Re-entry and Desistance from crime in a Digital era: A cross-national comparative project

Re-entry and Desistance from crime in a Digital era: A cross-national comparative project (2023-2026) is a joint research project in three countries, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) through the New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF). The research project is led and coordinated by Professor Isabelle F.-Dufour from the Université Laval (Quebec, Canada). Participating in the project as partners and principal investigators are Professor Stephen Farrall from the University of Nottingham (UK) and Dr. Eeva Järveläinen from the Laurea University of Applied Sciences (Finland). The COVID19 pandemic exposed numerous disparities and inequalities, including differences in access to justice, problems relating to prison-overcrowding, over-stretched criminal justice, welfare and healthcare systems, challenges to resilience, and highlighted the difficulties facing those individuals trying to cease offending. This project will explore how different criminal justice systems and community partners have been able to assist former-prisoners during the pandemic, where a wide-spread shift to the ‘remote delivery’ of personal services was initiated. The many challenges faced by former-prisoners must be addressed in order to assist them in the new ‘virtual world’. In order to build a more resilient, inclusive and sustainable society, we must understand why people stop offending, cope with challenging situations and how we can foster desistance.