Digital Commons Network^™

Predicting Staff Sexual Misconduct In Female Housing Units: Individual Versus Social Climate Factors, Hannah Mae Robbins-Johnson

Online Theses and Dissertations

Staff sexual misconduct in prison has received increased attention since passage of the Prison Rape Elimination Act. As part of a larger investigation of violence and conflict in women's correctional facilities, over four thousand women prisoners from 15 facilities and 80 housing units rated the kinds of inmate and staff problems they felt existed in their housing units, including staff sexual misconduct. Due to the data being nested in housing units, we utilized multilevel regression analyses that regressed staff sexual misconduct scores on a range of individual and social climate variables. Social climate variables were found to be more influential …

An Interview With George Lombardi: Director Of Corrections For The State Of Missouri, George A. Lombardi

Saint Louis University Public Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Growth Of Incarceration In The United States: Exploring Causes And Consequences, Jeremy Travis, Bruce Western, F. Stevens Redburn

Publications and Research

After decades of stability from the 1920s to the early 1970s, the rate of incarceration in the United States more than quadrupled in the past four decades. The Committee on the Causes and Consequences of High Rates of Incarceration in the United States was established under the auspices of the National Research Council, supported by the National Institute of Justice and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, to review evidence on the causes and consequences of these high incarceration rates and the implications of this evidence for public policy.

Our work encompassed research on, and analyses of, the …

Editorial, Willard M. Oliver

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"In light of this being the second issue of the new journal and the last issue of Volume 1, I have many people to thank for making this issue – this volume – this journal – a reality."

Eugene Debs, Walls & Bars: Prisons & Prison Life In The “Land Of The Free”, Edward L. W. Green

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"This piece reviews a largely overlooked account of prison experience written by Eugene V. Debs, concerning observations of prisons around the turn of the 20th century in the US. The book Walls and Bars: Prisons & Prison Life in the “Land of the Free” contributes many insights consistent with contemporary knowledge for criminology and criminal justice. It is not, however, without notable limitations. The subject-position of this account is clearly political and biased in a Protestant brand of morality and humanism. Debs expresses himself substantively throughout the book between the polemics of the sacred and the profane, although not in …

Building Grounds For Release: Women’S Perceptions Of A Community Corrections Program, Andrea Cantora

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Few studies have examined the role halfway houses play in helping women navigate the transition from prison to community. To add to this research, my article explores the perceptions and experiences of women residing at a New Jersey female halfway house upon their release from prison. In-depth qualitative interviews with 33 women that I conducted were analyzed to understand the prison to halfway house transition. The study aims to answer the following questions: How does the halfway house help and/or hinder the reentry process? How do women perceive the halfway house during this transitional phase? The results of my research …

John Irwin, Lifers: Seeking Redemption In Prison, Brian P. Schaefer

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"The late John Irwin had a distinguished career researching the realities of American prisons and the associated cultures and norms that develop within these institutions. His legacy of research challenged widely held beliefs about the nature of imprisonment and reentry and introduced us to new frameworks to understand the prison industry. Along with famous works such as The Felon (1970), The Jail (1985), and The Warehouse Prison (2004), Irwin was instrumental in introducing Convict Criminology to academe, giving a voice to those who experienced the pains of imprisonment. In his final book, Lifers: Seeking Redemption in Prison (2009), Irwin once …

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

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"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 …

African American Perceptions Of Police Misconduct And Accountability, Ronald Weitzer, Rod K. Brunson

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"This article examines city residents’ reported experiences with and perceptions of various forms of police misconduct as well as their perspectives on two types of accountability mechanisms: internal and external to the police department. The data are derived from in-depth interviews with adult African American residents of the city. Our findings highlight the complexities involved in establishing credible citizen-led review boards, particularly in the types of cities such as the one examined here, East St. Louis. Survey research reveals that a majority of the public supports the principle of external oversight, but this general support may be diluted in settings …

Sex Offenders And Campus-Based Sex Offender Registration: Stigma, Vulnerability, Isolation, And The Classroom As Refuge, Richard Tewksbury

