Showing papers on "Prison published in 2010"
TL;DR: In the past three decades, incarceration has become an increasingly powerful force for reproducing and reinforcing social inequalities as discussed by the authors, and a new wave of sociological research details the contemporary experiment with mass incarceration in the United States and its attendant effects on social stratification.
Abstract: In the past three decades, incarceration has become an increasingly powerful force for reproducing and reinforcing social inequalities. A new wave of sociological research details the contemporary experiment with mass incarceration in the United States and its attendant effects on social stratification. This review first describes the scope of imprisonment and the process of selection into prison. It then considers the implications of the prison boom for understanding inequalities in the labor market, educational attainment, health, families, and the intergenerational transmission of inequality. Social researchers have long understood selection into prison as a reflection of existing stratification processes. Today, research attention has shifted to the role of punishment in generating these inequalities.
579 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose a metaphor of the prisoner's dilemma, which they call the green prison, in which entrepreneurs are compelled to environmentally degrading behavior due to the divergence between individual rewards and collective goals for sustainable development.
434 citations
TL;DR: The social impact of mass incarceration lies in the gross asymmetry of community and family attachment as mentioned in this paper, which is reflected in the very low educational level of those in prison and jail, and the significant growth of incarceration rates among the least educated reflects increasing class inequality in incarceration through the period of the prison boom.
Abstract: America's prisons and jails have produced a new social group, a group of social outcasts who are joined by the shared experience of incarceration, crime, poverty, racial minority, and low education. The social inequality produced by mass incarceration is sizable and enduring for three main reasons: it is invisible, it is cumulative, and it is intergenerational. The social impact of mass incarceration lies in the gross asymmetry of community and family attachment. Class inequalities in incarceration are reflected in the very low educational level of those in prison and jail. The significant growth of incarceration rates among the least educated reflects increasing class inequality in incarceration through the period of the prison boom. The redrawing of American social inequality by mass incarceration amounts to a contraction of citizenship—a contraction of that population that enjoys, in T. H. Marshall's words, "full membership in society". The demographic concentration of incarceration accompanies spatial concentration.
396 citations
TL;DR: American crime policy took an unexpected turn in the latter part of the twenty-first century, entering a new penal regime that has resulted in mass incarceration, now so prevalent that it has become a normal life event for many disadvantaged young men.
Abstract: American crime policy took an unexpected turn in the latter part of the twenty-first century, entering a new penal regime. From the 1920s to the early 1970s, the incarceration rate in the United States averaged 110 inmates per 100,000 persons. This rate of incarceration varied so little in the United States and internationally that many scholars believed the nation and the world were experiencing a stable equilibrium of punishment.1 But beginning in the mid-1970s, the U.S. incarceration rate accelerated dramatically, reaching the unprecedented rate of 197 inmates per 100,000 persons in 1990 and the previously unimaginable rate of 504 inmates per 100,000 persons in 2008.2 Incarceration in the United States is now so prevalent that it has become a normal life event for many disadvantaged young men, with some segments of the population more likely to end up in prison than attend college.3 Scholars have broadly described this national phenomenon as mass incarceration.4
234 citations
TL;DR: It is argued that mass imprisonment may increase future racial and class inequality—and may even lead to more crime in the long term, thereby undoing any benefits of the prison boom.
Abstract: Summary Since the mid-1970s the U.S. imprisonment rate has increased roughly fivefold. As Christopher Wildeman and Bruce Western explain, the effects of this sea change in the imprisonment rate —commonly called mass imprisonment or the prison boom—have been concentrated among those most likely to form fragile families: poor and minority men with little schooling. Imprisonment diminishes the earnings of adult men, compromises their health, reduces familial resources, and contributes to family breakup. It also adds to the deficits of poor children, thus ensuring that the effects of imprisonment on inequality are transferred intergenerationally. Perversely, incarceration has its most corrosive effects on families whose fathers were involved in neither domestic violence nor violent crime before being imprisoned. Because having a parent go to prison is now so common for poor, minority children and so negatively affects them, the authors argue that mass imprisonment may increase future racial and class inequality—and may even lead to more crime in the long term, thereby undoing any benefits of the prison boom. U.S. crime policy has thus, in the name of public safety, produced more vulnerable families and reduced the life chances of their children. Wildeman and Western advocate several policy reforms, such as limiting prison time for drug offenders and for parolees who violate the technical conditions of their parole, reconsidering sentence enhancements for repeat offenders, and expanding supports for prisoners and ex-prisoners.
