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525 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Family Complexity and the Stress Process in Prison: How Sibling Living Arrangements of Minor Children Influence Maternal Role Strains

by Holly Foster

Soc. Sci. 2017, 6(3), 81; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci6030081 - 26 Jul 2017

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 4644

Abstract

This paper offers a life-course stress process perspective on maternal role strain as a ‘pain of imprisonment’ by engaging the concept of ‘family complexity’ in the context of mass incarceration I consider how the living arrangements of minor siblings (i.e., those living apart [...] Read more.

This paper offers a life-course stress process perspective on maternal role strain as a ‘pain of imprisonment’ by engaging the concept of ‘family complexity’ in the context of mass incarceration I consider how the living arrangements of minor siblings (i.e., those living apart or together) during maternal incarceration functions as a form of family complexity. When minor children live apart from their siblings, they may experience more isolation which may further serve as a stressor for incarcerated mothers. A positive association between siblings living apart and maternal role strain would support a process of ‘stress proliferation’ across the prison-family interface. I investigate these connections using survey-based data on mothers with multiple minor children (n = 80) collected in 2011 from a voluntary sample of respondents housed in a federal minimum security prison in the United States. Multivariate logistic regression results indicate that minor siblings living apart during periods of maternal confinement elevates role strain among mothers (odds ratio = 3.66, p < 0.05). This connection is indicative of an ‘inter-institutional strain.’ Finally, children’s age also increases maternal role strain, but this finding is explained by sibling living arrangements during the mother’s incarceration. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Demography of Crime, Mass Incarceration, and Population Regulation)

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1554 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Media Exposure and Racialized Perceptions of Inequities in Criminal Justice

by Valerie Wright and Isaac Unah

Soc. Sci. 2017, 6(3), 67; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci6030067 - 25 Jun 2017

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 10479

Abstract

Does media exposure to salient criminological events exacerbate racialized perceptions of injustice? We examine whether closely following media coverage of the fatal encounter of George Zimmerman’s shooting of Trayvon Martin moderates racial and ethnic differences in opinion surrounding the event and the U.S. [...] Read more.

Does media exposure to salient criminological events exacerbate racialized perceptions of injustice? We examine whether closely following media coverage of the fatal encounter of George Zimmerman’s shooting of Trayvon Martin moderates racial and ethnic differences in opinion surrounding the event and the U.S. criminal justice system. Our analysis addresses several key aspects of the case: Whether Zimmerman would have been arrested sooner if Martin had been white, whether respondents felt Zimmerman’s acquittal was justified, and whether there is racial bias against African Americans in the criminal justice system. Relying on national opinion surveys before and after Zimmerman’s trial verdict, our findings support the racial gradient thesis by demonstrating that sustained exposure to racialized framing of the incident in the media affects Hispanics the most and hardens entrenched attitudes among African Americans relative to whites. The analysis supports the continuing relevance of the mass media in attitude formation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Demography of Crime, Mass Incarceration, and Population Regulation)

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1346 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

The Strategies, Complexities, and Realities of Zero Prison Population Growth

by Evelyn J. Patterson

Soc. Sci. 2017, 6(2), 60; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci6020060 - 8 Jun 2017

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 5527

Abstract

Although there is general consensus that growth in the prison population should be reversed, there is little agreement on how to achieve this goal. In this paper, I apply classic demographic methods to answer questions that assess the strategies, complexities, and realities of [...] Read more.

Although there is general consensus that growth in the prison population should be reversed, there is little agreement on how to achieve this goal. In this paper, I apply classic demographic methods to answer questions that assess the strategies, complexities, and realities of routes to zero and negative prison population growth. Modified admissions policies have had the greatest impact on halting growth, whereas decreasing the length of sentences has had only a modest, short-term influence on the prison population size. As state and federal policy-makers consider reducing sentences for selective classes of nonviolent offenders, it is important that they have a holistic understanding of the implications of such policies. Traditionally, this type of modification has been coupled with more punitive policies for violent offenders, a pattern that reinforces the appearance of having “tough on crime” policies. Model estimates show that such strategies countervail the overall goal of decreasing the size of the prison population. Regardless of underlying reasons to halt growth of the prison populations, integration of the formal demography enable a means to assess the short- and long-term consequences of current and future policy. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Demography of Crime, Mass Incarceration, and Population Regulation)

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1002 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Prisons as Panacea or Pariah? The Countervailing Consequences of the Prison Boom on the Political Economy of Rural Towns

by John M. Eason

Soc. Sci. 2017, 6(1), 7; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci6010007 - 12 Jan 2017

Cited by 15 | Viewed by 16460

Abstract

The nascent literature on prison proliferation in the United States typically reveals negative impacts for communities of color. Given that Southern rural communities were the most likely to build during the prison boom (1970–2010), however, a more nuanced understanding of prison impact is [...] Read more.

