In Everyday Desistance, Laura Abrams and Diane J. Terry examine the lives of young people who spent considerable time in and out of correctional institutions as adolescents. These formerly incarcerated youth often struggle with the onset of adult responsibilities at a much earlier age than their more privileged counterparts. In the context of urban Los Angeles, with a large-scale gang culture and diminished employment prospects, further involvement in crime appears almost inevitable. Yet, as Abrams and Terry point out, these formerly imprisoned youth are often quite resilient and can be successful at creating lives for themselves after months or even years of living in institutions run by the juvenile justice system.
This book narrates the day-to-day experiences of these young men and women, focusing on their attempts to surmount the challenges of adulthood, resisting a return to criminal activity, and formulating long-term goals for a secure adult future. Reviews: "Timely, interesting, and well-written, the authors provide a comprehensive examination with accessible stories and ideas. Everyday Desistance fills a niche that needs to be filled." — Mercer L. Sullivan, author of Getting Paid: Youth Crime and Work in the Inner City "Everyday Desistance is a humanizing portrait of a group of young adults which brings readers to a compassionate understanding of their hardships as well as a great degree of admiration for their triumphs." — Ashley Nellis, The Sentencing Project "Using in-depth, in-person interviews, UCLA social welfare professor Laura S. Abrams and Diane J. Terry... have presented a more nuanced portrait of life after juvie" "Abrams and Terry collected firsthand stories and insights to answer the following questions: What does everyday life look like for young people who age out of the juvenile justice system? And how do young people navigate the transition to adulthood while attempting to stay out of the hands of the law?" — Stan Paul, UCLA Luskin About the Authors: LAURA S. ABRAMS is a professor in the Department of Social Welfare at the University of California, Los Angeles Luskin School of Public Affairs. She is the author of the award-winning book, Compassionate Confinement: A Year in the Life of Unit C (Rutgers University Press).
DIANE J. TERRY is a senior research associate at the Loyola Marymount University Psychology Applied Research Center in Los Angeles. |