‘The Road from Crime Film Launch’

About 300 people from across the criminal justice sector attended the launch of ‘The Road from Crime’ on 18th June 2012. The film is the product of an ESRC funded knowledge exchange project involving Fergus McNeill (SCCJR, University of Glasgow), Steve Farrall (University of Sheffield), Claire Lightowler (Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services) and Shadd Maruna (Queen’s University Belfast).

The film was directed by Eamonn Devlin and features Allan Weaver, a criminal justice social worker who is himself an ex-offender. It explores the processes of desistance from crime and reintegration in society.

The Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill, provided the introduction, welcoming the contribution that the film could make to progressive development in Scottish criminal justice.

‘The Road from Crime’ has already been used as the stimulus for a range of workshops across the UK with ex-offenders, families, practitioners, policymakers, and the team are not busy writing up what has been learned through the process. Those interested can keep up to date on the project blog: http://blogs.iriss.org.uk/discoveringdesistance/

The film is now available online see: http://www.iriss.org.uk/resources/the-road-from-crime.  Via this link you can view the film or download it for later viewing.  Should you wish it, the film is also available with English, French, Spanish, German or Finnish subtitles.  We would welcome any feedback or information about how you use the film or the impact it has.  Ideally please post this type of information as a comment on the project blog: http://blogs.iriss.org.uk/discoveringdesistance/.  But feel free to contact Claire Lightowler directly about this if you prefer [claire.lightowler@iriss.org.uk]