The nascent literature on prison proliferation in the United States typically reveals negative impacts for communities of color. Given that Southern rural communities were the most likely to build during the prison boom (1970–2010), however, a more nuanced understanding of prison impact is warranted. Using a dataset matching and geocoding all 1663 U.S. prisons with their Census-appointed place, this study explores the countervailing consequences of the prison boom on rural towns across multiple periods. For example, locales that adopted prisons at earlier stages of the prison boom era received a short-term boom compared to those that did not, but these effects were not lasting. Furthermore, later in the boom, prison-building protected towns against additional economic decline. Thus, neither entirely pariah nor panacea, the prison functions as a state-sponsored public works program for disadvantaged rural communities but also supports perverse economic incentives for prison proliferation. Methodological, substantive, theoretical, and policy implications regarding the intersection of race and punishment are explored. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Demography of Crime, Mass Incarceration, and Population Regulation)

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330 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Malthus and the Philanthropists, 1764–1859: The Cultural Circulation of Political Economy, Botany, and Natural Knowledge

by J. Marc MacDonald

Soc. Sci. 2017, 6(1), 4; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci6010004 - 10 Jan 2017

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 7581

Abstract

Modernity does not possess a monopoly on mass incarceration, population fears, forced migration, famine, or climatic change. Indeed, contemporary and early modern concerns over these matters have extended interests in Thomas Malthus. Yet, despite extensive research on population issues, little work explicates the [...] Read more.

Modernity does not possess a monopoly on mass incarceration, population fears, forced migration, famine, or climatic change. Indeed, contemporary and early modern concerns over these matters have extended interests in Thomas Malthus. Yet, despite extensive research on population issues, little work explicates the genesis of population knowledge production or how the process of intellectual transfer occurred during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This paper examines the Delessert network’s instrumental role in cultivating, curating, and circulating knowledge that popularized Malthusian population theory, including the theory’s constitutive elements of political economy, philanthropy, industry, agriculture, and botany. I show how deviant, nonconformist groups suffered forced migration for their political philosophy, particularly during the revolutionary 1790s, resulting in their imprisonment and migration to America. A consequence of these social shifts was the diffusion and dissemination of population theory—as a pursuit of scientific knowledge and exploration—across both sides of the Atlantic. By focusing on the Delesserts and their social network, I find that a byproduct of inter and intra continental migration among European elites was a knowledge exchange that stimulated Malthus’s thesis on population and Genevan Augustin Pyramus Candolle’s research on botany, ultimately culminating in Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection and human evolution. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Demography of Crime, Mass Incarceration, and Population Regulation)

245 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Militarization of Mass Incapacitation and Torture during the Sunni Insurgency and American Occupation of Iraq

by John L. Hagan and Anna Hanson

Soc. Sci. 2016, 5(4), 78; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci5040078 - 30 Nov 2016

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 5042

Abstract

While scholars and journalists have focused important attention on the recent militarization of intensive policing and imprisonment policies in the United States, there is little reciprocal recognition of how militarized versions of these policies were also exported for use in the occupation of [...] Read more.

While scholars and journalists have focused important attention on the recent militarization of intensive policing and imprisonment policies in the United States, there is little reciprocal recognition of how militarized versions of these policies were also exported for use in the occupation of Iraq. Intensive policing and imprisonment enabled the American-led and Shia-dominated Iraq Ministries of Defense and Interior along with U.S. forces to play significant roles in the ethnic cleansing and displacement of Arab Sunnis from Baghdad neighborhoods, and in their disproportionate detention in military- and militia-operated facilities, of which the Abu Ghraib prison is only the best known. The failure of American authorities alone and working with Iraq’s government to intervene in stopping the use of police and prisons as places of torture is a violation of U.N.-invoked and U.S.-ratified treaties, and thereby subject to prosecution. Such prosecutions have imported into international law the concept of “joint criminal enterprise” anticipated by the criminologist Donald Cressey and incorporated in the American Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statutes used to convict organized criminals. We elaborate how the concept of joint criminal enterprise can be used to understand and possibly prosecute a chain of command responsibility for the use of policing and prisons as sites of torture in Iraq. We analyze the previously neglected international consequences of U.S. policing, prison, and mass incapacitation strategies with links to American criminology. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Demography of Crime, Mass Incarceration, and Population Regulation)

