Purpose

Despite the attention paid to the role of human agency in the desistance process, there is a lack of consensus on how agency should be defined, what motivates or thwarts its exercise, and how it can be applied meaningfully in criminological research. The goal of the current article is to highlight how self-determination theory (SDT) can be used to those ends.

Methods

Qualitative interviews were conducted with a sample of former offenders to assess how they conceptualized their own processes of desistance and the factors that helped and hindered those processes. Data were analyzed using an inductive framework.

Results

Participants’ initial moves away from crime resulted from the realization of psychological need frustration. Subsequent efforts made to help in the desistance process reflected either volitional behavior or the acceptance of assistance from others that would fulfill those needs. Participants also recounted their experiences with correctional rehabilitation as being need thwarting.

Conclusion

SDT’s conceptualization of agentic behavior and the factors that motivate/thwart its exercise can be used to integrate existing findings on desistance from crime. Moreover, measures used in prior SDT-based psychological research have implications for the quantitative measurement of agency in our own field. Implications for correctional theory and policy are also discussed.

中文翻译：

---

自我决定理论视角下的人类代理，犯罪行为和矫正改造

目的

尽管人们关注代理机构在终止过程中的作用，但在如何定义代理机构，激励或阻碍代理机构的工作以及如何将其有效地应用于犯罪学研究方面仍未达成共识。本文的目的是强调如何将自决理论（SDT）用于这些目的。

方法

对前犯罪者进行了定性访谈，以评估他们如何概念化自己的停权过程以及有助于和阻碍这些过程的因素。使用归纳框架分析数据。

结果

参与者最初远离犯罪的举动是由于心理需求挫折的实现。随后在停工过程中提供帮助的努力反映了自愿行为或接受了满足这些需求的其他人的援助。参加者还讲述了他们在矫正康复方面的经历，因为他们需要进行挫败。

结论

SDT对代理行为的概念化以及激励/阻碍其行为的因素可用于整合现有的关于犯罪动机的调查结果。此外，先前基于SDT的心理学研究中使用的测量方法对我们自己领域中代理的定量测量具有影响。还讨论了对矫正理论和政策的影响。