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Inclusion on the sex offender registration list is well known to produce stigma, collateral consequences, stress, and feelings of vulnerability for offenders. In addition to state-based registries, a number of institution-specific registries are beginning to appear, including those on college campuses. By using in-depth interviews with a sample of sex offenders listed on a campus-specific sex offender registry, this study explores the experiences resulting from this label. Findings highlight the feeling of vulnerability listing imposes, as well as self-isolating efforts designed to manage the possibility of identification, exposure, and confrontation. The interactional limitations, as well as the unintended consequence of …

“Hidden In Plain Sight”: Locating The Men And Women Of The 1954 Boston Special Youth Program, Richard K. Moule Jr., Scott H. Decker

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"The growing prevalence of longitudinal research in the social sciences, coupled with technological advances, provide new opportunities for researchers to more readily find participants from earlier studies. In addition, these advances necessitate the development of new strategies and methodologies for locating and building rapport with respondents. Drawing on previous methods of subject identification and location, this paper examines techniques for locating and interviewing former gang members from the 1954-1957 Special Youth Program in Roxbury, MA. In contrast to most longitudinal studies, (1) more than 50 years have passed since the original study with no contact with respondents in the interim, …

Motivation To Reduce Risk Behaviors While In Prison: Qualitative Analysis Of Interviews With Current And Formerly Incarcerated Women, Neetu Abad, Monique Carry, Jeffrey H. Herbst, Catherine I. Fogel

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Prison is an environment in which programs can be implemented to change harmful behaviors among high-risk populations. Incarcerated women experience high rates of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), yet little research has examined women’s motivation to reduce risky behaviors during incarceration. In-depth individual interviews were conducted with former and current women prisoners in two North Carolina correctional facilities and analyzed to identify barriers and facilitators of behavior change while in prison. Analyses revealed key motivators of behavior change: Viewing prison as a place to recover from past trauma, removing oneself from negative social networks, gaining access to needed …

Miriam Boeri, Women On Ice: Methamphetamine Use Among Suburban Women, Karen Mcelrath

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Some readers fail to read the preface to a book, eager to step inside the chapters. I began with the preface to Women on Ice and then returned to it after I had read the book in its entirety. The preface provides the reader with a brief but important snapshot of Miriam Boeri as an author and one whose family, like so many others, has experienced addiction. These life events shaped her interest in studying people who experience problems with psychoactive drug use. Moreover, authors who share this kind of “private trouble” help to de-stigmatize drug addiction (see also, the …

Barrett, C.J., Courting Kids: Inside An Experimental Youth Court, Avi Brisman

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the United States witnessed a small increase in youth violence, particularly a rise in gun violence among young African-American urban males. This spike in gun violence was localized and primarily linked to turmoil surrounding the introduction of crack cocaine into many cities around the country—metropolitan areas that were already experiencing crushing economic pressures, unemployment, and decaying neighborhoods. There was no evidence of an overall nationwide surge in “youth crime” or “juvenile crime”—terms that became conflated with serious “youth violence,” which, in turn, became code for “dangerous young black or brown men.” Despite this …

Ronald Weitzer, Legalizing Prostitution: From Illicit Vice To Lawful Business, Tammy Castle

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Dr. Ronald Weitzer is considered an expert on the sex industry, having studied prostitution for over a decade. In his latest book, Legalizing Prostitution: From Illicit Vice to Lawful Business, Weitzer provides a comprehensive examination of the myriad dimensions of sex work by drawing on both past research and his own ethnographic field work. Not only does he shatter prostitution myths by using empirical data, but also offers an alternative paradigm for understanding sex work that is theoretically grounded. In addition, he casts a critical eye on prostitution policies in the United States and proposes a “best practices” approach …

Stephanie C. Kane, Where Rivers Meet The Sea: The Political Ecology Of Water, Ashley K. Farmer

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Where Rivers Meet the Sea aims to explore how human beings have somehow created an environment that threatens the life-sustaining water systems that are such a natural, and perhaps taken for granted, part of their communities. Exploring rich cultural and historical contexts within two strikingly different South American neighborhoods, Stephanie C. Kane delves into how communities situated along bodies of water interact with and affect the human-water relationship. She pays particular attention to how culture, art, and race are intertwined with politics, crime, and governance."