230 citations
TL;DR: The authors proposed a general strain theory (GST) framework for explaining prison violence and other forms of misconduct, which enriches the deprivation model by revealing three distinctive categories of strain, and incorporates the coping model in its emphasis on how social support, social capital, and human capital can blunt the effects of potentially criminogenic strains.
Abstract: Explanations of prison violence and other forms of misconduct have been dominated by three competing models: (a) the deprivation model, (b) the importation model, and (c) the coping model. We propose that these three seemingly competing models can be integrated within Agnew’s general strain theory (GST). GST enriches the deprivation model by revealing three distinctive categories of strain. GST encompasses the importation model in hypothesizing that criminal cultural values and affiliations will structure the response to the strains of imprisonment. And GST incorporates the coping model in its emphasis on how social support, social capital, and human capital can blunt the effects of potentially criminogenic strains. Finally, GST is sufficiently broad to include factors (e.g., emotions, self-control) in the explanation of prison maladjustment not covered by the three main models of prison inmate behavior. In short, GST offers a general integrated framework for reconceptualizing our understanding of prison violence and misconduct.
201 citations
TL;DR: Analysis of more than 61,000 Texas prison inmates showed that those with a co-occurring psychiatric and substance use disorder exhibited a substantially higher risk of multiple incarcerations over a 6-year period compared to inmates with psychiatric disorders alone or substance use disorders alone.
Abstract: This study examined whether the presence of a comorbid substance use disorder increased the risk of criminal recidivism and reincarceration in prison inmates with a severe mental illness. Our analyses of more than 61,000 Texas prison inmates showed that those with a co-occurring psychiatric and substance use disorder exhibited a substantially higher risk of multiple incarcerations over a 6-year period compared to inmates with psychiatric disorders alone or substance use disorders alone. Further research is needed to identify the factors associated with criminal recidivism among released prisoners with co-occurring disorders.
186 citations
TL;DR: Findings show the beneficial effects of treatment components oriented toward women's needs and support the integration of GRT in prison programs for women.
183 citations
TL;DR: This article found that women who are drug dependent, have less education, or have more extensive criminal histories are more likely to fail on parole and to recidivate more quickly during the eight year follow-up period.
Abstract: Drawing on recent scholarship on prisoner reentry and gendered pathways to crime, this research explores how social relationships, incarceration experiences, and community context, and the intersection of these factors with race, influence the occurrence and timing of recidivism. Using a large, modern sample of women released from prison, we find that women who are drug dependent, have less education, or have more extensive criminal histories are more likely to fail on parole and to recidivate more quickly during the eight year follow‐up period. We also observe racial variation in the effect of education, drug use, and neighborhood concentrated disadvantage on recidivism. This study highlights the importance of an intra‐gender, theoretical understanding of recidivism, and has import for policy aimed at female parolees.
174 citations
TL;DR: More than 7.3 million Americans had become entangled in the criminal justice system between 1970 and 2010 and one in every thirty-one U.S. residents was under some form of correctional supervision, such as in prison or jail, or on probation or parole.
Abstract: As the twentieth century came to a close and the twenty-first began, something occurred in the United States that was without international parallel or historical precedent. Between 1970 and 2010 more people were incarcerated in the United States than were imprisoned in any other country, and at no other point in its past had the nation’s economic, social, and political institutions become so bound up with the practice of punishment. By 2006 more than 7.3 million Americans had become entangled in the criminal justice system. The American prison population had by that year increased more rapidly than had the resident population as a whole, and one in every thirty-one U.S. residents was under some form of correctional supervision, such as in prison or jail, or on probation or parole. As importantly, the incarcerated and supervised population of the United States was, overwhelmingly, a population of color. African American men experienced the highest imprisonment rate of all racial groups, male or female. It was 6.5 times the rate of white males and 2.5 times that of Hispanic males. By the middle of 2006 one in fifteen black men over the age of eighteen were behind bars as were one in nine black men aged twenty to thirty-four. The imprisonment rate of African American women looked little better. It was almost double that of Hispanic women and three times the rate of white women.1 Despite the fact that ten times more Americans were imprisoned in the last decade of the twentieth century than were killed during the Vietnam War (591,298 versus 58,228), and even though a greater number of African Americans had ended up in penal institutions than in institutions of higher learning by the new millennium (188,500 more), historians have largely ignored the mass incarceration of the late twentieth century and have not yet begun to sort out its impact on the social, economic, and political evolution of the postwar period. That one can learn a great deal about a historical moment by more
158 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: The authors argue that using risk-assessment tools to decrease prison populations would unquestionably aggravate the already intolerable racial imbalance in our prison populations and will not address the real source of mass incarceration, namely the admissions process.
