Journal of Criminal Justice 40(5)

Journal of Criminal Justice, September 2012: Volume 40, Issue 5

The prison experience: Introduction to the special issue
Daniel P. Mears

The place of punishment: Variation in the provision of inmate services staff across the punitive turn
Michelle S. Phelps

Median state staff-to-inmate ratio for inmate services declined between 1979 and 2005. Across years, the spread of inmate services staff ratios overlapped substantially. Median Northeast state's inmate services ratio in 2005 higher than South's in 1979. The U.S.'s punitive turn was more variegated and partial than is often assumed.

Race group differences in prison victimization experiences
John Wooldredge, Benjamin Steiner

Odds of assault are higher for white relative to African American inmates. Odds of theft are higher for white relative to African American inmates. Daily prison routines are more relevant for predicting victimization among whites. Inmate backgrounds relevant for predicting victimization for both race groups. Violent inmates most likely to be victimized by either crime, regardless of race.

Gender differences in the effects of prison on recidivism
Daniel P. Mears, Joshua C. Cochran, William D. Bales

A prison term is associated with an increased likelihood of recidivism. Prison appears to increase property and drug, and not violent or other, recidivism. This effect arises primarily in comparison to probation, not jail. The criminogenic effect of prison is similar for females and males. Prison is more likely to increase drug recidivism among males.

Reentry preparedness among soon-to-be-released inmates and the role of time served
Nancy Wolff, Jing Shi, Brooke E. Schumann

Study examined whether and how time incarcerated affects reentry readiness. Population-based survey completed by nearly 4000 male inmates. Results indicate reentry vulnerability increases with time served since age 18. Reentry readiness was no related to time served on the current conviction. Targeting cumulative time served is expected to yield better reentry outcomes.

Incarceration and inmates’ self perceptions about returning home
Christy A. Visher, Daniel J. O'Connell

The impact of determinate sentencing on prisoner misconduct
William D. Bales, Courtenay H. Miller

Florida's shift from indeterminate to determinate sentencing was completed in 1995. Indeterminate and determinate sentenced inmate rule infractions were analyzed. Determinate sentenced inmates were found more likely to commit rule infractions. An increase in violent, property, and disorderly rule infractions were found. A consequence of determinate sentencing policy is an increase in rule violations.

Prisoners’ perceptions of correctional officers’ behavior in English and Dutch prisons
Anja J.E. Dirkzwager, Candace Kruttschnitt

We examine how prisoners perceive correctional officers’ behavior in English and Dutch prisons. Substantial differences in staff-prisoner relations are observed in these countries. In England staff-prisoner relations are more detached and staff is unresponsive. In Dutch prisons staff is perceived as helpful and fair. Developments in penal policy are not necessarily mirrored in the practice of prisons.

Social relationships between prisoners in a maximum security prison: Violence, faith, and the declining nature of trust
Alison Liebling, Helen Arnold

Decline in levels of trust among prisoners and staff found in UK maximum security prison. Faith, faith identities, and fears of radicalisation affected prisoner social life. Relationships were fractured and the traditional prison hierarchy had dissolved. Long sentences, fears of radicalisation, and shifting power bases led to higher fear. Religion had become an identifier and ‘cover’ for violent disputes between prisoners.

Prison gang integration and inmate violence
John L. Worrall, Robert G. Morris

We examine the effects of prison gang integration on inmate violence. Within-prison gang dynamics are associated with the incidence of violence. Intergroup conflict theory helps explain prison gang violence.

The ties that bind or the ties that break: Examining the relationship between visitation and prisoner misconduct
Joshua C. Cochran

Visitation patterns are heterogeneous. Prisoners who are visited more consistently engage in lower levels of misconduct. Prison systems may want to consider promoting more frequent and consistent visitation. Future research should account for the longitudinal and heterogeneous nature of prison experiences.

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 49(3)

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, August 2012: Volume 49, Issue 3

The Effects of Focused Deterrence Strategies on Crime: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Empirical Evidence
Anthony A. Braga and David L. Weisburd

Objective. Focused deterrence strategies are increasingly being applied to prevent and control gang and group-involved violence, overt drug markets, and individual repeat offenders. Given the growing popularity of this approach, a systematic review and meta-analysis of the extant evaluation evidence is needed to determine the crime reduction benefits of the approach. Methods. Our examination of the effects of focused deterrence strategies on crime followed the systematic review protocols and conventions of the Campbell Collaboration. As a preliminary examination of the effects of focused deterrence strategies on crime, the authors used a vote counting procedure. In our closer examination of program effects, meta-analyses were used to determine the size, direction, and statistical significance of the overall impact of focused deterrence strategies on crime. Results. We identified 10 quasi-experimental evaluations and 1 randomized controlled trial. Our meta-analysis suggests that focused deterrence strategies are associated with an overall statistically significant, medium-sized crime reduction effect. However, the strongest program effect sizes were generated by evaluations that used the weakest research designs. Conclusion. The authors conclude that this approach seems very promising in reducing crime but a more rigorous body of evaluation research needs to be developed. While the results of this review are very supportive of deterrence principles, the authors believe that other complementary crime control mechanisms are at work in the focused deterrence strategies described here that need to be highlighted and better understood.

Welcome to the Scene: A Study of Social Organization and Recognition among Warez Hackers
David Décary- Hétu, Carlo Morselli, and Stéphane Leman-Langlois

Objectives. This article seeks to describe and understand the social organization as well as the distribution of recognition in the online community (also known as the warez scene) of hackers who illegally distribute intellectual property online. Method. The data were collected from an online index that curates a list of illegal content that was made available between 2003 and 2009. Sutherland’s notion of behavior systems in crime as well as Boase and Wellman’s notion of network individualism are used to theorize the social organization and the distribution of recognition in the warez scene. These were then analyzed using social network theory. Results. There is a strong correlation between the productivity of the hacking groups and the recognition they receive from their peers. These findings are limited by the lack of data on the internal operations of each hacking groups and by the aggregate nature of the network matrix. Conclusions. We find that hacking groups that make this online community generally have a very limited life span as well as low production levels. They work and compete in a very distributed and democratic community where we are unable to identify clear leaders.

Effects of First-Time Imprisonment on Postprison Mortality: A 25-Year Follow-Up Study with a Matched Control Group
Anja Dirkzwager, Paul Nieuwbeerta, and Arjan Blokland

Objectives: To examine the effects of first-time imprisonment on postprison mortality. Method: Data are used from a longitudinal study examining criminal behavior and mortality over a 25-year period in a representative group of 2,297 Dutch offenders who had their criminal case adjudicated in 1977. Of these offenders, 597 were imprisoned for the first-time in their lives in 1977. The remaining 1,700 offenders got a noncustodial sentence. Ex-prisoners' mortality rates and causes of death are compared with those in the general population and those in a matched control group of non-imprisoned offenders. Propensity score matching is used to minimize selection bias. Odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals are used to examine whether mortality among the ex-prisoners differ significantly from the general population or from the non-imprisoned controls. Results: About 18 percent of the imprisoned offenders died over the 25-year follow-up period. Compared with the general population (age and gender adjusted), ex-prisoners are three times as likely to die during the 25-year follow-up (odds ratio [OR] = 3.21). Compared with a more appropriate control group of non-imprisoned offenders (matched on age, gender, and propensity score), ex-prisoners are no longer significantly more likely to die (OR = 1.40). Conclusions: The results of the present study emphasize the importance of constructing appropriate comparison groups when examining the effects of imprisonment on postprison mortality.

The Social Transmission of Delinquency: Effects of Peer Attitudes and Behavior Revisited
Kim C. I. M. Megens and Frank M. Weerman

While a growing number of longitudinal studies contribute to our knowledge on the relationship between delinquent peers and one’s own delinquent behavior, researchers have generally approached the issue in a restricted way: failing to identify mediating processes or to distinguish between what peers approve of and what they do. Moreover, most studies have used indirect, perceptual measurements, which may have led to biased results. The present study examines the relative effects of peer attitudes toward delinquency and peer delinquent behavior on adolescents' delinquent behavior, using social network data from the School Study of the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR). The results suggest that peer attitudes and attitude transference play a more important role in the social transmission of delinquency than previous research has indicated. Nevertheless, the results also provide evidence for a remaining direct effect of peer delinquent behavior on adolescents' self-reported delinquency.

Motor Vehicle Recovery: A Multilevel Event History Analysis of NIBRS Data
Aki Roberts

Despite its importance for victims, and society as a whole, motor vehicle theft (MVT) recovery is rarely studied. The current research note draws on rational choice and opportunity-based perspectives, and police agency technology use, to develop and test a multilevel event history (survival) analysis model for MVT recovery. Contrary to the hypothesis that more expensive vehicles have a lower chance of recovery due to their attractiveness for permanent retention, the analysis found that recovery was least likely for incidents in which the stolen car had little value (less than $1,000), with no significant differences among the categories of $1,000 or greater. Measures of local opportunity for permanent retention MVT did not have statistically significant effects on recovery, but closer proximity to a major port or US-Mexico border crossing was associated with lower odds of recovery. Furthermore, police agency use of a stolen vehicle tracking system increased odds of recovery.

