Across criminal justice research, there is one key measure that is central to evaluating sentencing policies, rehabilitation programs, and the impact of criminal justice interventions: recidivism. Despite its prevalence, recidivism exhibits alarming inadequacies as a measure of post-release success through methodological inconsistencies, a theoretical misunderstanding of rehabilitation, and the reinforcement of systemic challenges. Relying on it as a success measure greatly impairs effective decision-making within the criminal justice system. In response, scholars have made calls to action to implement criminal desistance as an alternative. Theories of criminal desistance offer a refreshing new perspective on post-release success, focusing on the gradual process individuals undertake toward the cessation of criminal activity and utilizing a wider array of data across multiple life domains. In this exploratory analysis, I create a quantitative measure of criminal desistance and test it against traditional recidivism measures to evaluate its theoretical and quantitative capabilities.