Criminology Commons^™

The Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On The Well-Being Of People Incarcerated In United States Prisons, Kimberly Rivera

Department of Sociology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted the population as a whole. However, the incarcerated population (which also experiences a variety of health disparities) has been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. Due to overcrowding, poor ventilation, and lack of resources, the incarcerated population already is at a heightened risk for negative health outcomes, made worse by the recent pandemic. To adapt to the rapidly changing conditions during the pandemic in 2020 and into 2022, new safety measures were implemented, but the unintended consequences associated with the implementation of these procedures have yet to be examined empirically. I conducted a qualitative content …

The War On Drugs And Its Legal Effects On Black Americans, Alexia L. Howard-Mullins

2022 Symposium

The differences in treatment between Black and white Americans in the past fifty years has been a topic of thought in the minds of political and sociological scholars since the inception of the War on Drugs in 1971. These differences in treatment may lead to discrimination legally, resulting in longer prison sentences and a higher proportion of Black Americans in prison. This study analyzes the results of the War on Drugs that led to disproportionate imprisonment of Black Americans, including mandatory sentencing laws, drug classifications, and discrimination within law enforcement and the legal system. This study will use primary sources …

Reforming United States Prisons: A Cross-Cultural Analysis, Alex Henkel

Honors Theses

This paper examines the United States prison system and its standing among peer countries, as well as potential reforms to improve this system and its effectiveness. The incarceration statistics of many different countries show that the United States incarcerates significantly more of its population than similar countries. I turn to an examination of how penal policies are formed across the world to evaluate their impact on the U.S. prison rate compared to other countries. Additionally, I look at recidivism to determine the effectiveness of United States incarceration. This analysis aims to highlight the differences between the U.S. and other countries …

Examining Trauma And Crime By Gender And Sexual Orientation Among Youth: Findings From The Add Health National Longitudinal Study, Jinhee Yun, Miyuki F. Tedor, Matthias I. Quinn, Linda M. Quinn, Christopher A. Mallett

Criminology, Anthropology, & Sociology Faculty Publications

LGBTQ youth, and in particular those of color, are significantly more at risk for experiencing trauma at home and in their community, having school difficulties including bullying and suspensions, and subsequently being involved with the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Research is limited in understanding the pathways these young people take toward youthful and young adult offending and incarceration. The national longitudinal Add Health study data were used to explain how trauma, sexual orientation (gay, bisexual), school experiences, gender, and race impacted juvenile and adult criminal activity and incarceration—looking at a trauma-delinquency-crime link. It was found that females were more …

Circling The Wagons: A Re-Entry Program For Substance Use In Nh, Angela Leigh Walter

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation aimed to adapt Circles of Support and Accountability (CoSA) to a substance-involved population in New Hampshire (NH). CoSA is a volunteer-based community program that provides accountability and various forms of support to previously incarcerated individuals rejoining the community. Program recommendations were created through qualitative realist thematic analysis of a literature review and interviews. Recommendations were integrated with existing CoSA manuals to create the proposed program. NH CoSA, through the principles of narrative reconstruction, risk-need-responsivity, and the Good Lives Model, aims to help individuals successfully re-integrate into their community over a period of about a year. The program will …

Caregivers’ Expectations, Reflected Appraisals, And Arrests Among Adolescents Who Experienced Parental Incarceration, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Melissa Noel

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

This research sought to identify a potential process by which intergenerational crime occurs, focusing on the effect of parental incarceration on adolescents’ subsequent arrests. We drew from Matsueda’s work on reflected appraisals as an explanatory mechanism for this effect. Thus, the present research examined whether caregivers’ and adolescents’ expectations for adolescents’ future incarceration sequentially mediated the effect of parental incarceration on adolescents’ actual arrest outcomes. Propensity score matching was used to examine this effect in a sample of 1,735 15- to 16-year-olds using NLSY97 data. Parental incarceration was positively related to caregivers’ expectations of adolescents’ future arrest. Moreover, caregivers’ expectations …

