Search

The criminalization of behavior, whether of an individual or a collective, often represents a conflict between the norms governing a polity and the deviations of one of a few. Perhaps nowhere else is the issue of behavior criminalization more fraught with controversy than within the realm of sexuality, particularly with regard to issues of privacy and personal morality. More precisely, the curtailment of civil liberties based on one's sexual orientation has long been, and continues to be, a significant source of debate, often blurring the line between law and morality; a line which is often upheld, contested, and redefined within the legal realm (West 1988: 181). In recent years, advanced industrial nations have become more accepting of consensual sexual acts in a private, as evidenced by the English Wolfenden Committee (Ibid) which ruled that private sexual relations (including prostitution and homosexuality) were not within the domain to regulate. However, only one century ago the English system was not as forgiving of "deviant" sexual identities as a dark coverlet of heterosexism and irrational medical fears gripped the commonwealth and permeated popular consciousness (Wiggins 2000). ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing number of academic disciplines (e.g., economics and public policy) permit doctoral students to choose between completing a traditional dissertation or a multi-paper option that replaces the dissertation. Although there is no uniform multi-paper option, a common procedure is for the student to author three publishable and closely-related papers, at least one of which is submitted to a peer-reviewed journal prior to graduation. The multi-paper option has not yet become popular in criminology and criminal justice however the popularity is rising in other disciplines. The study reports the results of ASC and ACJS members' opinions concerning (a) the suitability of a multi-paper option in Ph.D. level criminology and criminal justice programs and (b) the effects of a multi-paper option on the hiring prospects of new Ph.D.s and Ph.D. students. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides the results of an analysis of on-line assessments given to undergraduate criminal justice students at an eastern state university. The format, content, and resources used in an on-line course are described and evaluated to determine the effectiveness of assessment methods on student learning outcomes. Individual student characteristics, level of interaction, and assessment methods will be discussed. Finally, a comparison of paper-and-pencil examinations with on-line examinations will be presented and correlated. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nature and quality of partnerships between university-based researchers and criminal justice practitioners (i.e., law enforcement) is a welcomed union theoretically, however in practice there is notable tension. The competing paradigms of education and research for the police as opposed to education and research on the police are examined using data from two studiesa sample of 192 Pennsylvania police officers and a Massachusetts police department needs assessment. Social policy implications for criminal justice education will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 and a variety of modeling strategies, including sibling fixed effects and restricted comparison groups, this paper examines the housing stability of individuals with a felony conviction but no history of incarceration relative to those of formerly incarcerated individuals as a means of disentangling the effects of incarceration and community removal from the independent effect of felon status per se. Results indicate that, like formerly incarcerated individuals, never incarcerated individuals with felony convictions experience an elevated risk of housing instability and residential mobility, even after adjusting for financial resources and behavioral characteristics. As most previous research on the collateral consequences of the criminal justice system has focused on incarceration, this paper makes an important contribution to the literature by highlighting how conviction, not just incarceration, can introduce instability into the lives of the 12 million Americans with felony records who have never served a prison sentence. These findings suggest that criminal justice reform efforts focused on increasing the use of community corrections over incarceration may do less to reduce the harm of criminal justice contact than reformers expect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Punishment and the law it represents are considered to be sacred in the US. Current understandings of punishment rely on traditional notions of benevolent paternalism which has come to represent hegemonic ideology. By using privatization as a launching point, this paper is meant to address punishment in the United States as a profit-making system. By viewing alienation and anomie as foundation for the existence of the criminal justice apparatus this work is meant to challenge boundaries used by many scholars as ways to understand the growth of the prison industrial complex. By beginning our understanding of punishment at the end of feudalism and serfdom, this paper highlights that at each state in its grotesque development, the criminal justice system has never truly been about justice; but instead a way to exploit labor, create anomie and alienation, while embodying the logic of capital. This has resulted in a monstrous machine presenting itself as sanctified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although misconduct and deviance can occur in virtually any occupation, police misconduct/deviance is a special case of occupational wrongdoing (Kappeler, Sluder & Alpert, 1998). As a result of the professionalism necessary to serve as an officer and the privileges associated with the profession, misconduct as an officer should be viewed more seriously and should try to be prevented as much as possible. Police misconduct not only affects those involved or individual officers but also departments themselves since it can affect citizen perceptions of the police and undermines relations between officers and the public. This paper applies neutralization theory to the issue of police misconduct to explain how officers may be able to engage in both law abiding/enforcing activities and law breaking activities (or at least professional lapses). In addition, this paper looks also at how neutralization can be applied to officers who are "positive deviants" and snitch on fellow officers, breaking the informal code of "blue secrecy" which is rarely explored in either the policing or neutralization theory literature. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The population of older prisoners in U.S. prisons has burgeoned including a rapid increase in older females. This paper is based on a larger research study focusing on the experiences of women who are over fifty and in prison in the southern states of America. For the purpose of this paper, we will focus on data from Tennessee Penitentiary for Women and Kentucky Correctional Institution for Women (KCIW). To gain an understanding of the plight of older incarcerated females, 28 women who were 50 years of age or older living in the Kentucky Correctional Institution for Women (KCIW) and 6 from Tennessee Penitentiary for Women were recruited for this study. Descriptive demographic data as well as qualitative data were collected utilizing face-to-face in-depth interviews and focus groups. Data collected and organized from the interviews revealed several key issues related to prison adjustment: loss of health, freedom, and privacy, relationships with family, friends, other inmates, and prison staff, end of life issues, and strategies for coping with prison life. The personal pains associated with prison life were obvious among this group of older females. The long-term separation from loved ones, health problems and dissatisfaction with health care, and trepidation regarding their futures was a common message voiced by this sample. Despite the challenges of making a life in this prison environment, the women tended to maintain positive outlooks and optimism for their futures. Implications for prison policy as well as arguments for alternatives to incarceration are explored. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Police culture scholarship documents that though there is fragmentation of the so-called "monolithic" police culture, historically consistent features of the occupational culture of police exist. Drawing on ethnographic observations in three U.S. police departments, this paper describes how one consistent feature of police culture--the preoccupation with danger and potential death--is maintained by the commemoration of officers killed in the line of duty. The use of commemorative cultural artifacts by officers and departments contributes to an organizational memory that locally reflects and reifies the salience of danger and potential death in policing. Further, commemoration of dead officers is not restricted to a department's own; the dead of other departments are commemorated by independent police organizations and their officers, maintaining occupational assumptions of dangerous and deadly police work that transcend a single department and its organizational memory. Implications for the study of police culture and police reform efforts are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this paper is to put forth a conceptual model of a criminal organization that incorporates both mandatory and discretionary characteristics. This comprehensive and flexible model attempts to overcome the limitations of static definitions and existing underdeveloped theoretical frameworks that do not fully capture the traits, diversity, and complexity of organized criminal conspiracies. In total, 25 characteristics are incorporated into this model and divided into four categories: organizational, institutional, commercial, and behavioural. To constitute a criminal organization, a conspiracy among offenders must satisfy at least twelve of the 25 traits, six of which are deemed to be universal to any criminal organization. This conceptual model not only fills a void in the theoretical literature on organized crime. It has also been developed for applied purposes: to facilitate legal efforts to determine, in a scientific and rigorous fashion, whether a particular conspiracy among offenders in Canada constitutes a "criminal organization" as defined by Section 467.1(1) of the Criminal Code. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]