Abstract

In this paper, we aim to review and elaborate the concept of tertiary (or relational) desistance and to set an agenda for further research on how and with what consequences criminalised people experience, or fail to experience, belonging. Borrowing the language of migration scholars, we suggest that both crime and punishment produce an array of problems associated with ‘contested belonging’ (Davis, Ghorashi and Smets, 2018). The ongoing development and increasing application of the concepts of tertiary and relational desistance has helped to expose the importance of analysing these problems, and of seeking solutions to them. While criminological work in this area remains at a comparatively early stage, it already seems obvious that we can neither properly understand nor effectively support desistance without carefully attending to questions of belonging.