261 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

The New Eugenics: Black Hyper-Incarceration and Human Abatement

by James C. Oleson

Soc. Sci. 2016, 5(4), 66; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci5040066 - 25 Oct 2016

Cited by 13 | Viewed by 14279

Abstract

In the early twentieth century, the eugenics movement exercised considerable influence over domestic US public policy. Positive eugenics encouraged the reproduction of “fit” human specimens while negative eugenics attempted to reduce the reproduction of “unfit” specimens like the “feebleminded” and the criminal. Although [...] Read more.

In the early twentieth century, the eugenics movement exercised considerable influence over domestic US public policy. Positive eugenics encouraged the reproduction of “fit” human specimens while negative eugenics attempted to reduce the reproduction of “unfit” specimens like the “feebleminded” and the criminal. Although eugenics became a taboo concept after World War II, it did not disappear. It was merely repackaged. Incarceration is no longer related to stated eugenic goals, yet incapacitation in prisons still exerts a prophylactic effect on human reproduction. Because minorities are incarcerated in disproportionately high numbers, the prophylactic effect of incarceration affects them most dramatically. In fact, for black males, the effect of hyper-incarceration might be so great as to depress overall reproduction rates. This article identifies some of the legal and extralegal variables that would be relevant for such an analysis and calls for such an investigation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Demography of Crime, Mass Incarceration, and Population Regulation)

2443 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Banishment in Public Housing: Testing an Evolution of Broken Windows

by Jose Torres, Jacob Apkarian and James Hawdon

Soc. Sci. 2016, 5(4), 61; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci5040061 - 14 Oct 2016

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 9426

Abstract

Banishment policies grant police the authority to formally ban individuals from entering public housing and arrest them for trespassing if they violate the ban. Despite its widespread use and the social consequences resulting from it, an empirical evaluation of the effectiveness of banishment [...] Read more.

Banishment policies grant police the authority to formally ban individuals from entering public housing and arrest them for trespassing if they violate the ban. Despite its widespread use and the social consequences resulting from it, an empirical evaluation of the effectiveness of banishment has not been performed. Understanding banishment enforcement is an evolution of broken windows policing, this study explores how effective bans are at reducing crime in public housing. We analyze crime data, spanning the years 2001–2012, from six public housing communities and 13 surrounding communities in one southeastern U.S. city. Using Arellano-Bond dynamic panel models, we investigate whether or not issuing bans predicts reductions in property and violent crimes as well as increases in drug and trespass arrests in public housing. We find that this brand of broken windows policing does reduce crime, albeit relatively small reductions and only for property crime, while resulting in an increase in trespass arrests. Given our findings that these policies have only a modest impact on property crime, yet produce relatively larger increases in arrests for minor offenses in communities of color, and ultimately have no significant impact on violent crime, it will be important for police, communities, and policy makers to discuss whether the returns are worth the potential costs. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Demography of Crime, Mass Incarceration, and Population Regulation)

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1269 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Population Growth, Migration, and Changes in the Racial Differential in Imprisonment in the United States, 1940–1980

by David J. Harding and Christopher Winship

Soc. Sci. 2016, 5(3), 32; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci5030032 - 20 Jul 2016

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 6904

Abstract

The proportion of U.S. prison inmates who were black increased dramatically between 1940 and 2000. While about two-thirds of the increase occurred between 1940 and 1970, most recent research analyzes the period after 1970, focusing on explanations such as the war on drugs, [...] Read more.

The proportion of U.S. prison inmates who were black increased dramatically between 1940 and 2000. While about two-thirds of the increase occurred between 1940 and 1970, most recent research analyzes the period after 1970, focusing on explanations such as the war on drugs, law-and-order politics, discrimination, inequality, and racial threat. We analyze the growth in the racial difference in incarceration between 1940 and 1980, focusing on the role of demographic processes, particularly population growth, migration, and urbanization. We implement three analyses to assess the role of these demographic processes: (1) a simple accounting model that decomposes the national trend into population growth, changes in arrests, and changes in sentencing; (2) a model of state variation in incarceration that decomposes the racial difference in incarceration into population change, migration between states with different incarceration rates, and other processes; and (3) race-specific models of within-state variation in incarceration rates using state characteristics coupled with a decomposition of the role of changes in state characteristics. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Demography of Crime, Mass Incarceration, and Population Regulation)

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