Professional Ex-: An Alternative for Exiting the Deviant Career (From Constructions of Deviance: Social Power, Context, and Interaction, P 573-586, 1994, Patricia A and Peter Adler, eds. -- See NCJ-151012)

• NCJ Number: 151033
• Author(s): J D Brown
• Date Published: 1994
• Length: 14 pages
• Sale Source: Wadsworth Publishing Co
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Reprinted from Sociological Quarterly, V 32, N 2 (1991)

Annotation

This study explored the careers of professional criminals who exited deviant careers and replaced them with professional counseling occupations.

Abstract

Qualitative data were collected over a 6-month period of intensive interviews with 35 professional counselors who were former deviants and who worked in diverse occupations prior to becoming substance abuse counselors. The individuals exited deviant lifestyles but did not put their deviance behind them in exchange for conventional lifestyles, values, beliefs, and identities. Rather, they used vestiges of their deviant past as an explicit occupational strategy. The process of exiting from deviant lifestyles involved four stages: (1) emulation of one's therapist; (2) call to a counseling career; (3) identity realignment with respect to both recovery and career; and (4) credentialization. 45 references and 4 notes