Abstract: Today, an increasing chorus argues that risk-assessment instruments are a politically feasible way to resolve our problem of mass incarceration and reduce prison populations. In this essay, I argue against this progressive argument for prediction: using risk-assessment tools to decrease prison populations would unquestionably aggravate the already intolerable racial imbalance in our prison populations and will not address the real source of mass incarceration, namely the admissions process. Risk has collapsed into prior criminal history, and prior criminal history has become a proxy for race. This means that using risk-assessment tools, even for progressive ends, is going to significantly aggravate the already unacceptable racial disparities in our criminal justice system. Instead of turning to prediction, we need to address prison admissions. Recent evidence suggests that our carceral excess was not so much fueled by the length of sentences, as it was by the front end: new admissions. The real solution to mass incarceration, then, is not to cut short prison terms though prediction, but to reduce admissions to prison.
Book•
01 Jan 2010
TL;DR: In this article, Rowe's introduction to his powerful new translation examines the book's themes of identity and confrontation, and explores how its content is less historical fact than a promotion of Plato's Socratic philosophy.
Abstract: 'Consider just this, and give your minds to this alone: whether or not what I say is just'. Plato's account of Socrates' trial and death (399 BC) is a significant moment in Classical literature and the life of Classical Athens. In these four dialogues, Plato develops the Socratic belief in responsibility for one's self and shows Socrates living and dying under his philosophy. In "Euthyphro", Socrates debates goodness outside the courthouse; "Apology" sees him in court, rebutting all charges of impiety; in "Crito", he refuses an entreaty to escape from prison; and in "Phaedo", Socrates faces his impending death with calmness and skillful discussion of immortality. Christopher Rowe's introduction to his powerful new translation examines the book's themes of identity and confrontation, and explores how its content is less historical fact than a promotion of Plato's Socratic philosophy.
TL;DR: The evidence is reviewed and synergies between biomedical science, public health, and human rights, including needle and syringe exchange programmes, opioid substitution therapy, and expanded access to HIV treatment and care are identified.
TL;DR: Results indicated the clinical presentation of mentally disordered offenders is similar to that of psychiatric patients and criminals, suggesting the need for mental health professionals to treat co-occurring issues of mental illness and criminality in correctional mental health treatment programs.
Abstract: To examine the prevalence of criminal thinking in mentally disordered offenders, incarcerated male (n = 265) and female (n = 149) offenders completed measures of psychiatric functioning and criminal thinking. Results indicated 92% of the participants were diagnosed with a serious mental illness, and mentally disordered offenders produced criminal thinking scores on the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (PICTS) and Criminal Sentiments Scale-Modified (CSS-M) similar to that of non-mentally ill offenders. Collectively, results indicated the clinical presentation of mentally disordered offenders is similar to that of psychiatric patients and criminals. Implications are discussed with specific focus on the need for mental health professionals to treat co-occurring issues of mental illness and criminality in correctional mental health treatment programs.
TL;DR: Results of a negative binomial regression model showed that the number of suicides was significantly increased in supermaximum and maximum security prisons, under conditions of overcrowding and violence, and in prisons where a greater proportion of inmates received mental health services.
TL;DR: The formidable challenges to community reentry and reintegration faced by U.S. prison inmates with serious mental illness are discussed and various strategies for improving transitional services for these individuals are described.
Abstract: The purpose of the paper is to discuss the formidable challenges to community reentry and reintegration faced by U.S. prison inmates with serious mental illness and to describe various strategies for improving transitional services for these individuals. We review epidemiologic data supporting the high prevalence of severe mental illness in U.S. prisons as well as the historical factors underlying the criminalization of the mentally ill. The importance and challenges of providing adequate psychiatric care for mentally ill prisoners during their incarceration are discussed. We also review the numerous psychosocial and economic challenges confronting these individuals upon their release from prison, such as unemployment and vulnerability to homelessness, as well as specific barriers they may encounter in attempting to access community-based mental health services. We follow with a discussion of some of the more promising strategies for improving the transition of the mentally ill from prison to the community. In the final sections, we review the evidence for a relationship between serious mental illness and recidivism and briefly discuss emerging alternatives to incarceration of the mentally ill.
