Researchers in many different fields are beginning to ask similar questions about the nature of change; from illness to wellness, from addiction to recovery, from criminal to citizen. Essential to all of these discussions is the concept of identity transformation. What all of these perspectives share are: (1) the limitations of formal systems to change individuals, (2) the importance of personal identity embedded in a cultural or personal narrative, (3) a reduced emphasis on deficits, (4) the role of the social context in defining the problem and the solution, and (5) the importance of role identity in illness and wellness. Through the collection and analysis of change narratives from persons who successfully negotiated the path from stigmatized to socially desired roles, this study investigates the personal meaning of change, the factors that act as catalysts and the nature of the roles assumed at the end of the process. Findings suggest that people who have negative life experiences that often stigmatize them do not necessarily discuss recovery or healing from these experiences as central to their life narratives. In most cases, the problems of most importance to the respondents included issues such as poor self-esteem, isolation and unemployment; problems common to persons outside the formal correctional and treatment systems. Their end status also was often achievements common to people in society at large, including owning a home, being a parent, graduating from college and being employed in meaningful work. Professionals must understand that the presenting problem may not be the issue of most importance to those seeking help. Further, persons seeking help have multiple roles and identities that can be mobilized to support the recovery process. Attending to individuals' life narratives may be as important a tool in the professional's armamentarium as any medication, therapy, or intervention.

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Existing desistance models indicate what sorts of features influence desistance throughout the life span. This study examined a dynamic desistance model incorporating a psychological process which alters individual identity through interaction with the environment. This study focused on the concept of resilience, in proposing a psychotherapeutic process for juvenile delinquency desistance. Case analysis was conducted through interviews, and the following three steps were identified: 1. Experiencing interaction featuring "Change of recognition to Object", "Improvement of containing depression", "Change of interpretation to Object". 2. Experiencing the turning-point of "Enablement". 3. Experiencing unconsciously the "Change from recognition to Object", and "Change from interpretation to Object", and increased ability to contain depression, along with increased feeling of enablement. The more a person adjusted, the better his/her ability to contain depression became, and the better they became in recognizing and interpreting matters from the concrete Object to the abstract Object. The crucial factor for desistance from delinquency was to encourage the development of abilities to contain depression, and increase enablement.

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In many areas such as psychology, developmental science, psychotherapy, organizational consulting, and the support for people with mental illness, a common paradigm shift, i.e., positive shift, from a problem-oriented approach focusing upon the negative side of actors to a change-oriented approach focusing upon the positive side has occurred. I apply the concept of positive shift to offender treatment drawing upon recent research on the recovery of offenders, and propose a strength-based model as a new model of offender treatment. I describe two models representing the strength-based model, a symbolic social inclusion model and an offender-driven model, with some illustrations. I discuss the prospect of the strength-based model in the current punitive society and report the birth of a mutual-help group of ex-inmates of juvenile training schools, "Second Chance!."

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Efforts to assist in the reintegration of prisoners back into society are typically either risk-based or need-based. An alternative philosophy for reintegration, strengths-based (or "restorative") reentry, treats people returning from prison as assets to be utilized rather than threats. This paper explores the theory behind these efforts, drawing on one of the original formulations of this perspective in the work of the psychologist Albert Eglash. Eglash argues that the process of redemption requires more than just punishment or providing compensation to one's victims, but involves individuals going a "second mile." This "second mile," which he calls "creative restitution" involves making up for one's wrong-doing by working to help others, in particular other prisoners or those at risk of going to prison. We argue that these strengths-based efforts work primarily as a stigma management strategy. Individuals who have been punished for doing wrong can redeem their reputations through explicit involvement in help-giving behaviors and other efforts to contribute positively to society. This change in public perceptions can then lead to changes in the person's own self-beliefs and self-identity. We conclude by exploring a new development in the strengths-based movement, which we describe as going a "third mile." This involves more direct efforts at stigma reduction through activism on ex-prisoner issues on a political level. We argue that this is a natural next step in efforts towards destigmatization.

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The central aim of this article is to explore the role of social enterprises, which have been acknowledged by policy makers as an important partner in implementing public service since the mid-1990s, in supporting the independence of the socially excluded. In the current welfare restructuring process, the shift from "welfarism" to "workfarism" is a salient characteristic of policy implementation. Particularly, through the introduction of Active Labour Market Policies that help the socially excluded, such as the long-term unemployed, to find a job or join training programmes, job search efforts have become an essential condition for receiving welfare benefits. It has been evidenced elsewhere that there are a number of welfare-to-work programmes aiming to break the cycle of social exclusion, thereby empowering people. However, it is also clear that, due to long-term exclusion, these people suffer from multi-dimensional disadvantages and cumulative marginalization. Hence, a more holistic approach to support beyond solely helping the unemployed find a job is required. Following a discussion of the key concepts-social exclusion, independent support, and social enterprise-a case study of social enterprises in the UK is carried out, focusing particularly on activities to support the socially excluded to become not only vocationally but also socially independent. Based on the above study, this article concludes with a recommendation for the establishment of a more holistic and collective approach for supporting the socially excluded in the recovery process.

