Mass Incarceration, Penal Moderation, and Black Prisoners Serving Very Long Sentences

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 655-688
Author(s):  
Antje du Bois-Pedain
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Mass Incarceration ◽  
Reform Process ◽  
Moral Imperative ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The U.S

The prevalent criminal justice practices in the U.S. have produced levels and patterns of incarceration that fewer and fewer politicians, scholars, and citizens care to support. There seems to be widespread consensus that the system is indicted as unjust by its outcomes no matter how these outcomes came about. But if that is so, how can it be turned back? Who should be eligible for release, and on what grounds? This article addresses the position of black prisoners serving very long sentences. Many of these prisoners are at risk of missing out under current legislative and administrative proposals designed to reduce overall levels of imprisonment. Partly this is due to the fact that the wrong of mass incarceration is often understood as a wrong suffered at the collective level by what has come to be referred to as “overpunished communities.” It is unclear how the existence of that collective wrong affects the permissibility of continued punishment at the individual level. This article develops an argument that, at the individual level, being a black prisoner serving a very long sentence gives rise to a moral entitlement for a review of the need and justification for continued incarceration. The article outlines the basic shape of a clemency scheme devised especially for these prisoners as a moral imperative for a reform process intended to remedy penal injustice.

Alumni of National Civic Service: Comparing the experience of at-risk and mainstream volunteers

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (6) ◽  
pp. 1027-1041 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anat Zeira ◽  
Rivka Tuval-Mashiach ◽  
Galit Meir ◽  
Drorit Levy ◽  
Tehila Refaeli ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Developmental Stage ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Civic Service ◽  
Youth At Risk ◽  
The Individual

This article describes the perspectives of alumni of National Civic Service (NCS) in Israel on its impact at the individual level. We compared 250 young women who were identified as youth at risk with 295 mainstream volunteers. Overall, the two groups show similar outcomes that are typical to this developmental stage of life. Yet youth at risk experience more difficulties. While NCS aims at increasing equality between groups, it seems that it is not enough to bridge the gaps between the groups. The findings imply a need for a continued intervention to accompany the at-risk alumni that would leverage the progress made during the NCS period.

scholarly journals Criminal Justice Debt During the Prisoner Reintegration Process: Who Has It and How Much?

2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 154-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan W. Link
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Negative Binomial ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Community Supervision ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Prisoner Reintegration ◽  
Negative Binomial Models ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Binomial Models ◽  
Transition Home

Much recent, national attention has centered on financial sanctions and associated debt burdens related to criminal justice. Scholars and practitioners alike have argued that financial debt among the incarcerated, in particular, exacerbates a transition home already defined by difficulties. This article takes a step back and assesses who is at risk of these adverse consequences in reentry by examining the extent of debt burdens that resulted from financial sanctions, its sources, and the individual-level factors that are associated with owing criminal justice debt. Relying on the Returning Home data ( N = 740), results from descriptive analyses, logistic regression, and negative binomial models show that a large proportion of respondents owed debts and that debt was strongly linked with being mandated to community supervision. In addition, debt amount was predicted by employment, income, and race. Policy implications in the realm of financial sanctioning by courts and correctional agencies are discussed.

Conclusion

Outlaw Women ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 217-232
Author(s):  
Susan Dewey ◽  
Bonnie Zare ◽  
Catherine Connolly ◽  
Rhett Epler ◽  
Rosemary Bratton
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Mass Incarceration ◽  
Individual Choice ◽  
Dominant Culture ◽  
Frontier Myth ◽  
New Frontier ◽  
The U.S

Our Wyoming study offers direct implications for the U.S. prison system, which has reached a new frontier in terms of the sheer number of people incarcerated, on probation or parole, or experiencing the lifelong consequences of a felony conviction. Much like the frontier myth that continues to exercise influence in U.S. politics and dominant culture, mass incarceration is the result of popular acceptance of beliefs that ignore pervasive socioeconomic inequalities. These beliefs encourage the U.S. voting public to endorse addressing deeply rooted social problems, particularly addiction, through criminal justice solutions designed by the politicians they elect. Such is the nature of democracy in a society characterized by ever-widening inequalities between rich and poor, those with stable jobs and contingent workers, where the criminal justice system is fodder for countless films, series, and other entertainment, and where individuals rely far more on electronic communication than on meaningful social interaction. Social isolation and inequality breed fear, and three fear-based beliefs undergird the existence of the criminal justice system in its present form: drug-abusing women are a threat to public safety, law breaking is an individual choice rather than a community problem, and women released from prison pose a long-term risk to society.