TL;DR: The findings provide support for Petersilia’s suggestions and indicate that employment, housing, and the completion of some forms of treatment are negatively associated with multiple measures of recidivism.
Abstract: Deficits in education, employment, and housing as well as the lack of treatment programs pose significant barriers to the successful reentry of inmates released from prison. This research uses a representative sample of inmates released from Ohio prisons to examine the extent to which these factors are associated with recidivism. Furthermore, building on prior research, it examines potential differences in these predictors by gender. The findings provide support for Petersilia’s suggestions and indicate that employment, housing, and the completion of some forms of treatment are negatively associated with multiple measures of recidivism. Also, no gender differences in the predictors examined here are detected, suggesting that the factors likely behave in a gender-neutral manner.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the psychological effect of victimization and perceptions of threat and coercion arising from the prison environment and found that coercion and social support are related to posttraumatic cognitions and trauma symptoms; however, social support does not provide a moderating effect.
Abstract: The effect of violence on individual behavior has been well documented. However, the empirical literature surrounding the relationship between coercive prison environments and inmate well-being is limited. This is important not only for correctional administrators but also for reentry planning. Using a sample of 1,616 recently released male inmates, this study examines the psychological effect of victimization and of perceptions of threat and coercion arising from the prison environment. The study also examines whether social support affects cognitions and psychological symptoms and whether it moderates the effect of victimization and coercion. The findings reveal that coercion and social support are related to posttraumatic cognitions and trauma symptoms; however, social support does not provide a moderating effect.
TL;DR: The findings suggest that firearms and motor vehicle accidents do not sufficiently explain the higher death rates of black males, and they indicate that a lack of basic healthcare may be implicated in the death ratesof black males not incarcerated.
Abstract: Using data from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics and Census Bureau, I estimate death rates of working-age prisoners and nonprisoners by sex and race. Incarceration was more detrimental to females in comparison to their male counterparts in the period covered by this study. White male prisoners had higher death rates than white males who were not in prison. Black male prisoners, however, consistently exhibited lower death rates than black male nonprisoners did. Additionally, the findings indicate that while the relative difference in mortality levels of white and black males was quite high outside of prison, it essentially disappeared in prison. Notably, removing deaths caused by firearms and motor vehicles in the nonprison population accounted for some of the mortality differential between black prisoners and nonprisoners. The death rates of the other groups analyzed suggest that prison is an unhealthy environment; yet, prison appears to be a healthier place than the typical environment of the nonincarcerated black male population. These findings suggest that firearms and motor vehicle accidents do not sufficiently explain the higher death rates of black males, and they indicate that a lack of basic healthcare may be implicated in the death rates of black males not incarcerated.
TL;DR: This paper examined how prison conditions litigation in the 1970s, as an outgrowth of the civil rights movement, inadvertently contributed to the rise of mass incarceration in the United States and found that successful court challenges for institutional change can have long-term outcomes that are contrary to social justice goals.
Abstract: In this article I examine how prison conditions litigation in the 1970s, as an outgrowth of the civil rights movement, inadvertently contributed to the rise of mass incarceration in the United States. Using Florida as a case study, I detail how prison conditions litigation that aimed to reduce incarceration was translated in the political arena as a court order to build prisons. Drawing on insights from historical institutionalist scholarship, I argue that this paradox can be explained by considering the different historical and political contexts of the initial legal framing and the final compliance with the court order. In addition, I demonstrate how the choices made by policy makers around court compliance created policy feedback effects that further expanded the coercive capacity of the state and transformed political calculations around crime control. The findings suggest how "successful" court challenges for institutional change can have long‐term outcomes that are contrary to social justice goals. The paradox of prison litigation is especially compelling because inmates' lawyers were specifically concerned about racial injustice, yet mass incarceration is arguably the greatest obstacle to racial equality in the twenty‐first century.
Journal Article•
TL;DR: The use of isolation to confine prisoners with serious mental illness, the psychological consequences of such confinement, and the response of U.S. courts and human rights experts are described are described.
Abstract: In recent years, prison officials have increasingly turned to solitary confinement as a way to manage difficult or dangerous prisoners. Many of the prisoners subjected to isolation, which can extend for years, have serious mental illness, and the conditions of solitary confinement can exacerbate their symptoms or provoke recurrence. Prison rules for isolated prisoners, however, greatly restrict the nature and quantity of mental health services that they can receive. In this article, we describe the use of isolation (called segregation by prison officials) to confine prisoners with serious mental illness, the psychological consequences of such confinement, and the response of U.S. courts and human rights experts. We then address the challenges and human rights responsibilities of physicians confronting this prison practice. We conclude by urging professional organizations to adopt formal positions against the prolonged isolation of prisoners with serious mental illness.
