Reclaiming the Power to Punish: Legislating and Administrating the California Supermax, 1982–1989

This article examines how increasingly punitive prison conditions, epitomized by the birth and spread of the supermax prison, developed in the United States. This analysis builds on a growing literature about the “new punitiveness” of U.S. punishment policy and its global proliferation. This article shifts the focus away from the policies that have led to increasing rates of incarceration, however, and toward the policies that have shaped the conditions of incarceration. Drawing on archival research and more than 30 oral history interviews with key informants, I examine the administrative and legislative processes that underwrote the supermax innovation in California in the 1980s. During California's late twentieth‐century prison‐building spree, prison administrators deployed multiple rhetorics of risk to extend their control over conditions of confinement in state prisons. As the state invested billions of dollars in prison building initiatives, legislators, who were focused primarily on building prisons faster, ceded authority over prison design and conditions to prison administrators. In the end, rather than implementing legislative policy, prison administrators initiated their own policies, institutionalizing a new form of “supermax” confinement, pushing at the limits of constitutionally acceptable practices.     

Faith-based efforts to improve prisoner reentry: Assessing the logic and evidence

Prisoner reentry constitutes one of the central criminal justice challenges confronting U.S. society. Coinciding with this emerging social problem has been increased policymaker interest in faith-based programs to improve outcomes for vulnerable populations, including released prisoners. Critical questions about the nature and effects of faith-based reentry programs remain largely unaddressed, however: (1) What is a “faith-based” program? (2) How does or could such a program reduce recidivism and improve other behavioral outcomes among released offenders? (3) What is the evidence concerning the impacts of faith-based reentry programs? (4) What are critical implementation issues that may affect the operations and impacts of such programs? This article examines each of these questions and identifies critical conceptual, theoretical, and research gaps in the literature. It highlights that the term “faith-based” is used inconsistently, that the precise causal relationship, if any, between various measures of faith and crime remains in question, and that few rigorous evaluations of faith-based reentry programs exist. It then discusses recommendations for improving knowledge and practice.     

Child Maltreatment,Placement Strategies,and Delinquency

The current study examined the criminal justice experiences of foster care youth living with relatives, foster families, and living in congregate care; dependents receiving in-home care; and non-dependent youth. Specific attention was directed at uncovering whether form of maltreatment, placement type, and/or placement instability were related to delinquency. A prospective analysis of official record data followed children in Los Angeles County from the time of a first admission to the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) to potential involvement in the criminal justice system (N = 1,235). The study also utilized a matched control design in which DCFS cases were compared to non-dependent controls (N = 1,235). The most consistent predictors of delinquency were placement instability and age at placement. Youth who were older at placement and youth with at least one placement change were more likely to be arrested for violent and non-violent crimes as well as be charged by the district attorney than younger youth with no placement changes.     

Obviousness and IP: time to reconsider

On 6 February, the day this editorial was written, the UnitedKingdom Patent Office surprised members of the local intellectualproperty professions when it launched an unexpected discussionpaper, Consultation on the Inventive Step Requirement in UnitedKingdom Patent Law and Practice and sought informed responseby 31 May. On the assumption that the provisions of patent law are intendedto reflect a balance between the complementary     

论对私募基金的法律规制

私募基金最主要的特征在于以私募方式设立，其投资者必须为具有自我保护能力的合格投资者且不得超过一定数量。私募基金不得以广告、公开或变相公开方式发行，应根据发行人与劝诱对象之间是否存在“既存的实质联系”来判断发行方式是否构成公开。为了防止私募基金公开化，对私募基金份额的转售行为必须加以一定限制。信息披露是私募发行制度中的一项重要内容，贯穿于发行与转售两个阶段。     

Academic potential among African American adolescents in juvenile detention centers: Implications for reentry to school

The study explores Black adolescent detainees academic potential and motivation to return to school to inform best practices and policies for juvenile reentry to educational settings. Adolescent detainees (N = 1,576) who were recruited from one male and one female youth detention facility, responded to surveys that assessed post-detention educational plans, as well as social and emotional characteristics, and criminal history. Multivariate analysis techniques were used to compare factors across race and gender, and plot linear relationships between key indicators of academic potential with associate factors. Findings revealed that youth were more likely to evince academic potential when they had a healthy level of self-esteem, adequate future goal orientation, positive mood, family and community involvement, fewer traumatic events, and less delinquent activity.     