Criminology 50(3)

Criminology, August 2012: Volume 50, Issue 3

Racial–Ethnic Threat, Out-Group Intolerance, And Support For Punishing Criminals: A Cross-National Study
Graham C. Ousey and James D. Unnever

Scholars often have used the group threat thesis to explain why punitiveness varies across places. This research regularly has found that punitiveness is harsher in places with a larger minority population. Yet researchers only have had a rudimentary grasp of why this is the case. Moreover, most prior research has focused only on the United States, giving us little knowledge of whether the group threat thesis is a viable explanation of cross-national differences in punitiveness. In the current study, we postulate that the relative size of the out-group population affects punitiveness indirectly, via its impact on individual intolerance toward ethnic out-groups. We test this thesis cross-nationally with data from individuals residing in 27 European countries. Our findings are consistent with the argument that greater racial/ethnic diversity at the country level affects individuals’ attitudes toward minority out-groups, which in turn increases their support for severely punishing criminal offenders.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do: Romantic Dissolution, Offending, And Substance Use During The Transition To Adulthood
Matthew Larson and Gary Sweeten

Recent studies have directed attention to the nature of romantic involvement and its implications for offending over the life course. However, this body of research has overlooked a defining aspect of nonmarital romantic relationships: Most come to an end. By drawing on insights from general strain theory, the age-graded theory of informal social control, and research on delinquent peer exposure, we explore the impact of romantic dissolution on offending and substance use during late adolescence and emerging adulthood. Using data from the 1997 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we arrive at three general conclusions: 1) Experiencing a breakup is directly related to a range of antisocial outcomes; 2) the effect of a breakup is dependent on post-breakup relationship transitions; and 3) a breakup is associated with increases in offending and substance use among males and in substance use among females. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings for the future of research on romantic involvement and crime over the life course.

Traits And States: Integrating Personality And Affect Into A Model Of Criminal Decision Making
Jean-Louis Van Gelder and Reinout E. De Vries

We propose and test a model of criminal decision making that integrates the individual differences perspective with research and theorizing on proximal factors. The individual differences perspective is operationalized using the recent HEXACO personality structure. This structure incorporates the main personality traits, but it carries the advantage of also incorporating Self-Control within its personality sphere, and an additional trait termed Honesty-Humility. Furthermore, the model offers a new perspective on proximal predictors, “states,” of criminal decisions by adding affect (i.e., feelings) to the rational choice–crime equation. The proposed model is tested using scenario data from a representative sample of the Dutch population in terms of gender, age, education level, and province (N = 495). As predicted by the model, personality was both directly and indirectly related to criminal decision making. Specifically, the traits Emotionality, Self-Control, and Honesty-Humility were mediated by both affect and rational choice variables. Conscientiousness operated only indirectly on criminal decision making via rational choice. Together, the findings support a trait-state model of criminal decision making.

Controlling Other People'S Children: Racialized Views Of Delinquency And Whites’ Punitive Attitudes Toward Juvenile Offenders
Justin T. Pickett and Ted Chiricos

The juvenile justice system was founded on, and until recently developed around, the idea that society should afford delinquents more leniency and rehabilitative care than adult criminals because of their lower levels of physical and cognitive development and, thus, diminished culpability for law violations and higher amenability to treatment. The past four decades, however, have witnessed a sustained movement to recriminalize delinquency through the enactment of policies that treat juvenile offenders more like their adult counterparts. Feld (1999a) and others have argued that this punitive turn in juvenile justice is in part a result of the racialization of delinquency and violent victimization in the post–Civil Rights era. This study provides the first test of the key assumption underlying this thesis, namely, that Whites’ support for getting tough with juvenile offenders is in part tied to racialized views of youth crime. Drawing on data from a recent national survey, we examine the extent to which relative racial typifications about delinquency and victimization, as well as racial resentment, are associated with general punitiveness toward juvenile offenders as well as support for lower minimum ages of criminal justice jurisdiction. Regression results show that Whites who hold such typifications and those who are more racially resentful are both more likely to embrace punitive youth justice policies and favor transfers for younger offenders. The implications of the findings are discussed.

Differential Susceptibility? Immigrant Youth And Peer Influence
Stephanie M. Dipietro and Jean Marie Mcgloin

There is reason to suspect that lower levels of exposure to criminogenic peer-based risks help explain why immigrant youth are less involved in crime and violence. However, it also is possible that if and when they do encounter these risks, immigrant youth are more vulnerable to them than are native-born youth. Drawing from literature on the adaptation experiences of immigrant adolescents, we hypothesize that immigrant youth will be relatively more susceptible to the effects of both 1) exposure to deviant peers and 2) unstructured and unsupervised socializing with peers when compared with their nonimmigrant counterparts.Using a sample of approximately 1,800 adolescents from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) study, we find support for our first hypothesis but not the second.Specifically, in both cross-sectional and longitudinal models, we find that exposure to deviant peers has a greater impact on violence among immigrant youth than it does for native-born youth. Furthermore, this pattern of results is supported with supplemental, sensitivity analysis using the AddHealth data. In contrast, there are no statistically significant differences across immigrant generation status with regard to the effect of informal socializing with peers on violence.

Undocumented Immigrants As Perceived Criminal Threat: A Test Of The Minority Threat Perspective
Xia Wang

The link between immigration and crime has garnered considerable attention from researchers. Although the weight of evidence suggests that immigration is not linked to crime, the public consistently views immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, as criminal and thus a threat to social order. However, little attention has been paid to why they are perceived this way. By drawing on the minority threat perspective, this article investigates the effects of objective and perceptual measures of community context on perceived criminal threat from undocumented immigrants. Analyses of data collected from four Southwest states and the U.S. Census show that the perceived size of the undocumented immigrant population, more so than the actual size of the immigrant population and economic conditions, is positively associated with perceptions of undocumented immigrants as a criminal threat. Additional analyses show that objective measures of community context do not affect native respondents’ perceptions of the size of the undocumented immigrant population. The study's findings and their implications for theory, research, and policy are discussed.

Measuring The Threat Of Global Crime: Insights From Research By The League Of Nations Into The Traffic In Women
Paul Knepper

Despite increasing concern about the threat of global crime, it remains difficult to measure. During the 1920s and 1930s, the League of Nations conducted the first social-scientific study of global crime in two studies of the worldwide traffic in women. The first study included 112 cities and 28 countries; researchers carried out 6,500 interviews in 14 languages, including 5,000 with figures in the international underworld. By drawing on archival materials in Geneva and New York, this article examines the role of ethnography in developing a social-science measure of global crime threats. The discussion covers the Rockefeller grand jury and formation of the Bureau of Social Hygiene; the League's research in Europe, the Americas, and the Mediterranean; controversy concerning the use of undercover researchers; the League's research in Asia; and the end of the Bureau. The League's experience demonstrates the promise of multisite ethnography in research about global crime as well as the difficulty of mapping crime on a global scale.

The Power Of Diversion: Intermediate Sanctions And Sentencing Disparity Under Presumptive Guidelines
Brian D. Johnson and Stephanie M. Dipietro

Fiscal constraints and shifting political climates in corrections have recently led to a renewed interest in intermediate punishments. Despite their growing prevalence, though, relatively little empirical research has examined the judicial use of alternative sanctions as a sentencing option. By using 3 years of data from the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing (PCS), this study investigates little-researched questions regarding the use of sentencing alternatives among offenders and across contexts. Results indicate that male and minority offenders are the least likely to receive intermediate sanctions, both as a diversionary jail or prison sentence and as a substitute for probation. The probability of receiving an intermediate sanction also varies significantly across judges and court contexts and is related to county-level funding for these programs, among other factors. Findings are discussed as they relate to contemporary theoretical perspectives on the perceived suitability of intermediate punishments and on the unique role that offender agency plays in the sentencing of these cases. Directions for future research are discussed.

The Ecology Of Gang Territorial Boundaries
P. Jeffrey Brantingham, George E. Tita, Martin B. Short and Shannon E. Reid

Within any type of system, the actors in the system inevitably compete over resources. With competition comes the possibility of conflict. To minimize such effects, actors often will partition the system into geographic territories. It is against the larger ecological backdrop of competition and conflict that we examine territory formation among urban street gangs. Although previous studies have examined the social and built environment where gangs form, and how the presence of a gang influences local levels of violence, we know little about how competitive interactions are tied to the formation and maintenance of gang territories. We use formal spatial Lotka–Volterra competition models to derive hypotheses about competition-driven territory formation. By using data on 563 between-gang shootings, involving 13 rival street gangs in the Hollenbeck Policing Division of Los Angeles, we show that violence strongly clusters along the boundaries between gangs in a way that is quantitatively predicted by the theory. The results suggest that even weak competitive interactions between gangs are sufficient to drive gang territory formation without recourse to other processes or assumptions.

