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In this paper I trace the history of the subprime credit market and demonstrate how the market shifted from utilizing informal and unregulated loan sharks to regulated small loan outlets. I then argue that credit markets have begun to rival labor markets as stratifying mechanisms of socio-economic inequality in the United States. To illustrate this point, I investigate the results of a study of one rapidly growing credit market: payday lending (PDL). Interviews with 102 borrowers suggest that while most recognized the high cost of PDLs and characterized them as "debt traps," they nonetheless patronized them because the outlets reliably provided cash to both cover their regular monthly expenses and meet immediate economic needs that their incomes could not cover. Furthermore, the loans helped borrowers avoid feeling the stigma associated with poverty by allowing them quick, semi-anonymous, and amiable access to cash. As a consequence of such decision-making, borrowers often found themselves in the "vicious" cycle of debt which exacerbated their financial situations. This study uncovers the ways in which credit markets can improve our understanding of economic decision-making, and is suggestive of the powerful role the credit market has in the process and maintenance of social stratification. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent scholarship increasingly investigates how criminal conviction, mass incarceration and high levels of criminal justice supervision reproduce social and racial inequality.Despite increased attention to this issue, little is know about the effects of legal financial obligations (LFOs) that often accompany criminal conviction. This study will draw on data regarding a sample of convicted felons from the Washington State Administrative Office of the Courts, interviews with ex-felons, and other data sources to investigate the nature and impact of LFOs in Washington State. In particular, we will identify the social and legal characteristics of individuals with LFOs, and analyze how the amount of debt assessed varies by jurisdiction, legal characteristics (such as offense type), and social characteristics (such as race). We will also conduct interviews with a sample of ex-felons in order to develop a qualitative understanding of the impact of LFOs on people's lives and the reintegration process. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A problem for contemporary justice systems is how to provide supervision of lawbreakers who have yet to or will not buy into certain norms of society; how do social control institutions attempt to illicit a desire in youth to comply with laws and acceptable behavior? In particular, the role of shaming in contemporary juvenile justice progress reports is explored and discussed. This type of hearing, a stage in institutional processing that allows for judicial supervision of minors, is the focus of study because it highlights how court staff attempt to provide continual supervision of minors as well as demonstrates the importance of interactions between minors and judges during the supervision process. It is at this stage where judges make assessments of minors and these characterizations of cases leads to subsequent processing stages in minors? institutional careers. Qualitative methodologies are used to provide an updated analysis of the routine activities interactions court staff, minors and their parents have during juvenile court progress reports. This study documents and outlines an emerging form of justice shaming, one that cannot be simply categorized as stigmatizing or reintegrative. Such an understanding about continual justice supervision adds a new dimension to the investigation of social control in contemporary societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transfer of minors to the criminal court from the juvenile system is not necessarily an indication of the juvenile courts' agreement with prosecutors' assessments of waiver-eligible cases. In fact, at times judges have competing assessments of minors' amenability to the juvenile court, yet acquiesce to prosecutors' petitions for transfer due to organizational issues and political tensions. The present paper explores the juvenile institutional setting and examines organizational and contextual issues that affect the outcome of decision-making. These contextual issues include broader and individual organizational goals and restraints and political tensions. When court officials do not arrive at similar characterizations of waiver-eligible cases, these outlying issues become highlighted. Rich qualitative data taken from observations of waiver hearings and other juvenile court proceedings at three juvenile court field sites, and interviews with court officials are used to explore the setting of the contemporary juvenile justice system. This analysis finds that the waiver process highlights existing tensions between juvenile court judges and prosecutors over amounts of discretion to determine the future outcome of cases. Ironically, prosecutors, who once did not even have a role within the juvenile court system, increasingly are accruing power and discretion that at times usurp the role of the juvenile court judge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legal Financial Obligations (LFOs) include fees, fines, and restitution orders, and are increasingly imposed on those convicted of criminal charges. Although an emerging body of scholarship explores the collateral consequences of mass incarceration and their implications for social inequality, little is known about the assessment and consequences of LFOs. This paper draws on court records and interviews with those who possess LFOs to analyze patterns in the assessment of LFOs as well as their social and criminal justice consequences. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of research investigates the effects of mass incarceration in the United States, its consequences for those with felony convictions, and the related broad reaching arm of expanded state supervision. Yet our understanding of desistance and its relation to the process of "re-entry" is not well understood. This study analyzes data from two "re-entry" programs that work with individuals recently convicted of felonies and released from State facilities. Using interview, programmatic and observational data, I explore how individuals attempt to create and maintain stable lives by attaining permanent housing and living wage jobs without illegal "hustlin'" and in a sober environment. This work builds upon existing research by illustrating that many of these young adults were never integrated into stable environments prior to their criminal justice contact. We see how individuals attempt to gain skills and contacts to not only manage their tenuous relationships with the criminal justice system and the subsequent societal stigma associated with being a "felon", but also to engage and function legally in a world that they were only tangentially a part of before conviction. The research also sheds light on the organizational factors that help and hinder individuals' capacities to re-enter mainstream society. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines neighborhood codes of violence using data from Seattle neighborhoods. It draws on the long history of ethnographic subculture research, which found that high rates of violence in inner-city disadvantaged neighborhoods are produced in part by codes, definitions, and traditions that call for violence under certain circumstances. We follow Elijah Anderson and others in arguing that a system of neighborhood codes of violence are a response to structural features of neighborhoods, including concentrated disadvantage, racial minorities and immigrants, and residential instability. Such structures restrict opportunities for disadvantaged youth, producing alienation from conventional institutions—including the police—and leading to alternate ways of resolving disputes and attaining status through violence. We examine these propositions using multi-level models of the causes and consequences of neighborhood codes of violence, exploring causal relations and spatial dynamics. We have also gathered qualitative data from focus groups among Seattle youth to identify the nuances of the interplay between structure (neighborhood disadvantage), culture (codes of violence), and agency. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A vast amount of research in sociology and criminology suggests racial disparities in the processing of juvenile court cases, especially among those transferred (or waived) to the criminal justice system. Despite the clear illustration of racial and ethnic disproportionality in the juvenile justice system few research studies have been able to identify the mechanisms through which these disparities arise. In order to better understand the means by which the disparity is created this study investigates characterizations court officials make of waiver-eligible youth in a Southern California county. Juvenile court probation officers' "fitness" reports are coded and analyzed to investigate 1) What offender and offense characteristics influence the type of characterization probation officers make of waiver-eligible youth, 2) How attritutional characterizations of waiver-eligible youth vary across offender and offense characteristics, and 3) How attributional explanations influence both probation officer and judicial fitness decisions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]