Limiting Beliefs and Desistance from Gang Crime

Abstract This study explores how incarcerated, gang-affiliated youths in Sweden navigate questions of change, aspiration and desistance. Drawing on interviews with young men and staff at secure youth institutions, the analysis foregrounds how internalized limiting beliefs—rooted in racialization, marginalization and stigma—shape what futures these youths perceive as possible. Staff efforts to instil hope are often constrained by institutional securitization and normative assumptions about who these youths can become. The study highlights the psychological and relational challenges of desistance, emphasizing how desistance requires dismantling of limiting beliefs through trust, recognition and meaningful inclusion. The study contributes to debates on gang crime, desistance and institutional care by critically examining how belief systems both constrain and enable desistance from crime.