Journal of Marriage and Family 74(4)

Journal of Marriage and Family, August 2012: Volume 74, Issue 4

Brief Report

Working on the Weekend: Fathers' Time With Family in the United Kingdom
Jennifer L. Hook

Exchange on Qualitative Research

Writing and Reviewing Manuscripts in the Multidimensional World of Qualitative Research
Ralph LaRossa

In Search of a Culture: Navigating the Dimensions of Qualitative Research
Kevin M. Roy

Enhancing the Qualitative-Research Culture in Family Studies
Sarah H. Matthews

Using the Terms Hypothesis and Variable for Qualitative Work: A Critical Reflection
Annette Lareau

Thinking About the Nature and Scope of Qualitative Research
Ralph LaRossa

Cohabitation and Marriage

Reassessing Differences in Work and Income in Cohabitation and Marriage
Arielle Kuperberg

The Tempo of Sexual Activity and Later Relationship Quality
Sharon Sassler, Fenaba R. Addo and Daniel T. Lichter

Marriage Expectations Among African American Couples in Early Adulthood: A Dyadic Analysis
Ashley B. Barr and Ronald L. Simons

Deviations From Desired Age at Marriage: Mental Health Differences Across Marital Status
Daniel L. Carlson

Becoming a Parent and Relationship Satisfaction: A Longitudinal Dyadic Perspective
Renske Keizer and Niels Schenk

Transitions Into and Out of Cohabitation in Later Life
Susan L. Brown, Jennifer Roebuck Bulanda and Gary R. Lee

Cohabitation and U.S. Adult Mortality: An Examination by Gender and Race
Hui Liu and Corinne Reczek

Of General Interest

The Division of Labor in Lesbian, Gay, and Heterosexual New Adoptive Parents
Abbie E. Goldberg, JuliAnna Z. Smith and Maureen Perry-Jenkins

The Burden of Deportation on Children in Mexican Immigrant Families
Joanna Dreby

Consequences of Teen Parents' Child-Care Arrangements for Mothers and Children
Stefanie Mollborn and Casey Blalock

Young Adults' Fertility Expectations and Events: Associations With College Enrollment and Persistence
R. Kelly Raley, Yujin Kim and Kimberly Daniels

Helicopter Parents and Landing Pad Kids: Intense Parental Support of Grown Children
Karen L. Fingerman, Yen-Pi Cheng, Eric D. Wesselmann, Steven Zarit, Frank Furstenberg and Kira S. Birditt

Family Roles as Moderators of the Relationship Between Schedule Flexibility and Stress
Soo Jung Jang, Allison Zippay and Rhokeun Park

Annual Review of Sociology 38

Annual Review of Sociology, August 2012: Volume 38

Prefatory Chapters

My Life in Sociology

Nathan Glazer

The Race Discrimination System

Barbara Reskin

Theory And Methods

Instrumental Variables in Sociology and the Social Sciences

Kenneth A. Bollen

Rational Choice Theory and Empirical Research: Methodological and Theoretical Contributions in Europe

Clemens Kroneberg and Frank Kalter

Social Processes

Network Effects and Social Inequality

Paul DiMaggio and Filiz Garip

Youth Political Participation: Bridging Activism and Electoral Politics

Dana R. Fisher

Brokerage

Katherine Stovel and Lynette Shaw

Group Culture and the Interaction Order: Local Sociology on the Meso-Level

Gary Alan Fine

Resolution of Social Conflict

Robin Wagner-Pacifici and Meredith Hall

Toward a Comparative Sociology of Valuation and Evaluation

Michèle Lamont

Construction, Concentration, and (Dis)Continuities in Social Valuations

Ezra W. Zuckerman

Institutions And Culture

A Cultural Sociology of Religion: New Directions

Penny Edgell

Formal Organizations

Status: Insights from Organizational Sociology

Michael Sauder, Freda Lynn, and Joel M. Podolny

Outsourcing Social Transformation: Development NGOs as Organizations

Susan Cotts Watkins, Ann Swidler, and Thomas Hannan

Political And Economic Sociology

The Arc of Neoliberalism

Miguel A. Centeno and Joseph N. Cohen

Differentiation And Stratification

Economic Insecurity and Social Stratification

Bruce Western, Deirdre Bloome, Benjamin Sosnaud, and Laura Tach

The Sociology of Elites

Shamus Rahman Khan

Social and Economic Returns to College Education in the United States

Michael Hout

Individual And Society

Race Relations Within the US Military

James Burk and Evelyn Espinoza

Demography

The Future of Historical Family Demography

Steven Ruggles

Causes and Consequences of Skewed Sex Ratios

Tim Dyson

Marital Instability and Female Labor Supply

Berkay Özcan and Richard Breen

Urban And Rural Community Sociology

Urbanization and the Southern United States

Richard Lloyd

Making a Place for Space: Spatial Thinking in Social Science

John R. Logan

Sociology And World Regions

Islam Moves West: Religious Change in the First and Second Generations

David Voas and Fenella Fleischmann

The ANNALS of the AAPSS 643

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, September 2012: Volume 643

Migrant Youths and Children of Migrants in a Globalized World

Introduction

Comparative Perspectives on International Migration and Child Well-Being
Alícia Adserà and Marta Tienda
 
Education

Migrant Youths’ Educational Achievement: The Role of Institutions
Deborah A. Cobb-Clark, Mathias Sinning, and Steven Stillman

Educational Achievement Gaps between Immigrant and Native Students in Two “New” Immigration Countries: Italy and Spain in Comparison
Davide Azzolini, Philipp Schnell, and John R. B. Palmer

The Educational Expectations of Children of Immigrants in Italy
Alessandra Minello and Nicola Barban
 
Family, Fertility, and the Lifecycle Timing of Migration

Child-Parent Separations among Senegalese Migrants to Europe: Migration Strategies or Cultural Arrangements?
Amparo González-Ferrer, Pau Baizán, and Cris Beauchemin

Age at Immigration and the Adult Attainments of Child Migrants to the United States
Audrey Beck, Miles Corak, and Marta Tienda

Fertility Patterns of Child Migrants: Age at Migration and Ancestry in Comparative Perspective
Alícia Adserà, Ana M. Ferrer, Wendy Sigle-Rushton, and Ben Wilson
 
Health

Nativity Differences in Mothers’ Health Behaviors: A Cross-National and Longitudinal Lens
Margot Jackson, Sara McLanahan, and Kathleen Kiernan

Race/Ethnic and Nativity Disparities in Child Overweight in the United States and England
Melissa L. Martinson, Sara McLanahan, and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn

How Do Children of Mixed Partnerships Fare in the United Kingdom? Understanding the Implications for Children of Parental Ethnic Homogamy and Heterogamy
Lucinda Platt

Crime & Delinquency 58(4)

Crime & Delinquency, July 2012: Volume 58, Issue 4

Effectiveness of Residence Restrictions in Preventing Sex Offense Recidivism
Matt R. Nobles, Jill S. Levenson, and Tasha J. Youstin

Many municipalities have recently extended residence restrictions for sex offenders beyond the provisions of state law, although the efficacy of these measures in reducing recidivism has not been empirically established. This study used arrest histories in Jacksonville, Florida, to assess the effects of a recently expanded municipal 2,500-foot residence restriction ordinance on sex crimes and sex offense recidivism. Using a quasiexperimental design, pre- and posttest measures of recidivism were compared, and no significant differences in citywide sex crimes or recidivist sex crimes were found. In addition, time-series analysis revealed no significant differences in sex crime trends over time when compared with nonsex crimes from the same offender sample. After controlling for several demographic factors, individual-level multivariate results indicate that the timing of the residence restriction policy was not associated with a meaningful change in sex crime arrests or sex offender recidivism after the policy implementation date, suggesting that the residence restriction did not achieve its intended goal of reducing recidivism.

Sexual Arousal and Self-Control: Results From a Preliminary Experimental Test of the Stability of Self-Control
Jeffrey Bouffard and Tasha Kunzi

A central proposition of Gottfredson and Hirschi’s (1990) General Theory of Crime is the relative stability of low self-control, however research on “selfcontrol strength” suggests that it may vary across contexts. The current study examines these differing conceptions by randomly assigning participants to one of two sexual arousal conditions or to a no-arousal condition. Group differences in the six components of self control, as captured on the Grasmick et al. (1993) scale were then examined. Unexpectedly, individuals in the most intense arousal condition actually reported higher self-control than those in the other conditions (both in absolute value and in changes in relative rank within the sample). Such findings provide additional empirical support for the recent conceptualization of self-control strength as a personal characteristic that can be both exercised and potentially depleted when overused.

The Public Safety Impact of Community Notification Laws: Rearrest of Convicted Sex Offenders
Naomi J. Freeman

Sex offender management is one of the highest-profile issues in public safety today. Although states have enacted community notification laws as a means to protect communities from sexual offending, limited research has been conducted to examine the impact of these laws on public safety. As such, this study used a quasi-experimental design to examine the relationship, if any, between community notification legislation and sex offender rearrest. Sex offenders who were subject to community notification (n = 10,592, 61.7%) were compared to sex offenders who were not subject to community notification requirements (n = 6,573, 38.3%). Results indicate that sex offenders subject to community notification were rearrested twice as quickly (for a sexual offense) and 47% more quickly (for a nonsexual offense) than those not subject to community notification. The findings yield implications for sex offender interventions and public policies and suggest that notification may not be an effective strategy for significantly reducing sexual offenses.

Neighborhood Characteristics and the Social Control of Registered Sex Offenders
Kelly M. Socia and Janet P. Stamatel

This study uses geospatial and regression analyses to examine the relationships among social disorganization, collective efficacy, social control, residence restrictions, spatial autocorrelation, and the neighborhood distribution of registered sex offenders (RSOs) in Chicago. RSOs were concentrated in neighborhoods that had higher levels of social disorganization and lower levels of collective efficacy, offered greater anonymity, and were near other neighborhoods with high concentrations of RSOs. Furthermore, social control mechanisms mediated some of the effects of structural disorganization. The neighborhoods where RSOs were likely to live did not exhibit characteristics that would support the informal social control of such offenders, as RSO legislation assumes.

To Resist or Not to Resist?: The Effect of Context and Crime Characteristics on Sex Offenders’ Reaction to Victim Resistance
Samantha Balemba, Eric Beauregard, and Tom Mieczkowski

Circumstances under which a sexual assault takes place and how these circumstances affect offenders’ reactions to victim resistance are not well understood. Previous studies have not thoroughly examined the interactions that take place between situational factors and resistance. Using a combination of logistic regression and Chi-square Automatic Interaction Detection (CHAID) analyses, we examine victim, situational, and crime characteristics of 426 sexual assaults involving victim resistance to determine which of these factors increase the likelihood of offender violence. Findings suggest that violence is affected by both the attack strategy employed by the offender and the type of resistance by the victim, along with several other qualifying factors.

