Lived experience findings
Findings from 20 in-depth interviews with people who have lived through the revolving door of crisis and crime.
This section shares findings from 20 in-depth interviews with people who have lived through the revolving door of crisis and crime.
Their stories span early life through to the present day, showing how personal circumstances and interactions with public services have shaped their lives. This includes:
- how missed opportunities often escalate people further into the justice system,
- where positive interventions make a lasting difference,
- how the cycle of reoffending and harm can be broken.
While based on 20 interviews, these themes are not unique. These themes are familiar, reflecting what Revolving Doors has heard consistently over many years from people in repeat contact with the criminal justice system. By grounding solutions in lived experience, this research aims to end the status quo, break cycles of harm, and unlock better use of public money and human potential. These insights highlight a clear truth: people are not defined by their offending. With timely, coordinated and compassionate support, they can and do go on to rebuild their lives, contribute to their communities, and act as powerful voices for change.
Content note: the insights shared here include experiences of trauma, abuse and addiction, which may be distressing.
Early childhood experiences
Patterns in early life set the stage for later challenges. Interviews revealed consistent themes of instability, unmet needs, and missed opportunities for support.
- Instability and trauma were common, including disrupted caregiving, domestic violence, parental mental ill-health, and experiences of physical, emotional, or sexual abuse.
- School exclusions often stemmed from undiagnosed ADHD or trauma-related behaviours. Exclusions were more common among men; where women were excluded, care involvement was usually present.
- Supportive adults mattered. When teachers, relatives, or mentors stepped in, individuals were less likely to be excluded from school or enter the care system.
- Early peer influence shaped pathways into crime and drugs, particularly through older peers in Alternative Provision or youth custody — often driven by a search for love, respect, and protection.
- Negative experiences with social services left lasting scars, fuelling mistrust of professionals and reluctance to seek help later in life.
- Gender differences emerged. Women were more likely to report positive school experiences, and many had no formal contact with the justice system before adulthood.
- Ethnic minority women described higher levels of bullying and stereotyping compared to their white peers.
I’m a product of my environment. I'm not a bad person.
Male, aged 30-49
There was hardly no attendance [at school] because of my mum's mental health issues, so our attendance was really, really poor.
Male, aged 50+
I was so traumatised with stuff at home, going to school and having people being like, really mean and nasty, it was just overwhelming. And I couldn't do it…
Female, aged 30-49
I then started hanging about with adults rather than kids because I was being expelled, suspended from school, so I had no kids to hang about with. So, I was hanging about with older kids, getting into more trouble getting into more serious crimes.
Male, aged 50+
I know I’ve got ADHD. But then in the 80s I was deemed a naughty kid.
Female, aged 30-49
My attendance was absolutely brilliant…I was quite clever, and I went to school all the time…I got a good job when I left school and worked my way up. I was a worker. I had a mortgage by the age of 25.
Female, aged 50+
So, my mum and dad divorced when I was quite young, so I got switched into different schools. I got moved from one Junior School to another and then back, so that was quite disruptive for me.
Male, aged 30-49
A lot of the people, how I got into the gang, was actually from prison…when I first got in there, I got initiated in prison. I met certain people that were older than me. They were recruiting in prison.
Male, aged 30-49
They both emotionally abused me, mentally and physically. My mum used to hit me quite a lot, so I was quite scared of her.
Female, aged 30-49
My mate died, he got killed and I thought, you know what? I’m not going out like that. He got [killed] in the middle of the road by about 15 guys with machetes. And I thought, you know what, I’m not letting that happen. So, I bought a gun [at] 16.
Male, aged 18-29
My mum was always working. She worked nights…Dad worked the days, and my mum would expect me dad to be watching me overnight. But he wasn’t.
Female, aged 50+
The police used to raid my house all the time…we got used to the door being kicked off.
Male, aged 18-29
I believe that it was where the all the problems are raised. A guy that my mum was seeing after my mum and Dad split…we really go into it [fighting].
Male, aged 30-49
They’d usually take her for like a month or two, and then they’d release her again and then come back a couple months later…None of her doctors or any of that would talk to me or fill me in on her situation or anything. They would just send police over to the house and then just come in and restrain her, take her and then that was it. They left me.
