moment of genuine shock at where life has led. When that hook exists and the right support is available at the right moment custody can mark the beginning of a different chapter.
But custody fails — as it does in the majority of cases — when there is nothing to come out to. No stable housing. No income. No relationships worth returning to. No pathway forward that feels real or achievable. When the outside world offers less than the inside world the cycle tightens rather than breaks.
What actually helps people change
Relationships. The single most powerful factor in desistance is a stable, caring relationship with another person — a partner, a family member, a mentor, someone who genuinely believes in someone's capacity to change. People do not change in isolation. They change because someone sees them differently and that new reflection becomes possible to inhabit.
Identity. Change requires a shift in how someone sees themselves. The move from thinking of yourself as an offender defined by what you have done — to thinking of yourself as a parent, a worker, a person with something to offer. This identity shift is fragile and it needs to be supported. It cannot be forced but it can be nurtured.
Purpose. People who have something to get up for — a job, a project, a cause, a responsibility to someone they love — are people who have a reason to protect what they are building. Purpose is not a luxury. In the context of desistance it is a protective factor as powerful as any intervention.
Practical opportunity. All the motivation in the world cannot overcome the absence of practical options. Housing, income, employment or self employment, education, skills — these are not soft extras. They are the infrastructure on which change is built. Remove them and change becomes almost impossible regardless of how much someone wants it.
The right moment. Readiness — the point at which someone is genuinely open to change. This moment cannot be manufactured. But it can be met. When someone reaches that point and finds a door open rather than closed the trajectory of their life can shift permanently.
What does life after look like?
People who leave crime behind go on to do extraordinary things. Many work in the sectors that once processed them — youth work, probation, social work, substance misuse support, criminal justice advocacy. Their lived experience becomes their greatest professional asset.
Others build businesses, develop skills, return to education, become parents who break cycles that have run through families for generations. The path is rarely straight and it is rarely easy. But it is real and it is possible.
What this means for families
If someone you love is involved in offending or is in the justice system the most important thing you can do is maintain the relationship. Stay connected. Do not write them off. Your belief in their capacity to change may be the single most significant factor in whether they do.
You cannot force change and you cannot do it for them. But you can be the person they come back to when they are ready. That matters more than any programme, any intervention or any sentence.
A story worth telling
He was twenty two when he was first arrested. He had been making money the wrong way for eighteen months — not because he wanted to but because his family needed help and he could not find work that paid enough. He knew the risks. He had seen people go to prison. The fear was real — but the fear of what would happen to his family if he stopped felt bigger.
He served time. Inside he completed a business course almost by accident — it was something to do, a way to fill the days. Someone on the wing told him he was good with numbers and that he should think about what he was going to do differently when he got out.
Nobody had ever said that to him before.
He came out with a qualification, an idea and one person who believed in him. A few years later he employs people of his own.
He still thinks about the past. But that is not what drives him now. What drives him is that he finally has something worth protecting.
That is what change looks like. Not a programme. Not a punishment. A moment and a door that was open when he needed it.
This story is a composite based on real experiences. Details have been changed.
What this means for you?
If you are reading this then something brought you here. Maybe curiosity. Maybe desperation. Maybe someone sent you this page. Maybe you are sitting somewhere quiet trying to figure out what comes next.
Whatever brought you here — the fact that you are here matters.
Deep down most people who are caught up in violence, crime or coercion know they want something different. Not because anyone told them to want it. But because they can feel the weight of it. The exhaustion of always watching their back. The fear that sits just below the surface every day. The part of them that wonders what life could look like if things were different.
That feeling is not weakness. That is the beginning of change.
If you have a passion — build on it
Everyone has something. A skill, an interest, an idea, something they are good at that has nothing to do with the life they are currently living. That thing matters. It is not irrelevant or naive to think about it. It is actually the most important thing you have.
Learn about it. Develop it. Find out how to turn it into something real. Education does not have to mean going back to school. It means finding out more about the things that light something up in you and following that wherever it leads. The world has changed — you can learn almost anything online, in your own time, at your own pace, for free or close to it.
Be the person you want to be. Not the person the system has labelled you. Not the person your environment expects you to be. The person you actually are when nobody is watching and you are being honest with yourself.
When the system lets you down
Sometimes the help you need does not come. Not because you do not deserve it but because the systems meant to provide it are overstretched, underfunded and sometimes staffed by people who do not have the specific skills or understanding your situation requires. That is a failure of the system not a reflection of your worth.
When that happens — and it does happen, more often than it should — the most powerful thing you can do is become as self reliant as possible. Not because you should have to do it alone. But because waiting for a system that may never deliver what you need gives that system power over your future that it has not earned.
Depend on yourself where you can. Ask for help where you need it. And know the difference.
Violence — there are other ways
If violence has been your way of dealing with anger, pain, fear or conflict — you already know the cost. To others and to yourself. What is harder to see from the inside is that the anger, the pain and the fear that drives it are real and valid. The violence is the problem. The feelings underneath it are not.
There are ways to work through those feelings that do not harm others and do not put you at risk. Talking, physical release through sport or exercise, creative expression, peer support from people who have been where you are — these are not soft options. They are the harder path. They require more courage than throwing a punch.
You are capable of that courage. Otherwise you would not be here.
Crime — this can change
If crime has been your way of surviving — financially, socially or emotionally — change is possible but it is rarely simple. It requires practical alternatives not just willpower. Income, housing, skills, opportunity — these are what make change sustainable not just desirable.
Start with one thing. One skill. One course. One idea. One person you trust. Build from there. The distance between where you are and where you want to be is real but it is not fixed. It changes every time you take one small step in a different direction.
Coercion — you are not alone and there is help
If you have been coerced — pressured, manipulated or forced into situations you did not choose — that is not the same as choosing those situations freely. The law recognises this. Support exists. And you do not have to navigate it alone.
Reaching out can feel terrifying when you have been made to feel that speaking up is dangerous. But there are organisations that understand coercion, that will not judge you and that can help you find a way out confidentially and safely. Taking that first step in confidence — even just finding out what options exist — is not weakness. It is one of the bravest things a person can do.
You came here for a reason. Trust that.
See also
→ Arrested
This page is informed by years of professional experience working in courts, communities and the criminal justice system.
This page is for educational and awareness purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice. If you are in immediate danger call 999.
This page is growing. New content, resources, and further case studies will be added regularly.