The Efficacy of County-Level Sex Offender Residence Restrictions in New York
Kelly M. Socia

Residence restrictions seek to protect community members from registered sex offenders (RSOs) reentering society following incarceration. These policies, first passed in 1995 at the state level and in 2005 at the county and local levels, have become extremely popular throughout the United States but without proof that they are effective. To date, the research on these policies has been extremely limited and has largely focused on the unintended consequences that these policies cause for RSOs. This study examines whether county residence restrictions were associated with reduced sex crime arrest rates in New York State. In doing so, this study draws on the limited prior research regarding the effectiveness of residence restrictions and on the extensive literature regarding the incapacitation and deterrence of crime through public policy measures. Results indicate that residence restrictions were not associated with significantly reduced arrests for sex crimes committed either by RSOs (regardless of victim) or by non-RSOs against child victims. However, results suggested that these policies may be associated with a general deterrence effect, resulting in a decrease of sex crimes against adults by first-time sex offenders (non-RSOs). Implications for future research and policy making are discussed.

Journal of Criminal Justice 40(4)

Journal of Criminal Justice, July 2012: Volume 40, Issue 4

Child and adolescent psychopathy: A state-of-the-art reflection on the construct and etiological theories
Diana Ribeiro da Silva, Daniel Rijo, Randall T. Salekin

Toward a typology of sexual burglary: Latent class findings
Amélie Pedneault, Danielle A. Harris, Raymond A. Knight

We investigated residential burglaries with sexual components We developed a typology of sexual burglaries using latent class analysis We found three classes: fetishistic noncontact, versatile contact & sexually oriented

Racial differences in speeding patterns: Exploring the differential offending hypothesis
Rob Tillyer, Robin S. Engel

Recent studies of officer behavior often focus on citizen race. The differential offending hypothesis is an alternative explanation. Observational data were used to examine this perspective. Findings indicate differential speeding patterns by race.

The impact of culture on acceptance of soft drugs across Europe
Liqun Cao, Ruohui Zhao

Culture as measured by self-expressionism is used to explain variation of drug tolerance. Using Hierarchical Generalized Linear Regression (HGLM), our hypothesis is supported. European nations with higher scores of self-expressionism are more tolerant of soft drugs. In light of the findings, the current approaches to the drug control are discussed.

Biosocial criminology and modern crime prevention
Michael Rocque, Brandon C. Welsh, Adrian Raine

Biology remains a controversial topic in criminology and crime prevention. Research and developmental programs have emerged that address biological factors. Current developmental programs recognize that biology and the environment interact. It is important that biology be addressed in a sociologically sensitive manner. Biology can inform the study and development of crime prevention approaches.

The stability of risk-seeking from adolescence to emerging adulthood
Jamie Vaske, Jeffrey T. Ward, Danielle Boisvert, John Paul Wright

The risk-seeking component develops along three trajectories (low, medium, high). There is strong absolute stability for medium and high risk-seeking trajectories. The low risk-seeking group experiences increases in self-regulation into adulthood. All three groups show strong relative stability.

The Residual Career Patterns of Police Misconduct
Christopher J. Harris

RCL and RNO declined by experience and onset. RCL declined by complaint number, but RNO remained steady. RCL declined by time since last complaints, but RNO remained steady. RCL and RNO risk scores were moderate predictors of future misconduct. EI system risk scores were poor predictors of future misconduct.

Examining macro-level impacts on procedural justice and police legitimacy
Jacinta M. Gau, Nicholas Corsaro, Eric A. Stewart, Rod K. Brunson

There is a link between procedural justice and police legitimacy. Sociostructural context can affect residents’ perception of police. The present study combines macro-level and procedural justice frameworks. Procedural justice predicts legitimacy, controlling for disadvantage. The procedural justice model is promising in distressed urban neighborhoods.

American Journal of Sociology 117(6)

American Journal of Sociology, May 2012: Volume 117, Issue 6

Bright Futures in Malawi’s New Dawn: Educational Aspirations as Assertions of Identity
Margaret Frye

Imagined futures, once a vital topic of theoretical inquiry within the sociology of culture, have been sidelined in recent decades. Rational choice models cannot explain the seemingly irrational optimism of youth aspirations, pointing to the need to explore other alternatives. This article incorporates insights from pragmatist theory and cognitive sociology to examine the relationship between imagined futures and present actions and experiences in rural Malawi, where future optimism appears particularly unfounded. Drawing from in-depth interviews and archival sources documenting ideological campaigns promoting schooling, the author shows that four elements are understood to jointly produce educational success: ambitious career goals, sustained effort, unflagging optimism, and resistance to temptation. Aspirations should be interpreted not as rational calculations, but instead as assertions of a virtuous identity, claims to be “one who aspires.”

Weber and the Environment: Classical Foundations for a Post-exemptionalist Sociology
John Bellamy Foster and Hannah Holleman

In the last two decades classical sociology, notably Marx, has been mined for environmental insights in the attempt to surmount the “human exemptionalism” of post–Second World War sociology. Weber, however, has remained an enigma in this respect. This article addresses Weber’s approach to the environment, including its significance for his interpretive-causal framework and his understanding of capitalism. For Weber, sociological meanings were often anchored in biophysical realities, including climate change, resource consumption, and energy scarcity, while environmental influences were refracted in complex ways within cultural reproduction. His work thus constitutes a crucial key to constructing a meaningful postexemptionalist sociology.

Social Movement Organizational Collaboration: Networks of Learning and the Diffusion of Protest Tactics, 1960–1995
Dan J. Wang and Sarah A. Soule

This article examines the diffusion of protest tactics among social movement organizations (SMOs) through their collaboration in protest groups. Using a longitudinal data set of SMO protest activity between 1960 and 1995, the authors adapt novel methods for dealing with two forms of selection and measurement bias in network analysis: (i) the mechanism that renders some SMOs more likely to select into collaboration and (ii) the notion that diffusion is an artifact of homophily or indirect learning rather than influence. The authors find that collaboration is an important channel of tactical diffusion and that SMOs with broader tactical repertoires adopt more tactics via their collaboration with other SMOs, but only up to a point. Engaging in more collaboration also makes SMOs more active transmitters and adopters of new tactics. Finally, initial overlap in respective tactical repertoires facilitates the diffusion of tactics among collaborating SMOs.

The Three Worlds of Inequality
Kim A. Weeden and David B. Grusky

Recent inequality scholarship fixates on trends in the amount of inequality and largely ignores trends in the form of inequality. The authors describe three ideal-typical inequality regimes (big-class, microclass, and gradational) and identify the mechanisms driving a shift toward or away from each of them. Using GSS and CPS data on 39 measures of life chances, attitudes, and behaviors, the authors find that big-class inequality is in decline whereas microclass inequality has remained stable. Moreover, big classes are simplifying into largely economic aggregates, whereas microclasses remain more complicated moral configurations that cannot be understood in terms of economic standing.

Employment and Exile: U.S. Criminal Deportations, 1908–2005
Ryan D. King, Michael Massoglia, and Christopher Uggen

This study documents and explains historical variation in U.S. criminal deportations. Results from time-series analyses suggest that criminal deportations increase during times of rising unemployment, and this effect is partly mediated by an elevated discourse about immigration and labor. An especially strong association between deportations and unemployment emerges from 1941 through 1986, a period in which the federal law enforcement bureaucracy and deportation laws were well established and judges retained substantial discretion. After 1986, changes in criminal deportation rates mirror the trend in incarceration rates. The study connects the burgeoning sociological literatures on immigration and punishment, revealing a historically contingent effect of labor markets on the criminal deportation of noncitizen offenders.

British Journal of Criminology 52(4)

British Journal of Criminology, July 2012: Volume 52, Issue 4

The Socio-Legal Construction Of Otherness Under A Neo-Liberal Regime: The Case Of Foreign Workers In The Israeli Criminal Courts
Mimi Ajzenstadt and Assaf Shapira

This paper attempts to reveal the ways in which criminal courts in Israel constructed foreign workers brought to trial as ‘others’. Individual foreign workers were framed as being irrelevant as bearers of rights while, in a parallel process, foreign workers as a group were constructed as symbolically relevant to discussions regarding the state governance of social risk. The study spans the years 1994–2011, when Israel adopted a new neo-liberal regime. The paper shows that the complex penal construction of the ‘other’ was used as a platform to justify and support the fuelling of the country’s globalized neo-liberal economy with cheap migrant workers.

State Crime By Proxy: Australia and the Bougainville Conflict
Kristian Lasslett

For most of the 1990s, the island of Bougainville was the subject of a counterinsurgency campaign administered by the Papua New Guinea state. The denial of humanitarian aid, extra-judicial killings and forced displacement were just some of the egregious tactics employed. Papua New Guinea’s main international benefactor, Australia, publicly remained aloof from the hostilities. However, in reality, the Australian state was covertly sponsoring Papua New Guinea’s counterinsurgency operations. Drawing on interviews with senior Australian and Papua New Guinea state officials, this paper will offer the first scholarly account of Australia’s proxy war. Employing a theoretical framework influenced by classical Marxism and Foucault, particular attention will be paid to the relationships, calculations and strategies that informed Australia’s criminogenic response.

