Desistance and Agency

Perspectives in Criminal Law

Abstract

This article discusses the issue of agency in desistance from the perspective of jurisprudence, especially criminal law. The concept of desistance includes a wide variety of concepts; the debate around desistance has commonalities with those discussed in recidivism prevention and reintegration. Hence, we turn to a position that uses desistance in the context of recovery. This focuses on agency and sees desistance as a long-term process. In criminal law, agency has also been discussed in relation to free will. As in philosophical debates, the issue has initially been the empirical proof of free will, but later it has been asked whether a human act can be said to be free even if it follows a causal law. The question of responsibility, whether for reproach or for praise, is whether the act can be said to have been committed freely. As the act can be assessed as having been freely performed, it is possible to hold a person responsible for his or her actions and to demand that the members of the legal community act in accordance with the legal norms. If the parties are regarded only as objects of behavioral control in desistance, this can contradict the significance of agency in responsibility. Therefore, it is also significant to focus on subjectivity in desistance.