This book is about identity and the ways in which shifts and transformations in identity are implicated in processes of personal change in those desisting from crime and/or recovering from substance use problems. More specifically, this book aims to broaden debates about identity transformation and change by exploring the experiences of diverse populations, and by considering dimensions of identity that are often neglected or marginalised – such as gender, ethnicity, the emotions, and membership of social groups and networks, in both desistance and recovery.

So, what do we mean by ‘identity’? At a very basic level the Cambridge English Dictionary defines identity as ‘who a person is, or the qualities of a person or group that makes them different from others’. This basic definition points to a number of important themes in various conceptualisations of identity: the individual, the self or the personal, the collective, social or cultural, and of similarity and difference, themes which continue to be the source of much debate (more of which later). As a starting point, Jenkins defines identity as ‘the human capacity – rooted in language – to know “who's who” (and hence “what's what”)’ and posits that identity refers to a ‘multi-dimensional classification or mapping of the human world and our places in it, as individuals and as members of collectivities’ (2014, 6).

As Jenkins (2014) argues, while identity has been one of the unifying themes of the social sciences for more than a quarter of a century, concerns about identity and identity-related issues actually have a long history (he cites both the work of Locke in 1690 and Shakespeare as examples). They cannot, therefore, be seen as historically recent phenomena that are inherently tied up with post or late modern conditions. However, as Jenkins goes on to concede, how we talk about such concerns is of course historically and culturally specific, so the current era will have its own terms and themes, and the current volume of discourse about identity has reached new levels, if only, as he says, ‘because global noise and chatter about everything has increased’ with the population and the availability of communications technologies (Jenkins, 2014, 32).