Does Imprisonment Have An Effect On Crime Rates?, Diana E. Mendez

Student Publications

Since the 1790s, prisons in the United States were built with the means of reducing crime rates through the usage of incapacitation, deterrence, and rehabilitation. However, while it may seem intuitive to assume that higher incarceration rates yield lower crime rates, it is not regularly the case. Using the 2016 States dataset, I examine the effects of incarceration rates and its influence on crime rates in the United States; I suggest that states with higher incarceration rates will have higher crime rates than states with lower incarceration rates. Therefore, the evidence concludes states with high incarceration rates generate higher rates …

Where Were The Lesbians In The Stonewall Riots? The Women’S House Of Detention & Lesbian Resistance, Polly Thistlethwaite

Publications and Research

Where were the lesbians in the Stonewall Riots? They were jailed in the House of Detention for Women in Greenwich Village, New York City, two blocks away from the Stonewall Inn. Lesbians in the Women's House of Detention shouted from the windows to the rioters in the streets below, fueling the momentum of the Stonewall uprising. The women's prison was a site of lesbian confinement and resistance that inspired the 1969 uprising in Greenwich Village.

Polly Thistlethwaite is Chief Librarian at the Graduate Center, CUNY. She volunteered at the Lesbian Herstory Archives 1986 – 1997.

Criminal Justice Systems: Impacts That Transcend Borders & Prison Bars, Erika Yeager

Senior Honors Projects

Historically, the concepts of criminal justice and punishment have been core facets of many societies and cultures. The evolution of crime and punishment is unique in different places across the world and across cultures. The incarceration of individuals across the globe has turned into an epidemic; according to the Institute for Criminal Policy Research, there are almost 10.4 million individuals imprisoned around the world (“Global Prison Trends” 7). By researching this political and sociological phenomenon, more insight is gained into the tangible impacts systemic models of criminal justice have on societies and countries as a whole. These individualized systems and …

Fear Of Victimization Among Incarcerated Youths: Examining The Effects Of Institutional “Neighborhood” Characteristics And Gang Membership, Jodi Lane, Gaylene Armstrong, Kathleen A. Fox

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

This study examines whether neighborhood factors found to predict fear of crime among the general population can be adapted to explain inmate fear of victimization inside juvenile correctional institutions. We test (a) whether institutional physical disorder, resident trust, and formal social control can predict fear of victimization, and (b) whether the importance of these factors for fear of victimization varies based on preincarceration street gang status. Using data from a large national sample of incarcerated youths, findings indicate non-gang members are more afraid of institutional victimization than gang members, confirming findings about levels of fear between these groups on the …

Criminal Justice Majors: Are They Tougher On Crime?, Anthony Javornik

Honors College Theses

The United States of America incarcerates more individuals than any other nation in the world. Therefore, the United States has one of the most active correctional systems and it is imperative to examine the system thoroughly. Generally speaking, there have been 3 accepted models of the correctional system since the 1940’s: custodial, rehabilitation, and reintegration. Although it is possible to find institutions that subscribe to each of these models respectively, the custodial model is the most common in the United States. Therefore, this study seeks to examine college students’ perception of crime, in order to help explain why the general …

Pretrial Detention And Bail, Megan Stevenson, Sandra G. Mayson

All Faculty Scholarship

Our current pretrial system imposes high costs on both the people who are detained pretrial and the taxpayers who foot the bill. These costs have prompted a surge of bail reform around the country. Reformers seek to reduce pretrial detention rates, as well as racial and socioeconomic disparities in the pretrial system, while simultaneously improving appearance rates and reducing pretrial crime. The current state of pretrial practice suggests that there is ample room for improvement. Bail hearings are often cursory, with no defense counsel present. Money-bail practices lead to high rates of detention even among misdemeanor defendants and those who …

“We Incarcerate To Set Free:” Negotiating Punishment And Rehabilitation In Jail, Brittnie L. Aiello

Criminology Faculty Publications

Criminology has documented the decline of rehabilitation in the age of get-tough approaches to crime and punishment. Therapy and punishment, however, are not mutually exclusive. Rehabilitation and traditional punishment have long co-existed in penal facilities. In this article, I examine the role of rehabilitation at Northeast Jail, a county jail in the U.S. that adhered to an ideology of rehabilitation. But Northeast Jail was, first and foremost, a penal facility where offenders were confined and punished. While staff and administrators at Northeast Jail routinely invoked a rhetoric of rehabilitation, they adhered to rules and engaged in punitive practices that interfered …