Male, aged 18-29
But a lot of the time, social services wouldn’t listen to me […] They wouldn’t listen to when I was saying like she’s abusive, when I’m saying she’s an alcoholic. […] my mum was very intimidating because of the nature of her work, and she would literally intimidate them intellectually, threaten to sue them, threaten to do this […] And they [social services] were just too frightened to confront her. So basically, they just left her to kind of get away with stuff.
Female, aged 30-49
First interactions with the criminal justice system
For many, the first encounter with the police came long before adulthood - often when they were still vulnerable children.
- First contact often began as a victim of crime, showing the overlap between victimhood and offending.
- All male interviewees had police contact before 18, with many entering the youth justice system.
- Women’s contact typically came later, often in their 20s; where it occurred earlier, outcomes were usually cautions or no further action.
- Police involvement often followed school absence, linked to exclusion, suspension, or truanting.
There were several interactions with the police as a victim in my first two years at secondary school. It wasn’t because I’d broken the law, it was because I was a victim of crime. So, I nearly got killed outside school, I got punched in the chest…
Male, aged 30-49
At the very end of the road was [the] police station…I'm pretty sure I walked all the way there and I said to them, I don't want to go home, and I refused to go home, and I got put in an emergency foster placement.
Female, aged 30-49
I got arrested in year nine because I was drinking alcohol in school. I’d drink before I went to school in the morning.
Male, aged 30-49
I feel like they tried to set me up in a way... They would also keep tabs on me...I was chilling on the main road, and I saw this woman, helped with her bags, took them to her house and then I've gone to YOT like a couple of days later. And they were like I heard you helped a woman with her shopping bags…
Male, aged 18-29
Patterns of offending
While experiences varied, clear patterns emerged in how offending developed and persisted over time.
- All interviewees had repeated contact with the justice system, though frequency and severity differed.
- More than half met the definition of an Adult Prolific Offender, reflecting entrenched cycles of crime.
- Repeat offences were often of the same type, such as shoplifting, fraud, or assault.
- For some, crimes escalated, moving from lower-level shoplifting to high-value or commercial burglaries.
- Substance use was a key driver, with offences linked to funding habits or being under the influence.
- Positive interventions made a difference — interviewees in their 20s reported fewer charges thanks to targeted support in early adulthood.
In the hundreds [times in prison]…lots and lots of very short sentences. I think the longest one was seven months.
Male, aged 30-49
When I last looked at my record, which was 65 pages long…It was the same sentences all the time which weren't working.
Female, aged 30-49
Initially it was like on the bus or on foot, but then I got more organised. I've got someone who would drive me around and I paid them. I'd have, you know, thousands of, like, we travel from town to town [to steal goods].
Female, aged 30-49
Drivers of re-offending
- Substance use played a significant role in people’s ongoing offending behaviour, driven by committing crimes while under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol, or to fund their habit.
- Unresolved trauma, unaddressed mental health needs and relationship breakdowns were key drivers of problematic substance use.
- Negative peer influence played a role in behaviour, both during childhood and adulthood, which led to offending behaviour and drug and alcohol use.
- All women had a history of relationships involving physical and/or coercive abuse, which were often reasons for their police contact. However, there was a lack of referrals for onwards specialist support for women when this happened.
When I first moved into the flat, I was just smoking cannabis. Then somebody come out of prison who I grew up with. He was a couple years older than us, and he had nowhere to stay. So, I said he can stay at my flat…I didn't realise that he was a heroin addict…He asked me can he smoke it in my kitchen, and I agreed to that, and then I let it into my flat then. So, everybody started, my whole friendship group got hooked [on heroin].
Male, aged 30-49
I’ve got so many sentences, whether it’s multiple years or multiple weeks. I’ve got cleaned so many times to give myself the best chance of, you know, survival on release. And every time without fail I’ve had the same old story... I was never told about dry houses... You’re just shoved in the worst HMOs in the worst areas
Male, aged 30-49
I did my street robbery because I was off my head… me not realising that I had suffered with depression, trauma, complex PTSD, ADHD, all of these things that I was unaware of, and it’s only been in the last few years that I’m aware of all these things and perhaps, maybe, if those things had got dealt with early on… I might not have been a criminal or might not have done these things.