Re-Legalization Or De-Legalization?: Netizens’ Participation in Criminal Justice Practices in China
Xuanyu Huang

In recent years, the rise of online mass protests targeting high-profile criminal cases has become a prominent social phenomenon in China. In this study, I explore how the Chinese Government responds to netizens as well as how public opinion via the internet influences the administration of criminal justice within the Chinese context. By drawing on publicly available data online, I analyze the Deng Yujiao case to demonstrate how online public opinion can affect the judicial decision of a sensational case. I conclude that the rise of public participation promoted by the internet adds democratic elements to the Chinese criminal justice system by providing a means to monitor the exercise of governmental power and protect the rights of the disadvantaged.

Public Confidence In The Police: A Time-Series Analysis
Katy Sindall, Patrick Sturgis, and Will Jennings

Empirical analyses of the causes of public confidence in policing have been based almost entirely on cross-sectional survey data, with a consequent focus on between-group differences in levels of confidence at a single point in time. Our aim here is to introduce a time dimension to this area of investigation. Employing repeated cross-sectional survey data from the British Crime Survey, we apply time-series regression methods to show how confidence in policing changes over time for the aggregate population. Counter to cross-sectional findings, time-series analyses reveal that confidence in the police is not related to aggregate worry about crime and perceptions of social cohesion, nor informal social control, but only to perceptions of crime and the property crime rate.

Middle-Class Offenders: A 35-Year Follow-Up
Keith Soothill, Les Humphreys, and Brian Francis

The long-term outcome for middle-class offenders after conviction is an under-researched area in criminology. This present study considers 317 offenders—with a follow-up of at least 35 years—who are seeking white-collar employment after conviction. On the basis of their previous criminal history, five clusters of offenders can be identified using latent class analysis (LCA): low-rate white-collar, low-rate general, medium-rate acquisitive specialists, medium/high-rate generalists and high-rate generalists. Of the total series, 40 per cent were reconvicted of any standard-list offence, 24 per cent were reconvicted of a white-collar offence and 8 per cent were reconvicted of a sex or violence offence. The study helps to support the notion that middle-class persons are very much part of ‘the crime problem’.

Homicide In The Brazilian Favela: Does Opportunity Make the Killer?
Elenice De Souza and Joel Miller

High rates of homicide in Brazil are heavily concentrated in poor urban shanty towns or ‘favelas’. This paper looks beyond conventional social and economic explanations of homicides, and examines the relationship between situational factors and homicide incidents within a case-study favela in the city of Belo Horizonte. Initial exploratory research identified potential mechanisms linking local situational characteristics with homicide. A matched case–control study then tested hypotheses based on these mechanisms. When the characteristics of 100 addresses of homicide incidents were compared with those of 100 nearby non-homicide addresses, they showed statistical associations with drug areas, bars, alleys, windows onto the street and vehicular traffic, lending general empirical support to theorized situational mechanisms.

Adolescents’ Violent Victimization In The Neighbourhood: Situational and Contextual Determinants
David Maimon and Christopher R. Browning

Although recent research demonstrates the relevance of situational and structural-level processes in determining youth violent victimization, only scant attention has been given to these processes’ potential interactions. Accordingly, we study the interactive effects of unstructured socializing with peers, peer group orientation and neighbourhood social processes on adolescents’ violent victimization experiences in their neighbourhoods. Incorporating hypotheses from the routine activities and collective efficacy theories, we hypothesize that, while unstructured socializing with peers increases adolescents’ violent victimization, this effect is likely to be conditioned by the conventionality of peers and by the neighbourhood social context. We test this idea using data available in the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighbourhoods. Two important findings are reported. First, while unstructured socializing with peers is positively related to youths’ violent victimization in the neighbourhood, neighbourhood collective efficacy is negatively related to this outcome. Second, a significant and negative three-way cross-level interaction suggests that unstructured socializing with conventional peers is associated with violent victimization, but only when such activities occur within low collective efficacy neighbourhoods.

Social Forces 90(3)

Social Forces, March 2012: Volume 90, Issue 3

Economic Inequality

Retirement Patterns and Income Inequality
Anette Eva Fasang

How do social policies shape life courses, and which consequences do different life course patterns hold for individuals? This article engages the example of retirement in Germany and Britain to analyze life course patterns and their consequences for income inequality. Sequence analysis is used to measure retirement trajectories. The liberal welfare state in Britain generates more unstable retirement trajectories (differentiated) that are more dissimilar across the population (de-standardized) than the conservative-corporatist welfare state in Germany. Contrary to common conjectures, this is not associated with higher income inequality among retirees in Britain. This study concludes that there is no simple straightforward link between life course patterns and income inequality.

The Impact of Slavery on Racial Inequality in Poverty in the Contemporary U.S. South
Heather A. O'Connell

Despite Civil Rights legislation, racial inequality persists, especially in the context of poverty. This study advances the literature on racial inequality and the Southern legacy of slavery by examining slavery's relationship with inequality in poverty. I analyze county-level U.S. Census data using regression and spatial data analysis techniques. I find the 1860 slave concentration is related to contemporary black-white inequality in poverty, independent of contemporary demographic and economic conditions, racialized wealth disparities and racial threat. My research suggests the importance of slavery for shaping existing U.S. racial inequality patterns. Insights derived from this research, including the formulation of legacy as a place-based, continuous phenomenon that is distinct from racial threat, provide the basis for future research on legacy's mechanisms.

Careers

Better Off Jobless?: Scarring Effects of Contingent Employment in Japan
Wei-hsin Yu

Previous research fails to address whether contingent employment benefits individuals' careers more than the alternative they often face: being without a job. Using work history data from Japan, this study shows that accepting a contingent job delays individuals' transition to standard employment more than remaining jobless. Moreover, having a contingent job, rather than having no job, leads Japanese men to have lower occupational status after they transition back to standard employment. I argue that in a highly segmented labor market like Japan's, the strict separation of labor pools for standard and contingent jobs makes being labeled as a contingent worker particularly detrimental. Meanwhile, the legacy of Japan's welfare corporatism alleviates the stigma of unemployment, making individuals better off jobless than having a contingent job. This research thus demonstrates the importance of labor-market contexts in shaping the scarring effects of contingent work arrangements.

A Late Start: Delayed Entry, Life Course Transitions and Bachelor's Degree Completion
Josipa Roksa, Melissa Velez

While a substantial proportion of students delay entry into higher education, sociologists are only beginning to understand the consequences of this phenomenon for educational attainment. Previous studies have reported a negative relationship between delayed entry and degree completion, but they have not been able to explain it with a range of students' background characteristics. Results from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth of 1997 indicate that life course transitions, including work, marriage/cohabitation and parenthood, make a unique contribution to explaining this relationship. Adding life course transitions to the models that already control for a range of background characteristics helps to explain the negative relationship between delayed entry and degree completion. These findings have implications for studying educational success in higher education and understanding the process of educational attainment more broadly.

Family

Family Formation and Men's and Women's Attainment of Workplace Authority
Magnus Bygren, Michael Gähler

Using Swedish panel data, we assess whether the gender gap in supervisory authority has changed during the period 1968-2000, and investigate to what extent the gap can be attributed to gender-specific consequences of family formation. The results indicate that the gap has narrowed modestly during the period, and that the life-event of parenthood is a major cause. As long as women and men are childless and single, the gender gap in supervisory authority is marginal, even reversed. When men become fathers, however, they strongly increase their chances for supervisory authority whereas women's chances remain unaffected when they become mothers. We also find a male "marriage premium" on workplace authority, but this premium is generated by selection.

Mothers' Repartnering after a Nonmarital Birth
Sharon H. Bzostek, Sara S. McLanahan, Marcia J. Carlson

This article examines the prevalence, predictors and outcomes of unmarried mothers' repartnering patterns following a nonmarital birth. Results indicate that, within five years after a birth, approximately two-thirds of unmarried mothers end their relationship with the focal child's biological father, and more than half of these mothers enter new partnerships. Among those who repartnered, 60 percent of mothers formed unions with men who had higher economic capabilities than their former partners, 20 percent formed unions with men of similar capabilities, and 20 percent formed unions with men who had lower capabilities. This pattern holds for both nonresidential and coresidential unions. Our findings are consistent with marriage market, learning and evolutionary biology theories about union formation, and they provide support for qualitative evidence that unmarried mothers have high standards for new partners. While many mothers find new partners who seem to offer a higher level of economic security, many other mothers remain unpartnered, likely due (at least in part) to the limited pool of potential partners with relatively high levels of economic promise.

Crime

Enduring Consequences of Right-Wing Extremism: Klan Mobilization and Homicides in Southern Counties
Rory McVeigh, David Cunningham

Research on the consequences of social movements typically aims to identify determinants of success or to draw attention to ways that social movements are able to secure new benefits for constituents by gaining concessions from political authorities. Yet social movements, even those that are ultimately defeated, may have an enduring impact on the communities in which they were once active. This impact may be far removed from the movement's stated goals and may be detrimental to constituents and to society at large. We identify an empirical relationship between Ku Klux Klan activism in the 1960s and increased numbers of homicides in southern U.S. counties in subsequent decades. We explain this finding by drawing attention to ways in which right-wing extremism can disrupt community cohesion, generate mistrust in legal authorities, and promote interpretations of conflict and conflict resolution that weaken constraints on violent behavior.