Forced To Learn: Community-Based Correctional Education, Ron Mottern, C. Amelia Davis, Mary F. Ziegler

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Community-based correctional education has received scant attention in adult literacy research yet mandatory education is a growing part of the legal system and is fueled by research that suggests a link between correctional education and lower rates of recidivism. Growth in alternative to prison programs affects local ABE and GED programs. Adults who attend community-based correctional programs as a condition of their probation or parole face many challenges. The purpose of this existential-phenomenological study was to understand the experience of those adults. Findings describe students’ experiences of being forced to attend a GED program. Opening a space for these stories …

Jamie J. Fader, Falling Back: Incarceration And Transitions To Adulthood Among Urban Youth, Kallee Spooner

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"In her first book, Jamie J. Fader presents an account of a group of young black males attempting to “fall back,” or stay out of trouble, as they return from a juvenile residential corrections facility to their communities in Philadelphia. Prior to the study, Fader spent six years evaluating delinquency programs for the city of Philadelphia and over a year working at a communitybased aftercare program that assisted youth returning to the city from reform schools. Fader gained access and insight to the structure and processes of the juvenile court system, which facilitated her research."

Returning Home: Understanding The Challenges Of Prisoner Reentry And Reintegration, Jeremy Travis

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Testing Orthodox Utilitarian And Extrajudical Determinants Of Incarceration In The U.S. At The State-Level, 1980-2005, Pavel V. Vasiliev

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This project is a theory-driven secondary data analysis of state-level incarceration trends in the U.S. between 1980 and 2005. I replicate and advance Smith's (2004) study of the relationship between the socioeconomic, demographic, political, electoral, and criminal justice factors and incarceration rates at the state level. The purpose of this project is to determine the empirical validity of the major explanations of the incarceration trends in the U.S. I advance Smith's (2004) study using important novel elements. First, I extend the scrutinized historic period by a decade by compiling time-series data for 1980-2005. Second, I employ a more sophisticated analytic …

Alaska Offender Profile: Adult Probation/Parole, 2002–2012, Brad A. Myrstol

AJSAC Fact Sheet

This fact sheet presents data on characteristics of offenders under the supervision of the Alaska Department of Corrections, Division of Probation and Parole (DOC-PP) for the period 2002–2012, and briefly describes how probation and parole operate in Alaska. Data were extracted from the annual Offender Profile publication of the Alaska Department of Corrections. Data presented include total numbers of adult probationers and parolees, rates of adult probation/parole supervision, percentage breakdowns of the probation/parole population by sex and race, and distribution of probation/parole cases among the three largest DOC-PP offices. There has been a notable increase in the total number of …

Reducing California's Overcrowded Prison Population, Morgan Macdonald

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

This paper evaluates how “tough on crime” sentencing policies have influenced California's prison population. Several laws which make up the state's strict criminal justice practices were passed over the course of forty years without consideration for their impact on the state's budget and safety. Beginning with the Uniform Determinate Sentencing Act of 1976, the state has created an unsustainable prison system that will dissolve without increased public funding. However, California’s depleted economic condition has forced policymakers to reevaluate the state's criminal justice agenda, while complying with the three- judge court order to reduce its incarcerated population to 137.5 percent of …

Editorial, Willard M. Oliver

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

Criminal Justice & Criminology have a long history of using qualitative methods in the conduct of research, but to date there has been neither a qualitative journal in criminal justice, nor one in criminology. That has now changed with this first issue of the Journal of Qualitative Criminal Justice & Criminology (JQCJC); and as one leading scholar recently told me, “It’s about time!”