Male, aged 30-49
I had a nervous breakdown ended up [being sectioned] for three months because my head had fell off because I'd lost the wife, the kids, the house about everything had gone.
Male, aged 30-49
My fella was taking the heroin. And I was told that if you took it on the foil, it was all right, never taken drugs before. And I ended up taking heroin because I was so stressed with my job... It's really unusual for me to go on heroin, but I did and I ended up just escalating, losing everything and getting into a life crime with somebody else.
Female, aged 50+
Experiences of the criminal justice system
Interviewees shared powerful reflections on how their experiences with police, prison, and probation shaped their journeys - often in ways that made progress harder.
- Police contact was often described as “heavy-handed”, with women in particular feeling their treatment was disproportionate.
- Short prison sentences caused major disruption, breaking ties with housing, services, and family - creating more problems than they solved.
- Probation was widely seen as a ‘tick-box’ exercise, offering inconsistent support that rarely addressed individual needs.
- Trust mattered: while most could recall at least one supportive probation officer, high staff turnover made it hard to build lasting relationships.
- When probation worked well, people spoke of positive relationships and access to the right support that helped them make progress.
- License recalls and breached community orders often set people up to fail, especially when their underlying substance use needs were left unaddressed.
[Police contact] was pretty horrific to be honest…I felt quite vulnerable and especially with male police officers... I’ve been roughly handled by male police officers... I’ve been tied up on the floor, I’ve been thrown in the back of a police car. I’ve had bruises like head to toe from the cuffs and from where they’ve been really aggressive with me.
Female, aged 18-29
Physical police contact causes me distress because of my autism…there was a spit bag over my face…it’s really distressing it adds to the sensory overload… there’s no understanding of neurodiversity.
Male, aged 30-49
The judge could see that I was being set up as well. And that was the same judge who gave me that chance a couple of years later… A bit later on, I had a judge who sent me away, was having none of it. He didn't care…You're a menace to society.
Male, aged 50+
I had no chance to engage with support [in prison]. I was withdrawing, I was ill. I’d start to come round and then I’d be released again.
Female, aged 30-49
You know what, it [prison] was a relief. Yeah, it was a relief. Like I didn't have to go through the stress that I was going through on the street.
Female, aged 30-49
So, I was clean in prison for eight months before I got released. And I got released from prison and the next day I relapsed.
Male, aged 30-49
I had more than 20 probation officers [who] I never found particularly helpful.
Female, aged 30-49
I'm still in contact with my probation officer from 1994. He's been a massive influence in my life. He knows my stories and the injustices from the system, because he worked in that field [and now he] works in rehabilitation.
Male, aged 50+
I’ve felt a lot of the times when I was on probation, it was just all robotic … the so-called professionals that were textbook professionals …you’ve got a probation officer, and you go there and you try to build a rapport, you try to build up a trust - it takes a lot for you to open up to them. And then within a week or two, [you’re told] ‘I’m moving on’ … then that new probation officers comes in … [you are] right at the very beginning again.
Male, aged 30-49
If they're not committing crimes and they're trying to help themselves, they might have drug issues or whatever…maybe we shouldn’t recall them so much...
Male, aged 30-49
My pre-sentence report …got so many things wrong… whoever read that probably thought I was a completely different person... It's so dangerous, that these false psychiatric reports are being given and read out loud in court and believed… They don't care that it's wrong because they don't have time to really sit there and write a decent one.
Female, aged 18-29
Your past is not going to change, it’s going to still be the same... you shouldn’t need to go through it and say all of these things again when you’ve already said it 1,000 times…Whatever it might be, it’s going to be difficult.
Female, aged 30-49
Missed opportunities to break the cycle
Interviewees described how crucial chances to intervene were repeatedly missed - both in the community and within the justice system itself.
