Malmö University Publications
Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Social-, Self- and Spiritual Integration - Applying concepts of positive criminology on human agency and criminal careers
Malmö University, Faculty of Health and Society (HS).
2019 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (One Year)), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

The subject for this thesis project is human agency, or motivation to desist from crime, as a turning point in criminal careers. Human agency will be defined as motivation to make pro-social decisions to achieve one’s goals over the lifecourse, based on an overall belief that crime is not a valuable action alternative. Human agency or motivation will be assessed through concepts of positive criminology, which emphasize positive experiences and processes that are thought to be factors for desistance. The concepts for this thesis are regarding the development of a positive self-identity and meaning of life. The aim of this paper is to discover different thought processes that can contribute and get an understanding on how human agency can appear and be conceived, rather than to measure different factors quantitively. This question will be studied through semi-structured interviewing with around ten individuals that have previously been convicted and that have had active periods of their lives where crime was a big part. It will be a qualitative project, with a phenomenological approach. The method for analysis will be Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), which is a method for assessing individual stories and meanings as a part of the identities of the interviewees. The narratives derived from the interviews are categorized by the three main themes social-, self- and spiritual integration. The findings from the paper’s interviews suggest a structure which may be useful for future research on criminal careers and the reasons for why people stop committing crime. An agency towards desistance alongside social structures of the everyday life are theorized to be central for criminal careers to end.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Malmö universitet/Hälsa och samhälle , 2019. , p. 18
National Category
Social Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-25443Local ID: 29735OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mau-25443DiVA, id: diva2:1486953
Educational program
HS Criminology
Supervisors
Examiners
Available from: 2020-11-03 Created: 2020-11-03Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

fulltext(271 kB)114 downloads
File information
File name FULLTEXT01.pdfFile size 271 kBChecksum SHA-512
c2a51f977ec55e56c2c64e2ac5440a9d56e65d9905cec538ff97acb11374558b8df22ba3c0b7aa8a036d55c8c08962168109425c18cc9b815fd8c151d8618a4d
Type fulltextMimetype application/pdf

By organisation
Faculty of Health and Society (HS)
Social Sciences

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar
Total: 114 downloads
The number of downloads is the sum of all downloads of full texts. It may include eg previous versions that are now no longer available

urn-nbn

Altmetric score

urn-nbn
Total: 171 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf