They All Come Out: Mapping the Desistence Journeys of 150 Prison-Leavers over 18 Months

CRS 2025 Presentation by Helen Kosc (PID087)

Author

Helen Kosc

Doctoral Candidate, The University of Oxford, United Kingdom

Helen Kosc is a Doctoral Student in the Sociology Department, at The University of Oxford. She also completed her Master of Science in Sociology at The University of Oxford in 2021. For her Doctoral research, Helen is working in collaboration with a Ministry of Justice pilot programme ‘RESTART’ Thames Valley, investigating the resettlement journeys of 200 prison-leavers released from HM Prison Bullingdon over 18 months. She is conducting ethnographic data collection through a combination of participant observation and unstructured sequential interviews both pre- and post- prison release. She hopes to learn about the mechanisms that contribute to the desistence vs persistence of criminal activity by speaking to prison leavers and practitioners directly, to better inform future reintegration programming and policy. Helen is from Toronto, Canada and prior to arriving in England, she had 4 years’ experience working with and volunteering for Correctional Services Canada (CSC), whilst doing her Bachelor of Arts Honors at Queen’s University. Helen has had extensive research experience in the field of criminal justice: Helen was a Research Assistant for the largest experimental audit study measuring discriminative hiring of ex-offenders in Europe. She has also co-authored a chapter in the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Evidence-Based Crime and Justice Policy, with Dr. David Kirk. And she is currently working alongside the Ministry of Justice on a future project investigating the role of British Probation and Prison Officers in the reintegration process of prison-leavers.

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