- Mental health needs were often unmet: long waiting lists, minimal contact, and reliance on medication without wider support left people without meaningful help.
- Mental Health Treatment Requirements were rarely used, wasting a clear opportunity to provide targeted support within the justice system.
- Drug and Alcohol Treatment Requirements often failed in isolation, as they didn’t address the trauma or mental health challenges driving addiction.
- Short prison stays left little room for change, with sentences too brief to access support or plan properly for release.
- Opportunities were missed at every stage, meaning people’s core needs were left unresolved - reinforcing rather than breaking the cycle.
ATRs [Alcohol Treatment Requirements] were [given to me] quite early on…what they failed to see was why was I drinking in the first place, [which was] because of my mental health.
Female, aged 30-49
My mental health wasn't getting addressed [in prison]. Because when I was in jail I started self-harming, and I remember them putting me on Prozac. But I’ve never had anyone […] someone to talk to, like a psychiatrist or counsellor or psychotherapist or anything like that.
Female, aged 30-49
You gotta go and see a drugs agency, probation, then registered at a hostel. And it's always by the same time 2:30. And you get into town at 2:00, and you've got to choose one, so you're terrified that you're going to get recalled straight away, and there's a lot of people, like the guys that got off the bus with me were like, right, I'm going to go to spend my money and I'll be back in prison later…you've got to really try not to go straight back to prison.
Male, aged 50
Barriers to engaging with services and accessing support
Interviewees shared how structural gaps and poor service design often left them unable to access the help they needed.
- Mental health and substance use needs collided: people were caught between services, with each refusing to help until the other issue was addressed.
- Support staff often lacked understanding of addiction, leaving people feeling judged, dismissed, or unheard.
- Reducing consumption alone wasn’t enough: without tackling the underlying trauma, poverty, or mental health challenges, interventions were seen as ineffective.
So, most of the street homeless teams they was brilliant…they would try and help. But I was so entrenched in my addiction at the time, I didn't want that help.
Male, aged 30-49
It was like your alcohol's a problem. Then you go to mental health and mental health’s problem…you'd be passed from pillar to post…I went into a room to see a triage nurse in mental health. And it's the second I mentioned drugs. Her face dropped and she may as well have put the pen down and turned around, honestly.
Female, aged 30-49
[The course] could really use that time to find out what was going on in your life. Why you were using the drugs, how you got started, not just sort of like, oh, this is how you stop smoking dope, blah blah blah.
Male, aged 50+
They slap you on a methadone script because it’s the cheapest of all the medications to give you... they maintain the individual, day after day, given methadone... no detox, no nothing... and when they get released, they got addictions. It’s inevitable.
Male, aged 30-49
While you're on the street you're not bothered about any other service. You want to know where you're getting your head down, where you're going to get fed.
Male, aged 30-49
Contact and experience of wider services
Interviewees highlighted that when and how support is offered makes all the difference.
- Timing was crucial: people needed to be in the right headspace to accept support, which was often hard during active addiction or mental health crises.
- Safe, peer-led environments worked best: rehab, dry houses, and AA/NA meetings enabled recovery when alcohol or drugs were absent and peer support was strong.
- Supportive GPs were a lifeline: those who listened and offered tailored help, especially around mental health, made a real difference.
- Past experiences shaped trust: negative encounters with social services often fuelled wider mistrust, making it harder to engage with future support.
I highlighted a social worker’s incompetence…in front of her manager. She didn’t like that, she was gunning for me after this. [It was] so personal, but that’s just your job. This is my child. This is my whole life…And then she started to just make my life an absolute misery.
Female, aged 30-49
You know they’re supposed to be there to help, but people aren’t honest with them because of the fear of the children being took.
Female, aged 30-49
If you read some of the paperwork, you’d think I’m an animal and I was reading it and I’m thinking, who is this ******* person? I’ll kill him myself, you know, because they don’t put the truth in it. I mean, I’ve even. I’ve even pulled them up on, on, on certain stuff, even in the courtrooms…and the judges have dismissed what I have said. That’s why I have lost a lot of trust in the system.