Hearts In The Wasteland: Redeeming The Moral Self In Corrections, Allison M. Hicks

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"In this article, I examine the emotional culture of prisons as perceived by prison chaplains, a population characterized by conflicting expectations and split loyalties. Expected to enforce institutional rules and punish rule violators, chaplains are also charged with the spiritual rehabilitation of their clients. Greer (2002) argues that prisons represent rich environments for exploring emotion management, being simultaneously emotionally inciting and constraining for those individuals living and working within them. To better understand this duality, I explore chaplains’ interpersonal management of inmates’ emotions. Based on qualitative interview data, I describe some of the assumptions chaplains make about inmates’ emotions and …

Looking Back At Other People’S Money: A Qualitative Test Of Cressey’S Classic Hypothesis Of Trust Violating Behavior, Paul M. Klenowski, Heith Copes

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Cressey’s study of trust violators has had a tremendous impact on how criminologists understand white collar offenders. Despite this, few have sought to replicate or validate his findings. The aim of this study is to replicate Cressey’s classic work to determine if it still has practical theoretical value today. To do this, we relied on data collected from 25 male federally incarcerated occupational offenders using semi-structured interviews. The results indicate that there is moderate empirical support for Cressey’s hypothesis when collectively examining all three components of his hypothesis. We found only minimal support for the importance of “non-shareable problems” because …

How Families Of Murder Victims Feel Following The Execution Of Their Loved One’S Murderer: A Content Analysis Of Newspaper Reports Of Executions From 2006-2011, Corey Burton, Richard Tewksbury

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Two common assumptions are that family members of murder victims (i.e. co-victims) will achieve closure and perceive a sense of justice following the execution of their loved one’s murderer. Those acting on behalf of co-victims and purporting to represent their best interests often use closure and justice discourses to bolster their arguments in favor of capital punishment in a particular case. However to assume, unequivocally, that family members will view the execution as the last of several steps in the journey to closure and perceived justice is to ignore a significant number of co-victims who may feel differently. Drawing on …

A Formative Approach In Applying A Meta- Ethnography Across The Qualitative Professional Criminal Literature, Douglas J. Wholl, Wilson R. Palacios, John K. Cochran, Christine S. Sellers

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"This paper aims to introduce and teach readers step-by-step how to conduct a meta-ethnography within the field of criminology. In order to accomplish this, we purposefully selected a very narrow area of study, professional criminals as presented in well-known classic criminological monographs and then further restricted it to a rational choice perspective, a theoretical rubric easily addressed via the meta-ethnography. These limiting decisions were done so that readers would not get lost in the substance of the meta-ethnography. A search of qualitative research monographs and related online bibliographic databases identified a total of 32 research monographs, 6 of which met …

Examining The Decision-Making Processes Of Sex Tourists Using On-Line Data, Thomas J. Holt, April M. Zeoli, Kathleen Bohrer

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Criminological research has increasingly focused on the decision- making processes of offenders in order to better understand criminal behavior as a whole. A small body of research has considered how the bounds or limits of offender decision-making are shaped by various factors. In addition, limited research has considered the role of preference and bounded rationality in crimes where long-range planning and careful consideration of options are possible. To that end, this study explores both the factors that influence individual decisions and the way that they interact with preference to shape the decision-making process of sex tourists or individuals who travel …

Van Den Hoonaard, D.K. Qualitative Research In Action: A Canadian Primer, Deborah Landry

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Dr. Deborah Van Den Hoonaard has made a distinguished career of applying qualitative methodologies to uncover the rich everyday experiences of marginal populations. Professor Van Den Hoonaard holds a prestigious position as Canada Research Chair in Qualitative Analysis, garnering the respect of her peers for her fieldwork. The savvy experience of a seasoned field researcher unfolds easily in this guidebook, which feels more like a documentary than a methodology textbook. Nodding to the ethnographic traditions of the Chicago School and McGill University (the Canadian version of the Chicago School), her engagement with contemporary approaches is couched in an informed historical …

Louise Westmarland, Gender And Policing: Sex, Power, And Police Culture, Maria D. H. Koeppel

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Originally released in 2001, Louise Westmarland’s Gender and Policing has been released with a new publisher. With Routledge’s rerelease of the book, it is necessary to reassess the value of its research in the field of gender and policing to determine if it is still relevant. Throughout the book, Westmarland uses qualitative data to explore gendered themes in United Kingdom police forces. More specifically, her work focuses on whether differential deployment exists in policing based on gender and explores the role of gender within policing culture in several different situations. To analyze possible gendered patterns, Westmarland bases her work on …