"We should be doing pictures of hopelessness, not hope”: cruel hope, desistance and the paradox of change

Hope is widely recognised within desistance research as a vital resource for individuals seeking to move away from crime. Scholars have emphasised the importance of hopeful future orientations, relational support and narrative identity transformation in sustaining pathways away from offending (Maruna, 2001; Farrall & Calverley, 2006; Weaver, 2016). In McKean’s 2022 research, participants engaged in creative methods to visualise hope and its role in their lives. However, some participants, particularly those still in prison, initially struggled with the premise of exploring hope at all, describing the exercise as pointless or difficult to engage with within the constraints of imprisonment. One participant reflected that researchers “should be doing pictures of hopelessness not hope”, drawing attention to the persistence of structural barriers and the limited horizons of possibility experienced within the criminal justice system.

This paper re-examines McKean’s research through the lens of Lauren Berlant’s concept of cruel optimism. Berlant (2011) describes cruel optimism as a condition in which individuals remain attached to aspirations that promise flourishing while simultaneously obstructing it. Building on this framework, the paper introduces the concept of ‘cruel hope’ to explore how hope within criminal justice contexts may operate as both a resource and a constraint.

By revisiting McKean’s analysis of hope narratives among people with experience of imprisonment, the paper examines how aspirations for employment, belonging and a “normal life” frequently collide with enduring forms of exclusion. In this context, hope may function not only as a catalyst for personal change but also as a stabilising force that sustains attachment to institutions that simultaneously promise and limit transformation. The paper therefore argues that contemporary criminal justice contains a central paradox: systems that promote narratives of hope and change may simultaneously reproduce the structural conditions that make those hopes harder to realise.