Social Learning, Reinforcement and Crime: Evidence from Three European Cities
Charles R. Tittle, Olena Antonaccio, Ekaterina Botchkovar

This study reports a cross-cultural test of Social Learning Theory using direct measures of social learning constructs and focusing on the causal structure implied by the theory. Overall, the results strongly confirm the main thrust of the theory. Prior criminal reinforcement and current crime-favorable definitions are highly related in all three contexts and both strongly predict self-projections of criminal behavior. In addition, effects of prior reinforcement on projected misconduct appear to be both direct and indirect (through crime-favorable definitions). Yet, the findings also indicate that the processes underlying direct effects of reinforcement on criminal probabilities may need to be explicated further. Moreover, some types of definitions may be more influential than other types. Finally, parts of the reinforcement process may be affected by socio-cultural contexts.

Experimental Research

Panel Conditioning in a Longitudinal Study of Adolescents' Substance Use: Evidence from an Experiment
Florencia Torche, John Robert Warren, Andrew Halpern-Manners, Eduardo Valenzuela

Panel surveys are widely used in sociology to examine life-course trajectories and to assess causal effects. However, when using panel data researchers usually assume that the act of measuring respondents' attitudes and behaviors has no effect on the attributes being measured or on the accuracy of reports about those attributes. Evidence from cognitive psychology, marketing research, political science and other fields suggests that this assumption may not be warranted. Using a rigorous experimental design, we examine the magnitude of panel conditioning bias - the bias emerging from having answered questions in prior waves of a survey - in a panel study of substance use among adolescents in Chile. We find that adolescents who answered survey questions about alcohol, cigarette, marijuana and cocaine use were considerably less likely than members of a control group to report substance use when re-interviewed one year later. This finding has important implications, and also points to the need for sociologists to be concerned about panel conditioning as an important methodological issue.

How Norms Can Generate Conflict: An Experiment on the Failure of Cooperative Micro-motives on the Macro-level
Fabian Winter, Heiko Rauhut, Dirk Helbing

Why does the adherence to norms not prevent conflict? While the current literature focuses on the emergence, maintenance and impact of norms with regard to cooperation, the issue of norm-related conflict deserves more attention. We develop a general game theoretical model of "normative conflict" and explain how transaction failures on the macrolevel can result from cooperative motives on the microlevel. We differentiate between two kinds of conflict. The first results from distinct expectations regarding the way in which general normative obligations should be fulfilled, the second from distinct expectations as to how the norm should restrain actions based on self-interest. We demonstrate the empirical relevance of normative conflict in a version of the ultimatum game. Our data reveal widespread normative conflict among different types of actors - egoistic, equity, equality and cherry picker. Our findings demonstrate how cooperative intentions about how to divide a collectively produced good may fail to produce cooperative outcomes.

Organizations

Corporate Characteristics, Political Embeddedness and Environmental Pollution by Large U.S. Corporations
Harland Prechel, Lu Zheng

Organizational and environmental sociology contain surprisingly few studies of the corporation as one of the sources of environmental pollution. To fill this gap, we focus on the parent company as the unit of analysis and elaborate environmental theories that focus on the organizational and political-legal causes of pollution. Using a compiled longitudinal dataset of corporations in Standard & Poor's 500 from 1994 through 2001, we test hypotheses derived from an organizational political economy framework. We find that corporations with more complex structures, greater capital dependence and those headquartered in a state with lower environmental standards have higher pollution rates. In addition, the dollar amount of penalties did not curb pollution rates during this period of weakened federal environmental protection.

Networks

Segregation in Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Youth's Personal Networks: Testing Structural Constraint, Choice Homophily and Compartmentalization Hypotheses
Koji Ueno, Eric R. Wright, Mathew D. Gayman, Janice M. McCabe

Homophily promotes the development of social relationships within social groups and increases segregation across groups. Although prior research has demonstrated that network segregation operates in many dimensions such as race and gender, sexual orientation has received little attention. This study investigates what accounts for the segregation between gay, lesbian and bisexual friends and straight friends in GLB youth's personal networks by testing three possible underlying mechanisms - structural constraints, choice homophily and compartmentalization attempts. The analysis uses data collected from GLB youth who were becoming members of a community organization in Indiana from 1994 through 1998. Although the small, convenience sample does not allow generalization of the results, the rich network data provide important insights into personal network segregation in this unique social context. The results suggest that the segregation between GLB and straight friends result from structural constraints and friends' preference to interact within their groups, and that the focal GLB youth's effort to compartmentalize his or her sexual identity accounts little for the segregation.

Politics

The Impact of Race and Ethnicity, Immigration and Political Context on Participation in American Electoral Politics
John R. Logan, Jennifer Darrah, Sookhee Oh

This study uses national survey data in federal election years from 1996 through 2004 to examine voter registration and voting. It shows that racial/ethnic disparities in socio-economic resources and rootedness in the community do not explain overall group differences in electoral participation. It contradicts the expectation from an assimilation perspective that low levels of Latino participation are partly attributable to the large share of immigrants among Latinos. In fact net differences show higher average Latino participation than previously reported. The study focuses especially on contextual factors that could affect collective responses of group members. Moving beyond past research, significant effects are found for the group's representation among office holders, voting regulations and state policies related to treatment of immigrants.

Health

Bringing You More Than the Weekend: Union Membership and Self-rated Health in the United States
Megan M. Reynolds, David Brady

Previous research suggests that higher incomes, safe workplaces, job security and healthcare access all contribute to favorable health. Reflecting the interest of economic and political sociologists in power relations and institutions, union membership has been linked with many such influences on health. Nevertheless, the potential relationship between union membership and health has received little attention. Using logistic regression and propensity score matching, this study examines the association between union membership and self-rated health generally and among select subgroups of the workforce with the General Social Survey from 1973 to 2006. Initial bivariate analyses suggest that union membership is actually associated with worse health. This association disappears when controlling for demographics, then reverses and becomes significant when controlling for labor market characteristics. In well-specified models, union membership has a significant positive effect on favorable self-rated health. The effect roughly offsets the effects of five years of aging or being divorced (as opposed to married). In addition, propensity score matching analyses demonstrate that union membership has a beneficial, significant average treatment effect for the treated. We show that much of union membership's effect in the overall sample is due to the mechanism of higher incomes, but that among men, the less educated, and those with lower incomes, the union-health advantage is not explained fully by income. The effect of union membership also appears to be stable over time. We conclude by encouraging further research on how power relations and institutions shape health.

Theory and Society 41(4)

Theory and Society, June 2012: Volume 41, Issue 4

Memory, community, and opposition to mosques: the case of Badalona
Avi Astor

A number of recent studies have examined the sources of conflict surrounding the presence of Muslim minorities in Western contexts. This article builds upon, and challenges, some of the principal findings of this literature through analyzing popular opposition to mosques in Badalona, a historically industrial city in Catalonia where several of the most vigorous anti-mosque campaigns in Spain have occurred. Drawing upon 46 semi-structured interviews and ethnographic observation conducted over a two-year period, I argue that opposition to mosques in Badalona is not reducible to anti-Muslim prejudice or fears of Islamic extremism. Rather, it is rooted in powerful associations drawn between Islam, immigration, and a series of social problems affecting the character of communal life and the quality of cherished public spaces in the city. These associations are expressed through local narratives that emphasize a sharp rupture between a glorified ethnically homogeneous past of community and solidarity, and a troublesome multicultural present fraught with social insecurity and disintegration. I show how the construction of these “rupture narratives” has entailed active memory work that minimizes the significance of prior social cleavages and conflicts, and selectively focuses on disjuncture over continuity with the past. I also highlight how these narratives have been reinforced by strong socio-spatial divisions, which have intensified contestations over public space and led to the integration of mosque disputes into broader struggles over social justice and public recognition.

Experiential careers: the routinization and de-routinization of religious life
Iddo Tavory & Daniel Winchester

This article develops the concept of experiential careers, drawing theoretical attention to the routinization and de-routinization of specific experiences as they unfold over social career trajectories. Based on interviews and ethnographic fieldwork in two religious communities, we compare the social-temporal patterning of religious experience among newly religious Orthodox Jews and converted Muslims in two cities in the United States. In both cases, we find that as newly religious people work to transform their previous bodily habits and take on newly prescribed religious acts, the beginning of their religious careers becomes marked by what practitioners describe as potent religious experiences in situations of religious practice. However, over time, these once novel practices become routinized and religious experiences in these situations diminish, thus provoking actors and institutions in both fields to work to re-enchant religious life. Through this ethnographic comparison, we demonstrate the utility of focusing on experiential careers as a sociological unit of analysis. Doing so allows sociologists to use a non-reductive phenomenological approach to chart the shifting manifestations of experiences people deeply care about, along with the patterned enchantments, disenchantments, and possible re-enchantments these social careers entail. As such, this approach contributes to the analysis of social careers and experiences of “becoming” across both religious and non-religious domains.

Towards cosmopolitan citizenship? Women’s rights in divided Turkey
Nora Fisher Onar & Hande Paker

Identity politics and citizenship are often envisaged in dichotomous terms, but cosmopolitan theorists believe commitments to “thin” universal values can be generated from divergent “thick” positions. Yet, they often gloss over the ways in which the nexus of thick and thin is negotiated in practice—a weak link in the cosmopolitan argument. To understand this nexus better, we turn to women’s rights organizations (WROs) in polarized Turkey to show that women affiliated with rival camps (e.g., pro-religious/pro-secular, Turkish/Kurdish, liberal/leftist) can mobilize over issues like empowerment, violence against women, and education. However, thick readings of these issues inflect upon collaboration. This has spurred pro-religious and Kurdish women to develop strategies that flag their specific concerns. As such, mutual recognition along cosmopolitan lines appears possible—and is reinforced through iterative encounters—but is not necessarily negotiated between equally empowered agents and entails complex processes of contestation and concession-making.

