Supporting musical affordances for desistance and resistance in youth justice settings

Abstract

As criminological perspectives of youth justice shift from rehabilitative ideals to desistance frameworks whereby young people assume a central role in their own identity-development and relationships with others, child-centred approaches that afford youth with agency and voice have been seen as increasingly important. However, noting that desistance is not only a process of identity (re)construction but a relational one in which individuals establish a sense of belonging, who young people engage with have a significant impact on their desistance journeys. The research reported in this article examined how musicians conceptualise their aims and practices in youth detention centres in relation to the desistance journeys of incarcerated youth in Australia. Findings illustrate music’s affordances for desistance as spaces of asylum for young people, providing respite from carceral pains, opportunities for agential creativity and enjoyment, but also political and disruptive potentials to resist the inequities and injustices of the status quo and create alternative futures.

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