TL;DR: The authors explored the epistemological and methodological dilemmas relating to identity and positionality in anthropological and sociological ethnographies through a reflexive interrogation of a study of prisoner identities and social relations in two male prisons.
Abstract: Prison ethnographers have tended to downplay the epistemological and methodological dilemmas relating to identity and positionality, which have been more commonly rehearsed in anthropological and sociological ethnographies. This paper explores these issues through a reflexive interrogation of a study of prisoner identities and social relations in two male prisons, with a particular focus on race/ethnicity, class and gender. Drawing from interactions with two prisoners as case studies, it applies Walkerdine et al.’s (2001) psycho-social analytical frame to illustrate how the subjectivities and biographies of researchers are implicated in the dynamics of prison research encounters and analysis. In doing so, it considers the epistemological implications of reflexive practice for interpreting the prison field.
Posted Content•
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used Bureau of Justice Statistics data to estimate that between 12 and 14 million ex-offenders of working age were employed in the United States in 2008, and that this large population lowered the total male employment rate by 1.5 to 1.7 percentage points.
Abstract: We use Bureau of Justice Statistics data to estimate that, in 2008, the United States had between 12 and 14 million ex-offenders of working age. Because a prison record or felony conviction greatly lowers ex-offenders’ prospects in the labor market, we estimate that this large population lowered the total male employment rate that year by 1.5 to 1.7 percentage points. In GDP terms, these reductions in employment cost the U.S. economy between $57 and $65 billion in lost output.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors systematically identified Utah State prisoners released from 1998 to 2002 (N = 9,245) who meet criteria for serious mental illness and compared SMI and non-SMI offenders on length of time to prison return.
Abstract: Serious mental illness (SMI) represents a major risk for repeated incarceration, yet recidivism studies often do not specifically focus on persons with SMI as compared to non-SMI offenders. The study reported here systematically identified Utah State prisoners released from 1998 to 2002 (N = 9,245) who meet criteria for SMI and compared SMI and non-SMI offenders on length of time to prison return. Findings indicate that 23% of the sample met criteria for SMI (n = 2,112). Moreover, survival analyses demonstrated a significant difference in return rates and community tenure for offenders with SMI compared to non-SMI offenders when controlling for demographics, condition of release, offense type, and condition of return (parole violation vs. new commitment). The median time for all SMI offenders to return to prison was 385 days versus 743 days for all non-SMI offenders, 358 days sooner (p < .001). Implications of these findings are discussed.
TL;DR: This article examined the mediating and moderating influences of social support on the links between inmates' perceptions of prison conditions and other background variables on parolees' feelings of hostility, a factor theoretically linked to reoffending.
Abstract: There is broad consensus that the strains of imprisonment and unsupported release affect offenders’ mental health and operate to the detriment of their chances of successful reintegration. Drawing on data from 208 male inmates, the authors examine the mediating and moderating influences of social support on the links between inmates’ perceptions of prison conditions and other background variables on parolees’ feelings of hostility—a factor theoretically linked to reoffending—upon release. The results demonstrate that social support partially or completely mediates background characteristics and conditions the influence of prison perceptions on released inmates’ levels of hostility.
TL;DR: For example, the authors argues that most released convicts experience not reentry but ongoing circulation between the prison and their dispossessed neighborhoods, and the institutions entrusted with supervising them are not market operators but elements of the bureaucratic field as characterized by Pierre Bourdieu.
Abstract: The carceral boom in post-Civil Rights America results not from profit-seeking but from state-crafting. Accordingly, we must slay the chimera of the “Prison Industrial Complex” and forsake its derived tale of the “Prisoner Reentry Industry.” This murky economic metaphor is doubly misleading: first, most released convicts experience not reentry but ongoing circulation between the prison and their dispossessed neighborhoods; second, the institutions entrusted with supervising them are not market operators but elements of the bureaucratic field as characterized by Pierre Bourdieu. Post-custodial supervision is a ceremonial component of “prisonfare,” which complements “workfare” through organizational isomorphism, and partakes of the neoliberal reengineering of the state. Reentry outfits are not an antidote to but an extension of punitive containment as government technique for managing problem categories and territories in the dualizing city. To capture the glaring economic irrationality and bureaucratic absurdities of the oversight of felons behind as well as beyond bars, our theoretical inspiration should come not from the radical critique of capitalism but from the neo-Durkheimian sociology of organization and the neo-Weberian theory of the state as a classifying and stratifying agency.
