The purpose of this degree project was to get increased knowledge about thedifficulties youth might face while disengaging from a criminal lifestyle, and thisfrom a professional perspective. To achieve this I interviewed four professionalsworking within the Social service and Prison and probation service. Whenanalysing the material the general theory of the process of “role-exit” (Ebaugh1988) was used, as well as the theory about criminality as lifestyle (Bergström2009) There are a number of both inner and outer factors seeming to createdifficulties to the process of “role-exit”. Insufficient social network and prosocialexperience as well as a number of specific thought patterns are some of those.Youth trying to disengage from a criminal lifestyle seem to go through a similarprocess as the general “role-exit”, the specific difficulties they face has partly todo with having to deal with a negative “Ex-role” while in contact with people andat the same time trying to create a new one.