Discourse or Dialogue? Habermas, the Bakhtin Circle, and the question of concrete utterances
John Michael Roberts

This article argues that the Bakhtin Circle presents a more realistic theory of concrete dialogue than the theory of discourse elaborated by Habermas. The Bakhtin Circle places speech within the “concrete whole utterance” and by this phrase they mean that the study of everyday language should be analyzed through the mediations of historical social systems such as capitalism. These mediations are also characterized by a determinate set of contradictions—the capital-labor contradiction in capitalism, for example—that are reproduced in unique ways in more concrete forms of life (the state, education, religion, culture, and so on). Utterances always dialectically refract these processes and as such are internal concrete moments, or concrete social forms, of them. Moreover, new and unrepeatable dialogic events arise in these concrete social forms in order to overcome and understand the constant dialectical flux of social life. But this theory of dialogue is different from that expounded by Habermas, who tends to explore speech acts by reproducing a dualism between repeatable and universal “abstract” discursive processes (commonly known as the ideal speech situation) and empirical uses of discourse. These critical points against Habermas are developed by focusing on six main areas: sentences and utterances; the lifeworld and background language; active versus passive understandings of language; validity claims; obligation and relevance in language; and dialectical universalism.

The ANNALS of the AAPSS 642

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, July 2012: Volume 642

Bringing Fieldwork Back In: Contemporary Urban Ethnographic Research

Preface
Elijah Anderson

The Iconic Ghetto
Elijah Anderson

The Legacy of Racial Caste: An Exploratory Ethnography
Elijah Anderson, Duke W. Austin, Craig Lapriece Holloway, and Vani S. Kulkarni

“An Air of Expectancy”: Class, Crisis, and the Making of Manhood at a Historically Black College for Men
Saida Grundy

Bonds of Brotherhood: Emotional and Social Support among College Black Men
Brandon A. Jackson

Abductive Ethnography of Practice in Highly Uncertain Conditions
Vida Bajc

“Scrub”: Using Multi-Site Analysis to Analyze the Status System among Basketball Players
Scott N. Brooks

Suspending Narrative Engagements: The Case of Pick-Up Basketball
Michael F. DeLand

“The Camera Rolls”: Using Third-Party Video in Field Research
Nikki Jones and Geoffrey Raymond

An Ethnographic Portrait of a Precarious Life: Getting By on Even Less
Waverly O. Duck

Down and Out in Atlantic City
Jacob Avery

The Making and Unmaking of Local Democracy in an Indian Village
Vani S. Kulkarni

“Call Me Mama”: An Ethnographic Portrait of an Employer of Undocumented Workers
Esther Chihye Kim

The Presentation of Self in Emigration: Eastern European Women in Italy
Martina Cvajner

“Influx”: Black Urban Women’s Migration to Rural Pennsylvania
Betty L. McCall

“Litterers”: How Objects of Physical Disorder Are Used to Construct Subjects of Social Disorder in a Suburb
Alexandra K. Murphy

Reflections of Self from Missing Things: How People Move On from Losing Possessions
Brandon Berry

Wounded: Life after the Shooting
Jooyoung Lee

Ethnography’s Expanding Warrants
Jack Katz

American Sociological Review 77(3)

American Sociological Review, June 2012: Volume 77, Issue 3

Neighborhood Diversity, Metropolitan Constraints, and Household Migration
Kyle Crowder, Jeremy Pais, and Scott J. South

Focusing on micro-level processes of residential segregation, this analysis combines data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics with contextual information from three censuses and several other sources to examine patterns of residential mobility between neighborhoods populated by different combinations of racial and ethnic groups. We find that despite the emergence of multiethnic neighborhoods, stratified mobility dynamics continue to dominate, with relatively few black or white households moving into neighborhoods that could be considered multiethnic. However, we also find that the tendency for white and black households to move between neighborhoods dominated by their own group varies significantly across metropolitan areas. Black and white households’ mobility into more integrated neighborhoods is shaped substantially by demographic, economic, political, and spatial features of the broader metropolitan area. Metropolitan-area racial composition, the stock of new housing, residential separation of black and white households, poverty rates, and functional specialization emerge as particularly important predictors. These macro-level effects reflect opportunities for intergroup residential contact as well as structural forces that maintain residential segregation.

Segregation and Poverty Concentration: The Role of Three Segregations
Lincoln Quillian

A key argument of Massey and Denton’s (1993) American Apartheid is that racial residential segregation and non-white group poverty rates combine interactively to produce spatially concentrated poverty. Despite a compelling theoretical rationale, empirical tests of this proposition have been negative or mixed. This article develops a formal decomposition model that expands Massey’s model of how segregation, group poverty rates, and other spatial conditions combine to form concentrated poverty. The revised decomposition model allows for income effects on cross-race neighborhood residence and interactive combinations of multiple spatial conditions in the formation of concentrated poverty. Applying the model to data reveals that racial segregation and income segregation within race contribute importantly to poverty concentration, as Massey argued. Almost equally important for poverty concentration, however, is the disproportionate poverty of blacks’ and Hispanics’ other-race neighbors. It is thus more accurate to describe concentrated poverty in minority communities as resulting from three segregations: racial segregation, poverty-status segregation within race, and segregation from high- and middle-income members of other racial groups. The missing interaction Massey expected in empirical tests can be found with proper accounting for the factors in the expanded model.

Resolving the Democracy Paradox: Democratization and Women’s Legislative Representation in Developing Nations, 1975 to 2009
Kathleen M. Fallon, Liam Swiss, and Jocelyn Viterna

Increasing levels of democratic freedoms should, in theory, improve women’s access to political positions. Yet studies demonstrate that democracy does little to improve women’s legislative representation. To resolve this paradox, we investigate how variations in the democratization process—including pre-transition legacies, historical experiences with elections, the global context of transition, and post-transition democratic freedoms and quotas—affect women’s representation in developing nations. We find that democratization’s effect is curvilinear. Women in non-democratic regimes often have high levels of legislative representation but little real political power. When democratization occurs, women’s representation initially drops, but with increasing democratic freedoms and additional elections, it increases again. The historical context of transition further moderates these effects. Prior to 1995, women’s representation increased most rapidly in countries transitioning from civil strife—but only when accompanied by gender quotas. After 1995 and the Beijing Conference on Women, the effectiveness of quotas becomes more universal, with the exception of post-communist countries. In these nations, quotas continue to do little to improve women’s representation. Our results, based on pooled time series analysis from 1975 to 2009, demonstrate that it is not democracy—as measured by a nation’s level of democratic freedoms at a particular moment in time—but rather the democratization process that matters for women’s legislative representation.

Making Redistributive Direct Democracy Matter: Development and Women’s Participation in the Gram Sabhas of Kerala, India
Christopher Gibson

Existing sociological theories highlight five explanations of development, which focus on leftist political parties in state power, women’s office-holding, state capacity, social capital and resource mobilization, and state expenditure. Increasingly, however, the execution of development schemes by large democratic states of the global South relies on citizen participation in what I define as Redistributive Direct Democracy (RDD). RDD institutions devolve formal authorities and create political opportunities for participants to themselves allocate and claim development benefits. Within India’s approximately two million local governments, a permanent RDD institution called the gram sabha offers all participants the formal, constitutional authority to directly select recipients of state benefits such as public housing and latrines. Drawing on fixed-effects, multivariate OLS analyses of data collected in a stratified random sample of 72 Indian local governments with active gram sabhas, I argue for a sixth, complementary explanation of development in democracies of the global South: women’s participation in RDD. My analysis demonstrates strongly positive and highly significant effects of women’s gram sabha participation on local development and a contrasting absence of support for longstanding explanations. These findings suggest that women’s participation in RDD can make these new and popular, but poorly understood institutions matter for development outcomes.

Accounting for Women’s Orgasm and Sexual Enjoyment in College Hookups and Relationships
Elizabeth A. Armstrong, Paula England, and Alison C. K. Fogarty

This article investigates the determinants of orgasm and sexual enjoyment in hookup and relationship sex among heterosexual college women and seeks to explain why relationship sex is better for women in terms of orgasm and sexual enjoyment. We use data from women respondents to a large online survey of undergraduates at 21 U.S. colleges and universities and from 85 in-depth interviews at two universities. We identify four general views of the sources of orgasm and sexual enjoyment—technically competent genital stimulation, partner-specific learning, commitment, and gender equality. We find that women have orgasms more often in relationships than in hookups. Regression analyses reveal that specific sexual practices, experience with a particular partner, and commitment all predict women’s orgasm and sexual enjoyment. The presence of more sexual practices conducive to women’s orgasm in relationship sex explains some of why orgasm is more common in relationships. Qualitative analysis suggests a double standard also contributes to why relationship sex is better for women: both men and women question women’s (but not men’s) entitlement to pleasure in hookups but believe strongly in women’s (as well as men’s) entitlement to pleasure in relationships. More attention is thus given to producing female orgasm in relationships.

