Co-producing Desistance Opportunities with Women in Prison: Reflections of a Sports Coach Developer

Abstract

The following paper provides a sport coach developer’s refl ective narrative account of his fi rst experience of delivering a football-based development programme within a women’s prison. The account highlights the notion that initial ‘up-front’ desistance work can be a process of co-production where all those involved engage in a journey of discovery in which the seeds of desistance are planted and begin to take root. The interplay between practitioners and service users involved navigating issues including vulnerability, trust and the impact of environmental factors, as well as highlights the idea that initial desistance eff orts result from co-produced eff orts between the person initiating change and those tasked with supporting this process. The paper calls for greater attention to the lived experience of facilitating early desistance transitions, as this will result in furthering our understanding of desistance processes.