Male, aged 30-49
She’s always financially supported me… My mum has always been my main – you know, when I was struggling… for all those years where I couldn’t because I was ill and she, you know, completely supported me financially, emotionally, did everything for me.
Female, aged 18-29
My GP … he’s been really amazing. Like he’s been there on my journey … he’s supported me when I was doing my detox, he listened to me when I said I wanted to come off of it and everyone else was like, no, you should stay on it... And he supported me through it because I was determined to come off of it.
Female, aged 30-49
What’s amazing about [support service] is they genuinely care. Everyone who works there, they’re not in it for the money, they care so much about what they do […] whoever’s hired them has made absolute certain that they are a good fi t for the role and that’s why it works.
Female, aged 18-29
Exiting the Revolving Door
Breaking free from the cycle of crisis and crime was never easy, but interviewees showed it was possible when the right factors came together.
- Personal motivation mattered most: many described a turning point when they recognised the harm caused to themselves and others. For some, having children was a powerful driver for change.
- Support through key transitions worked: schemes like Liaison and Diversion and Housing First helped people stabilise their lives at critical moments.
- Trauma-informed, strengths-based support: professionals who focused on potential, not just problems, gave people the confidence to build new futures.
- Networks built resilience: family, friends, peer groups and community support offered encouragement and accountability, helping progress stick.
I gave up smoking cannabis, which had a huge effect on my mental health. I completely cut out drinking. A huge one for me was having something to fight against…I’m always very competitive. It gave me something to be like right, I’ll show you.
Male, aged 30-49
I just had enough when I was using on top of my script and wasting my money buying drugs…just thinking like, what am I doing… and I was thinking like what kind of role model do I want to be for my son? …One day I just thought right I’m not using anymore, and I detoxed myself back onto my script and I haven’t looked back since.
Female, aged 30-49
I ended up getting pregnant. So, then that made me realise that all this had to stop. It was a chance, really, of sorting my life out. And I got rid of him [ex-partner] then.
Female, aged 50+
I was in intensive care. I’ve been set on fire [in the homeless shelter]. That’s put me in an induced coma, and I woke up and that’s the only time that I thought that I actually felt scared and didn’t want to die. So, from that day I’ve not. I’ve not touched drink or drugs since.
Male, aged 30-49
The day before I was being released, they came to meet me and explain what was going on and what was going to happen…That’s when I got involved in the mental health team in stuff like that. And they took me to the appointments ‘cause I didn’t register for the doctor for a few years…So, you know, registered with the doctors…Got involved with gym, Revolving Doors…
Male, aged 30-49
They had phoned me, and I remember I was crying and I and like because I smoked all of my money...and they phoned me to ask me a question, and they started to come up with all these solutions…we can manage your money. We can do this. And then she was like, well, what about treatment? That’s when the heavens started to open up.
Female, aged 30-49
The belief from someone else, like, you know, saying like you know what, you are capable. I wouldn’t have got where I am today at all. I would still be in the same place.
Male, aged 18-29
With my probation officer, the one thing that really I liked about her was that she didn’t just focus on me being the problem.
Female, aged 30-49
You look at the ripple effects of what happens now…The restorative justice course that I’ve done, it really made me think about, like, oh, my God, what have I done?
Female, aged 30-49
I think if anyone wants real recovery, you know, consistent recovery, they need to get a sponsor, they need to work for 12 steps…to go to fellowship meetings. And that is the only way they’re going to get clean. Rehab is great, but it’s when you get out of rehab that is the hard part. And if you can’t afford to be in rehab for the rest of your life, which no one really can, then you need a programme of action.
Female, aged 18-29
Useful links
Quantitative findings
Advanced analysis reveals the patterns, unmet needs, and risks driving the revolving door cohort, showing how data can inform smarter, preventative interventions.
Learn more
User journeys
Research revealed clear patterns in the lives of people caught in the revolving door of crime, reflected both in the 20 interviews and in service data.
Learn more
National Scaling
Combining detailed reference data with local socio-economic information revealed how the size, shape, and needs of the revolving door cohort vary across England.
Learn more
Download the full report
Read more about the research process, key findings, and expert recommendations.
