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Social Construction And Political Decision Making In The American Prison System(S), Jeremiah Olson
Social Construction And Political Decision Making In The American Prison System(S), Jeremiah Olson
Theses and Dissertations--Political Science
With over two million inmates, the United States’ prison population is the largest in the world. Nearly one in one hundred Americans are behind bars, either in prisons or pre-trial detention facilities. The rapid growth in incarceration is well-documented. However, social science explanations often stop at the prison gates, with little work on treatment inside prisons. This black box approach ignores important bureaucratic decisions, including the provision of rehabilitative services and the application of punishment.
This dissertation offers a systematic analysis of treatment decisions inside the American prisons. I use a mixed methods approach, combining multiple quantitative datasets with environmental …