“A shoulder to lean on in hard times”: understanding the role of friendships in the lives of individuals convicted of sexual offences

The notion of instrumental peer support has been promulgated as a productive component in creating narratives of change amongst individuals who have engaged in sexual-offending behaviour. It has also been proposed that sustained emotional support from a stable network is a protective factor against sexual recidivism. This paper presents a qualitative analysis of the reflections and experiences of individuals (N = 7) who have served custodial sentences for sexual offences regarding the role of friendship in their lives, both before and after conviction, and what impact friendships have had in helping or hindering their transition into the community. Data were collected through one-to-one semi-structured interviews and analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Two superordinate themes were identified from the data. The first theme, true vs fair-weather friends, highlighted that many friendships were lost, a few were made stronger, but all friendships changed. The friendships that remained became an important place of safety for participants. The second theme, the cycle of help, emphasised the importance of having friends at a time of need, but also of the importance of being able to offer help to others, either in a formal scheme such as a Listener, or informally. Implications of the findings are unpacked and the authors make a plea for assisted reintegration through, for example, the provision of peer-support schemes and community-based reintegration services.