School Context and the Gender Gap in Educational Achievement
Joscha Legewie and Thomas A. DiPrete

Today, boys generally underperform relative to girls in schools throughout the industrialized world. Building on theories about gender identity and reports from prior ethnographic classroom observations, we argue that school environment channels conceptions of masculinity in peer culture, fostering or inhibiting boys’ development of anti-school attitudes and behavior. Girls’ peer groups, by contrast, vary less strongly with the social environment in the extent to which school engagement is stigmatized as un-feminine. As a consequence, boys are more sensitive than girls to school resources that create a learning-oriented environment. To evaluate this argument, we use a quasi-experimental research design and estimate the gender difference in the causal effect of peer socioeconomic status (SES) as an important school resource on test scores. Our design is based on the assumption that assignment to 5th-grade classrooms within Berlin’s schools is as good as random, and we evaluate this selection process with an examination of Berlin’s school regulations, a simulation analysis, and qualitative interviews with school principals. Estimates of the effect of SES composition on male and female performance strongly support our central hypothesis, and other analyses support our proposed mechanism as the likely explanation for gender differences in the causal effect.

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Social Stratification in Mexico: Disentangling Color, Ethnicity, and Class
René Flores and Edward Telles

Flawed Statistical Reasoning and Misconceptions about Race and Ethnicity
Andrés Villarreal

Journal of Criminal Justice 40(3)

Journal of Criminal Justice, 2012: Volume 40, Issue 3

Toward a criminal justice epidemiology: Behavioral and physical health of probationers and parolees in the United States
Michael G. Vaughn, Matt DeLisi, Kevin M. Beaver, Brian E. Perron, Arnelyn Abdon

This study explicitly articulates a criminal justice epidemiology. Probationers and parolees report high substance use and reduced risk perception. Depression, asthma, and sexually transmitted diseases are relatively common. Behavioral health status hamper's efforts to increase public safety.

General strain theory, the criminal justice system and beyond: Introduction to the special issue
Robert Agnew, Matt DeLisi

General strain and non-strain theories: A study of crime in emerging adulthood
Sung Joon Jang, Jeremy R. Rhodes

The strain of child maltreatment and criminal victimization tends to increase crime and drug use. Anger and depression/anxiety mediate the effects of strain on predatory crimes and marijuana use. Low self-control and social bonds, but not deviant peer associations, mediate the strain effect. Deviant peer associations aggravate the strain effect and the effect of anger on violent crime. Low self-control increases the strain effect on violent crime, but social bonds does not moderate.

Can general strain theory be used to explain recidivism among registered sex offenders?
Alissa R. Ackerman, Meghan Sacks

Does prison strain lead to prison misbehavior? An application of general strain theory to inmate misconduct
Robert G. Morris, Michael L. Carriaga, Brie Diamond, Nicole Leeper Piquero, Alex R. Piquero

The findings lend support to general strain theory. Prison unit environmental strains are linked to inmate misconduct. The most deviant inmates may be overtly susceptible to environmental strains. This is the first study of prison misconduct to utilize trajectory analysis.

Childhood adversity and substance use of women prisoners: A general strain theory approach
Susan F. Sharp, B. Mitchell Peck, Jennifer Hartsfield

We utilize General Strain Theory to predict pre-incarceration daily drug use of women prisoners. We expand the use of General Strain Theory to an incarcerated population. We examine the separate and cumulative effects of adverse childhood experiences on substance use. Both separate and cumulative strain measures predict daily drug use. Separate strain measures work slightly better than cumulative in predicting daily drug use

Foster youth and crime: Employing general strain theory to promote understanding
Ravinder Barn, Jo-Pei Tan

We test General Strain Theory to examine the possible links between foster care outcomes and crime. Results show a significant relationship between key strains and criminal activity. Low self-esteem and poor life-skills also placed youngsters at risk of criminal activity. Qualitative interviews shed light on the human stories and help contribute to the literature on GST.

The strains of maternal imprisonment: Importation and deprivation stressors for women and children
Holly Foster

Maternal and intergenerational strains are identified from incarcerated mothers Maternal Importation and deprivation strains increase maternal health problems Importation and deprivation strains increase children's subjective weathering

Perceived injustice and delinquency: A test of general strain theory
Cesar J. Rebellon, Michelle E. Manasse, Karen T. Van Gundy, Ellen S. Cohn

Youth who perceive unfair treatment are more delinquent Anger mediates the relation between unfair treatment and delinquency Results persist net of controls for such variables as self-control

An uneven playing field: The impact of strain and coping skills on treatment outcomes for juvenile offenders
Miriam D. Sealock, Michelle Manasse

General strain theory's relevancy in the context of treatment program success. No direct effect of strain on post-treatment delinquency and drug use. Social coping skills had a negative direct effect on delinquency. Some coping skills mitigated the negative impact of strain and others intensified it. Coping skills influenced outcomes differently depending on pre-treatment strain levels.

The influence of occupational strain on organizational commitment among police: A general strain theory approach
Melissa M. Moon, Cheryl Lero Jonson

Dealing with the fall-Out: Identifying and addressing the role that relationship strain plays in the lives of girls in the juvenile justice system
Crystal A. Garcia, Jodi Lane

Girls, women and justice staff agree about what leads girls into trouble. There is clear evidence that relationship strain is a major problem for girls. There are three types of relationship strain: familial, love and frenemy strain. The type of relationship strain a girl experiences influences her coping behavior.

Theoretical Criminology 16(2)

Theoretical Criminology, 2012: Volume 16, Issue 2

Special Issue: Theorizing Punishment’s Boundaries

Theorizing punishment’s boundaries: An introduction
Kelly Hannah-Moffat and Mona Lynch

Articles

Subjectivity and identity in detention: Punishment and society in a global age
Mary Bosworth

This article draws on ethnographic research that I conducted in five British immigration removal centres from November 2009 to June 2011, and considers the challenges these institutions pose to our understanding of penal power. These centres contain a complex mix of foreign national citizens including former and current asylum seekers, those without visas, visa over-stayers and post-sentence foreign national prisoners. For many non-British offenders, a period of confinement in an immigration detention centre is now, effectively, part of their punishment. What are the implications of this dual confinement and (how) can we understand it within the intellectual framework of punishment and society?

Digesting men? Ethnicity, gender and food: Perspectives from a ‘prison ethnography’
Rod Earle and Coretta Phillips

Drawing from an ethnographic study of men’s social relations in an English prison, this article explores the potential of attending closely to men’s practice for the light it may shed on the boundaries of punishment. Interviews with prisoners and fieldwork experiences reveal something of the way prison acts on an ethnically diverse group of men. Focusing on the way men use cooking facilities on the prison’s wings, the article explores the way men make food for themselves and each other and thereby occupy prison space with unconventional (and conventional) gender practice. Using intersectional perspectives the article shows how practices of racialization, racism, conviviality and coercion are woven into the fabric of prison life. These quotidian experiences are juxtaposed against the question of how prisons and prisoner populations represent a spectrum of violence in which gender dynamics remain under-examined. By providing glimpses of men’s lives in an English prison to reveal aspects of the ways masculinities and ethnicities interact to shape a penal regime the authors offer some resources for, and perspective on, the theorization of punishment’s boundaries.

The purloined prisoner
Sora Y. Han

This article argues, in the form of demonstration, for the necessity of disciplinary openness in punishment and society scholarship. Theories about the political culture of punishment and sentimental accounts of the toll mass incarceration takes on the personal lives of millions are insufficient for developing a critical knowledge of the relationship between race, law and gender. Approaching the object of the letter unfettered by traditional disciplinary methods, the article traces the centrality of the prisoner’s letter in the lifeworld of punishment. The letter is analyzed as both itself a paper-trail, and the subject of various other forms of paper-trails, including prisoners’ First Amendment rights jurisprudence, official political rhetoric, and cinematic production.

Theorizing the role of the ‘war on drugs’ in US punishment
Mona Lynch

Numerous scholars have described how the ‘war on drugs’ has played a central role in US penal change, especially its racialized impact. Yet there remain aspects of this ‘war’ that are under-explored in punishment and society scholarship. This article delineates five distinct modes by which the contemporary regulation of drugs in the USA speaks to penal change, and in so doing suggests that its reach is much more diffuse, insidious, and variegated than suggested by prevailing conceptualizations of the drug war–punishment relationship.

Shifting and targeted forms of penal governance: Bail, punishment and specialized courts
Kelly Hannah-Moffat and Paula Maurutto

Studies of punishment have focused predominantly on emerging forms of penal governance, and the revival of punitive forms of punishment. Although this research helps to raise concerns about forms of penal excess and neoliberal penal patterns, it does not clarify how these strategies co-exist with, modify and are re-assembled with older and sometimes seemingly contradictory penal strategies. Our article examines how practices used by Canadian specialized courts are changing the parameters of punishment and thereby challenging the prevailing theories about neo-liberal punishment. Specialized courts are motivated by therapeutic and preventative goals, and they rely on relationships with local community groups to create a new range of interactions with the court and the offender. Our analysis of how bail strategies and techniques are altered in specialized courts provides a valuable context in which to analyse emerging theoretical issues associated with the management of risk, community/court interactions, the connotation of ‘therapeutic justice’ and the subtext of punishment and penal change.

Mapping the shadow carceral state: Toward an institutionally capacious approach to punishment
Katherine Beckett and Naomi Murakawa

The expansion of the US carceral state has been accompanied by the emergence of what we call the ‘shadow carceral state’. Operating beyond the confines of criminal law and justice institutions, the shadow carceral state expands penal power through institutional annexation and legal hybridity, including: (1) increased civil and administrative pathways to incarceration; (2) the creation of civil ‘alternatives’ to invalidated criminal statutes; and (3) the incorporation of criminal law into administrative legal processes in ways that enhance state carceral power. Although legal doctrine deems civil and administration sanctions to be ‘not-punishment’, we call for a broad understanding of penal power and the carceral state.

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Analyzing punishment: Scope and scale
Mariana Valverde