Crime as a job: risk assessment and desistance within professional narratives roles

Abstract

Studies have shown that people who commit criminalized acts draw upon different narrative roles. This study highlights the narrative role of the professional and explores how such identities and self-understandings influence risk assessment and desistance. The study is based on qualitative interviews with 54 prisoners from Argentina, Chile, Honduras, and Mexico—all convicted of theft and robbery. The language of formal work and references to detailed risk assessments are essential features of this narrative role. Participants give examples of successful robberies and situational evaluations of danger and consider themselves different from “less professional” accomplices. They describe desistance as motivated by the desire to have some form of “life insurance” and the increase in risk and consequences for family. This cross-country qualitative study details, nuances and contextualizes the narrative role of the professional and argues that this offender identity is important to understand desistance processes in Latin America.