Peer mentoring justice-involved youth: a training model to promote secondary desistance and restorative justice among mentors

Abstract

This article introduces a mentoring programme for justice-involved youth that utilises the unique and often overlooked resources offered by adults with a history of incarceration, and the innovative training model that aims to promote secondary desistance and restorative justice among the mentors. An examination of the generative role of peer mentoring and its overlap with restorative justice as a healing process that provides opportunities for offenders to make indirect amends that contribute to the social rehabilitation of their communities is presented. An overview of the history and anticipated aims of mentoring programmes for justice-involved youth is provided, followed by a discussion of the importance of secondary desistance in peer mentoring programmes and a review of the elements, conceptual underpinnings and anticipated benefits of the training programme for the mentors. The training programme is argued to offer approaches that support the primary and secondary desistance-orientated changes and the reparative work needed within the mentor.

The Promise and Challenge of Local Initiatives That Support Reentry and Reintegration

“…Criminological research affirms the relevance of the distinctions between top-down and bottom-up models (Jones 2018; Lopez-Humphreys and Teater 2018; LeBel, Richie, and Maruna 2015). Studies of desistance, for example, examine how “giving back” to others can help formerly incarcerated people cease offending and develop prosocial identities, while also benefitting the recipient of the support (LeBel, Richie, and Maruna 2015).…”

“…Local reentry initiatives work to positively influence the lives of formerly incarcerated individuals, but also take an expansive, community-oriented view of capacity building that includes families, friends, and allies. This holistic approach supports individual, community-level, and systemic change (Cossyleon and Flores 2020; Lopez-Humphreys and Teater 2018; Payne, Brown, and Wright 2019).…”

“…The organization extensively trains people to use their lived experience and knowledge of the system to advocate for change. Relatedly, Lopez-Humphreys and Teater (2018) assess a program in which formerly incarcerated adults mentor justice involved youth using models drawn from restorative justice practices and desistance theory. The restorative justice perspective views crime as a harm to the community, laying paths to individual- and community-level restoration and redemption.…”

Me too! A case study of gendered victimization and feminist development in a Swedish peer support organization for people with experiences of criminalization and substance abuse

“…The idea that individuals who have overcome struggles help others with similar challenges dates back a long time. In the literature helpers are referred to as wounded healers ( 1 – 4 ), professional ex-s ( 5 , 6 ), peer mentors ( 7 ), experts by experience ( 8 ), and credible messengers ( 9 ). The practice of peer support can be informal (for example among friends) or formal/intentional within existing services where people with lived experiences are trained and employed.…”

“…Peer support and the possibility among persons with lived experiences of incarceration, criminalization, and substance abuse to act as wounded healers has been identified as a practical implication of desistance theory, which in essence is based on the simple idea that people can, and do, change ( 11 , 12 ). Wounded healers personify the success stories that desistance theory is built upon ( 12 ) and their lived experiences often mean that they are perceived as trustworthy ( 9 , 13 , 14 ). Wounded healing has further been highlighted as an effective strategy for scaling up preventive and restorative approaches tackling substance abuse and crime ( 15 , 16 ).…”