First Year Evaluation Of The Legal Action Of Wisconsin Disabled Offenders Economic Security (Does) Project Conducted For The Wisconsin Department Of Corrections, John Pawasarat, Lois M. Quinn

ETI Publications

Among the most challenging populations released from Wisconsin Department of Corrections institutions are offenders with serious mental and physical disabilities that impede their ability to hold gainful employment and present serious mental and physical health conditions often requiring medications and continuing medical care. The Disabled Offenders Economic Security (DOES) Project offered assistance to prison inmates who have serious mental health and disability conditions prior to their release from DoC institutions. Legal Action of Wisconsin attorneys served as benefit specialists helping soon-to-be-released disabled offenders acquire Supplemental Security Income, Social Security Disability Income, medical assistance, and other public benefits for which they …

How Porous Are The Walls That Separate Us?: Transformative Service-Learning, Women’S Incarceration, And The Unsettled Self, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Journal Articles

In this article, we refine a politics of thinking from the margins by exploring a pedagogical model that advances transformative notions of service learning as social justice teaching. Drawing on a recent course we taught involving both incarcerated women and traditional college students, we contend that when communication among differentiated and stratified parties occurs, one possible result is not just a view of the other but also a transformation of the self and other. More specifically, we suggest that an engaged feminist praxis of teaching incarcerated women together with college students helps illuminate the porous nature of fixed markers that …

An Assessment Of Cross-National Variation In Rates Of Incarceration, Ryan E. Spohn, Travis Linnemann

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Our theoretical approach compares the relative efficacy of multiple theories of law and social control. From a general social threat perspective, we find that variables reflecting the size of the unemployed youth population and general measures of income inequality have positive impacts on a nation's rates of incarceration. We also find partial support for one of Durkheim's laws of quantitative change and penal evolution, in that, all else equal, nations with a more authoritarian form of government utilize incarceration at a higher rate than their more democratic counterparts. We also find that the institutional anomie perspective, which has previously been …

The Domestic Violence Experiences Of Women In Community Corrections, Rachel Bridges Whaley, Angela M. Moe, Mark Eddy, Jean Daugherty

Sociology Faculty Publications

A variety of studies indicate high rates of domestic violence in the backgrounds of women offenders. We examine and extend this work through a qualitative study of women on probation or parole in a western U.S. county. In-depth interviews were conducted with 14 women who participated in a larger study in which only questionnaire data were collected. Participants completed a brief telephone interview about prior experiences of partner violence and then a face-to-face extensive in-person interview. In the analyses, several notable themes emerged regarding the women’s histories of child victimization, partner abuse, substance abuse, coercion into crime, and a lack …

Incarceration Nation: Investigative Prison Poems Of Hope And Terror [Book Review], Lisa M. Tillmann Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

The author reviews the book Incarceration Nation: Investigative Prison Poems of Hope and Terror by Stephen John Hartnett.

Mothering, Crime And Incarceration, Kathleen J. Ferraro, Angela M. Moe

Sociology Faculty Publications

This article examines the relationships between mothering, crime, and incarceration through the narratives of thirty women incarcerated in a southwestern county jail. The responsibilities of child care, combined with the burdens of economic marginality and domestic violence, led some women to choose economic crimes or drug dealing as an alternative to hunger and homelessness. Other women, arrested for drug- or alcohol-related crimes, related their offenses to the psychological pain and despair resulting from loss of custody of their children. Many women were incarcerated for minor probation violations that often related to the conflict between work, child care, and probation requirements. …

Malign Neglect Or Benign Respect: Women’S Health Care In A Carceral Setting, Angela M. Moe, Kathleen J. Ferraro

Sociology Faculty Publications

A central tenet of feminist criminological scholarship is the examination of women’s experiences with crime and incarceration through their own narratives. Through semi-structured interviews with thirty jailed women, this article examines carceral conditions through the critical lens of the female inmate. Highlighted in this article is the availability and quality of health care in a detention center in Arizona. The findings indicate a contentious duality, exposing both heinous neglect and benign solicitude in the care delivered to jailed women. This duality is situated within the dismal health care system available to indigent women in the region.

Restorative Visions In Aboriginal Australia, Harry Blagg

Aboriginal Policy Research Consortium International (APRCi)

No abstract provided.