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In this paper, the author explores a new way to treat criminal offenders. She finds a useful prototype in the English Model, which is based on the Social Exclusion Theory. The author overviews background, conceptual framework, methodology, and meaning of the theory. She then advances the theory as a new treatment model for offenders, sublating the paradigm of two options: "Rehabilitation Support or Punishment." In the UK, the Conservative Government tried to govern the State with Neoliberalism after the failure of the "Welfare State" in the 1980's. In the field of penal policy, the Government attributed responsibility for crime solely to the individual offender, and adopted a "get tough" policy imposing severe punishments. However, after 1997 in order to promote both economic development and social welfare, the Labour Government tried to construct a "Welfare Society," and adopted various social policies based on the Social Exclusion Theory. The Social Exclusion Theory posits that it is not only personal responsibility, but rather social structural factors, which make it difficult for certain groups of people to join society positively. This theory spread to crime policymaking after 2001. The Government recognized the social factors underlying criminal behaviour, and began to take a new approach to decreasing the risk of crime by securing equal opportunities for every individual in society. The re-integration policy sought to bring offenders back into society using the framework of a partnership among the public sector, the private sector and the civil sector. The goal was to empower offenders as human beings living in the community. Empowering offenders can be realized in the larger context in which criminal policy is connected to social inclusion policy and social security. Thus, offenders are supported comprehensively from Seven Paths. The Seven Paths are evidenced-based criminogenic needs, and also means to prevent recidivism. The English Model is based on its philosophy of citizenship and social responsibility for securing equal opportunity. On the other side Japan has not establish clear philosophy on citizen and society yet, and so it is difficult for Japan to establish its own suitable treatment method of offenders. Still Japan can learn from the English Model by introducing treatment methods for offenders, especially the idea that recovery of offenders results in the safety of the community. The method to re-integrating offenders into society through a local partnership could be useful and suggestive for Japan.

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Gottfredson and Hirschi's general theory of crime (1990) has generated a great deal of research and debate since its publication. One of the ongoing debates regarding the theory is the measurement of its key concept, namely self-control. The measure most widely adopted and popular in the related researches is Grasmick et al.'s scale (Grasmick et al. 1993). But this scale has the two theoretical problems: its inclusion of motives for deviance and the lack of its theoretical relation to the Bond theory, the predecessor of GTC. Recently, Hirschi, one of the two founders of GTC proposed a new measure of self-control to overcome these problems. However, this measure has not been properly tested in researches other than his own. This article purports to empirically compare these two different measures of self-control in the Negative binomial regression analysis and to explore on the basis of the analytical results the theoretically valid model by incorporating them. The result suggests that in the explanatory power of various deviant behaviors, Grasmick et al.'s scale, which has no theoretical validity, is far superior to Hirschi's, which has much theoretical validity, regardless of the way of measurement. In the discussion, we further explore the theoretically reconciled model.

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The aim of this study is to classify the different types of male juveniles who committed homicides and the different circumstances leading up to the homicides. The subjects were 73 male juveniles admitted to juvenile classification homes in the five years from 2001 to 2006 for committing homicide. Juvenile homicide typing was performed by surveying areas such as family dysfunction, school adjustment, and criminal activity to determine what risk factors were present in what periods in their development and then applying a latent class analysis to this data. The analysis produced three types - externalizing types, internalizing types and late-onset types-and the characteristics of each of these were revealed based on attributes such as their developmental path. The externalizing type group engaged in repeated theft and violence from an early stage and there were many incidents of homicide by members with a background of delinquent friendship associations. The internalizing type group experienced chronic failure to adapt to home and school life with many incidents of homicides committed without accomplices and of homicides committed against relatives. The late-onset type group was able somehow to superficially cope up to the point of the homicide, but there were many incidents of homicides committed due to an inability to conform to group or situational pressure.

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Both the police and the public seem to treat reports of contacts by suspicious persons as precursor events to occurrence of sex crimes in a nearby area. However, no empirical research has been conducted regarding the spatio-temporal relationship of the reports of contacts by suspicious persons and subsequent sex crime occurrences. Using an analytical technique developed in the criminological literature on near repeat victimization, this research investigated if reports of contacts by suspicious persons were linked to increased likelihood of sex crime occurrences in the area. The analysis indicated that sex crimes occurred in close proximity both in time and space to the reports of contacts by suspicious persons. Furthermore, the results also indicated that the likelihood of sex crime occurrences decreased as the time and distance became farther removed from those of suspicious personal incidents. While this research was not designed to prove if a suspicious person in the reports and a sex crime offender were the same individual due to data limitation, the results still indicated that the location and time of the suspicious person reports could be used to predict the future occurrences of sex crimes and to direct police resources in focused time and space.

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