Book•
01 Jan 2010
TL;DR: This book discusses the impact of law and public policy on Correctional Populations, treatment of Mental Illness in Correctional Settings, and Improving the Care for HIV-Infected Prisoners: An Integrated Prison-Release Health Model.
Abstract: Impact of Law and Public Policy on Correctional Populations.- Thirty Years Since Estelle v. Gamble: Looking Forward, Not Wayward.- Impact of Incarceration on Community Public Safety and Public Health.- Litigating for Better Medical Care.- Accommodating Disabilities in Jails and Prisons.- Growing Older: Challenges of Prison and Reentry for the Aging Population.- International Public Health and Corrections: Models of Care and Harm Minimization.- The Medicalization of Execution: Lethal Injection in the United States.- Communicable Disease.- HIV and Viral Hepatitis in Corrections: A Public Health Opportunity.- Prevention of Viral Hepatitis.- HIV Prevention: Behavioral Interventions in Correctional Settings.- Prevention and Control of Tuberculosis in Correctional Facilities.- Controlling Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, and Syphilis Through Targeted Screening and Treatment in Correctional Settings.- Primary and Secondary Prevention.- Health Promotion in Jails and Prisons: An Alternative Paradigm for Correctional Health Services.- Screening for Public Purpose: Promoting an Evidence-based Approach to Screening of Inmates to Improve Public Health.- Written Health Informational Needs for Reentry.- Reducing Inmate Suicides Through the Mortality Review Process.- Blinders to Comprehensive Psychiatric Diagnosis in the Correctional System.- Juvenile Corrections and Public Health Collaborations: Opportunities for Improved Health Outcomes.- Female Prisoners and the Case for Gender-Specific Treatment and Reentry Programs.- Building the Case for Oral Health Care for Prisoners: Presenting the Evidence and Calling for Justice.- Tertiary Prevention.- Treatment of Mental Illness in Correctional Settings.- Treatment and Reentry Approaches for Offenders with Co-occurring Disorders.- Pharmacological Treatment of Substance Abuse in Correctional Facilities: Prospects and Barriers to Expanding Access to Evidence-Based Therapy.- Thinking Forward to Reentry-Reducing Barriers and Building Community Linkages.- Health Research Behind Bars: A Brief Guide to Research in Jails and Prisons.- Reentry Experiences of Men with Health Problems.- Providing Transition and Outpatient Services to the Mentally Ill Released from Correctional Institutions.- Sexual Predators: Diversion, Civil Commitment, Community Reintegration, Challenges, and Opportunities.- Electronic Health Records Systems and Continuity of Care.- Community Health and Public Health Collaborations.- Improving the Care for HIV-Infected Prisoners: An Integrated Prison-Release Health Model.
TL;DR: This article examined different dimensions of minority threat and explored whether they exert differential effects on prison versus jail sentences, and found support for the racial threat perspective, and less support for ethnic threat perspective.
Abstract: Prior studies of criminal sanctioning have focused almost exclusively on individual-level predictors of sentencing outcomes. However, in recent years, scholars have begun to include social context in their research. Building off of this work—and heeding calls for testing the racial and ethnic minority threat perspective within a multilevel framework and for separating prison and jail sentences as distinct outcomes—this paper examines different dimensions of minority threat and explores whether they exert differential effects on prison versus jail sentences. The findings provide support for the racial threat perspective, and less support for the ethnic threat perspective. They also underscore the importance of testing for non-linear threat effects and for separating jail and prison sentences as distinct outcomes. We discuss the findings and their implications for theory, research, and policy.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the effects of women offenders' relationships with people in their social networks (i.e., their network relationships) before, during, and after incarceration on their post-release desistence from crime.
Abstract: Using data obtained from retrospective, in-depth interviews with 20 successful female parolees, the present study examines the effects of women offenders' relationships with people in their social networks (ie, their network relationships) before, during, and after incarceration on their postrelease desistence from crime Because women's social networks facilitate women's criminal activity in the past, shifts are necessary to promote successful parole outcomes A combination of negative relationships dissolving due to incarceration, women's conscious efforts to improve their social networks, and the availability of prison programming and some prosocial family members work together to enable women to access social networks that help them avoid crime after release The study suggests the value of prison and parole programming that systematically identifies networks that can meet women's needs and that ensures access and availability of social networks for women with varying needs