Pre-rheumatoid arthritis

2020 ◽  
pp. 121-132
Author(s):  
Karim Raza ◽  
Catherine McGrath ◽  
Laurette van Boheemen ◽  
Dirkjan van Schaardenburg
Keyword(s):  
Rheumatoid Arthritis ◽  
Risk Factors ◽  
At Risk ◽  
Genetic Risk ◽  
Inflammatory Arthritis ◽  
Primary Site ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Mucosal Surfaces ◽  
Risk Patients ◽  
The Individual

The typical evolution of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is that a person, with genetic risk factors, develops autoantibodies and subclinical inflammation under relevant environmental influences. There are indications that the primary site of the pathology is at mucosal surfaces (e.g. in the gums, lungs, and/or the gut), after which the disease translocates to the joints. Preclinical RA can be defined at the phase during which no clinically apparent features are present (i.e. no symptoms of inflammatory arthritis or clinically apparent joint swelling) but during which RA related biologic derangements such as the presence of autoantibodies are present. This chapter presents an overview of the risk factors, stages, and events occurring during the pre-RA phase. A better understanding of the factors involved will enable more accurate prediction of RA at the individual level and selection of high-risk individuals for inclusion in preventive studies. Several pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic studies aiming to prevent or delay the onset of RA in at-risk individuals are currently underway. It is hoped that such interventions in the pre-RA and indeed in the preclinical-RA phases will allow us to reduce the risk of RA and prevent RA developing in at least a proportion of at-risk patients.

A Spatial Analysis of Male and Female Unemployment in the USA

2015 ◽  
pp. 1797-1809
Author(s):  
Edmund J. Zolnik
Keyword(s):  
Multilevel Models ◽  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Right To Work ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The U.S

An analysis of male and female unemployment in the U.S. explores how gender affects spatial variation in unemployment. The effects of spatially-unlagged and spatially-lagged unemployment rates on the likelihood that individual men and women are unemployed are also explored. Using a recent tabulation of microdata from the American Community Survey, multilevel models of male and female unemployment are fit. Results indicate that age and occupation at the individual-level and a right-to-work dummy at the PUMA-level are the variables that best distinguish unemployed men and women. Results also indicate that unemployment for men is more clustered in space than unemployment for women. Finally, results indicate that the vast majority of the variation in unemployment for individuals in the U.S. is attributable to the personal characteristics of unemployed men and women, not the locational characteristics of high-unemployment places. The paper concludes with a discussion of the policy implications of the latter result.

Effects of Imprisonment and Community Supervision on Neighborhood Political Participation in North Carolina

2013 ◽  
Vol 651 (1) ◽  
pp. 184-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Traci R. Burch
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Census Bureau ◽  
Community Supervision ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Probation And Parole ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Analyze Data

This article considers the effect of prison, probation, and parole on neighborhood political participation in North Carolina. I analyze data from state boards of elections, departments of corrections, departments of public health, the Census Bureau, and market research firms for 2000 and 2008. Multivariate regressions reveal a complex relationship between criminal justice supervision and voter turnout. The evidence suggests that at the individual level and in the aggregate, the criminal justice system shapes neighborhood political participation.

American Voter Turnout

2019 ◽  
pp. 15-34
Author(s):  
Daron R. Shaw ◽  
John R. Petrocik
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
First Century ◽  
Partisan Bias ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
History Of ◽  
Voting Requirements ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The U.S

This chapter provides a brief history of voter turnout in the U.S. It documents growth from a small electorate to one that mobilized some 80 percent of eligible voters by the middle of the nineteenth century, and a decline to lower turnout through much of the twentieth and into the twenty-first century despite repeated extensions of the franchise and less restrictive registration and voting requirements. Variation in contemporary turnout is examined in some detail in order to clarify the individual-level relationships that lead to the conventional wisdom concerning a partisan bias to turnout. Differences in turnout and party dynamics with otherwise comparable countries are also assessed.

A Directional Theory of Issue Voting

1989 ◽  
Vol 83 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Rabinowitz ◽  
Stuart Elaine Macdonald
Keyword(s):  
Study Data ◽  
Spatial Theory ◽  
Symbolic Politics ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
National Election Study ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Dominant Paradigm ◽  
The U.S

From Stokes's (1963) early critique on, it has been clear to empirical researchers that the traditional spatial theory of elections is seriously flawed. Yet fully a quarter century later, that theory remains the dominant paradigm for understanding mass-elite linkage in politics. We present an alternative spatial theory of elections that we argue has greater empirical verisimilitude.Based on the ideas of symbolic politics, the directional theory assumes that most people have a diffuse preference for a certain direction of policy-making and that people vary in the intensity with which they hold those preferences. We test the two competing theories at the individual level with National Election Study data and find the directional theory more strongly supported than the traditional spatial theory. We then develop the implications of the directional theory for candidate behavior and assess the predictions in light of evidence from the U.S. Congress.

The Mobilizing Effect of Majority–Minority Districts on Latino Turnout

2004 ◽  
Vol 98 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
MATT A. BARRETO ◽  
GARY M. SEGURA ◽  
NATHAN D. WOODS
Keyword(s):  
Southern California ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
General Elections ◽  
Hispanic Voters ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Positive Effect ◽  
The U.S

We inquire whether residence in majority–minority districts raises or lowers turnout among Latinos. We argue that the logic suggesting that majority–minority districts suppress turnout is flawed and hypothesize that the net effect is empowering. Further, we suggest that residing in multiple overlapping majority–minority districts—for state assemblies, senates, and the U.S. House—further enhances turnout. We test our hypotheses using individual-level turnout data for voters in five Southern California counties. Examining three general elections from 1996 to 2000, we demonstrate that residing in a majority-Latino district ultimately has a positive effect on the propensity of Latino voters to turn out, an effect that increases with the number of Latino districts in which the voter resides and is consistent across the individual offices in which a voter might be descriptively represented. In contrast, the probability that non-Hispanic voters turn out decreases as they are subject to increasing layers of majority-Latino districting.

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