Pathways to Ruin : High-Risk Offending over the Life Course

Summary: Individuals who have committed a number of crimes over their lifetimes have had complex, multi-faceted, and often life experiences characterized by extreme disadvantage and victimization. Those who are formally designated as "high-risk" by the Canadian criminal justice system often have a history of multiple offenses, including a record of violent or sexual crime. As a result, they are usually subject to additional monitoring in the community after completing a prison sentence. Pathways to Ruin disentangles the numerous elements and pathways that lead to the high rates of re-offending by focusing on developmental periods of childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. The book uses a case study approach to consider individuals' entire crime pathway by examining the circumstances and factors that contribute to assumptions or official designations of "high-risk" behaviour. Erin Gibbs Van Brunschot and Tamara Humphrey overhaul society's popular crime narratives and instead draw on sociological and criminological perspectives to identify historical, social, and personal contexts that appear to increase the likelihood of re-offending. They also consider how negative life experiences may be addressed to circumvent trajectories of serious offending. Reducing the social distance that the "law-abiding" public may feel towards marginalized groups, Pathways to Ruin details how legal systems could better serve these individuals, and acknowledges the many missed opportunities for compassion.