Science, politics, and the regulation of dietary supplements: it's time to repeal DSHEA

Since the turn of the century, resourceful entrepreneurs have advertised a wide variety of purportedly simple and painless cures for cancer, including liniments of turpentine, mustard, oil, eggs, and ammonia; peat moss; arrangements of colored floodlamps; pastes made from glycerine and limburger cheese . . . [T]his historical experience does suggest why Congress could reasonably have determined to protect the terminally ill, no less than other patients, from the vast range of self-styled panaceas that inventive minds can devise. [Individuals have] the right to be treated by a health care practitioner with any medical treatment (including a treatment that is not approved, certified, or licensed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services) that such individual desires or the legal representative of such individual desires. The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man's spiritual nature, of his feelings and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be left alone--the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.     

Variations in mental health problems, substance use, and delinquency between African American and Caucasian juvenile offenders: implications for reentry services

The incarceration of young people is a growing national problem. Key correlates of incarceration among American youth include mental health problems, substance use, and delinquency. The present study uses a statewide sample of incarcerated youth to examine racial differences in African American and Caucasian juvenile offenders' outcomes related to mental health, substance use, and delinquency. The data indicate that relative to Caucasian offenders, African American offenders report lower levels of mental health problems and substance use but higher levels of delinquent behavior such as violence, weapon carrying, and gang fighting. The data further reveal that African American offenders are more likely than Caucasian offenders to be victims of violence and to experience traumatic events such as witnessing injury and death. Recognition of these patterns may help to improve postrelease services by tailoring or adapting preexisting programs to patterns of risk factors and their relative magnitudes of effect.     

The impact of reentry court on recidivism: a randomized controlled trial in Harlem,New York

Journal of Experimental Criminology - This randomized controlled trial evaluates the effectiveness of the Harlem Parole Reentry Court, an innovative reentry court model implemented by the Harlem...     

College programs in prison and upon reentry for men and women: a literature review

People in prison participating in college education are least likely to recidivate and most likely to be employed after incarceration. Almost no research exists on the collateral – negative and often unanticipated – consequences of a criminal conviction on access to college upon community re-entry. We review these few studies, the existing research on college in prison – with special attention to women’s needs; some new ‘hybrid’ programs with 2 years of college in prison plus 2 years in the community; and the rare studies that interview people applying to college upon re-entry. Their struggles can be overwhelming and require more research and activism.     

Introduction: disability,partnership, and family across time and space

ABSTRACT

Notions of family life and romantic partnership, like notions of disability, have been culturally constructed and socially produced over historical time, and our understandings of these notions are being continually challenged and re-negotiated across time and space. Policies, institutions, and cultural practices across the globe have brought about changes to the construction of the family and to the rights and inclusion of disabled people in private and public life. This special issue brings together a collection of studies from different countries and time periods to explore the interplay between disability, romantic partnerships, and family life across the individual lifetime and between generations. With this interdisciplinary collection, we seek to merge disability research and research on family and partnerships through a life course lens. This offers unique insights and opportunities to interconnect historical and cultural location and changing social institutions with individual and family experiences. This introduction presents the eight studies in the collection and discusses them within a life course frame that views disabled people’s roles as partners, spouses, and members of a family. In so doing, it engages in an analysis of (dis)similarities concerning how family dynamics, romantic relationships, and disability have developed over time and in different spaces.     

Crime victimization, alcohol consumption, and drug use in Canadian public housing

This exploratory study attempted to deal with the surprisingly small amount of scientific study of crime victimization specifically on public housing estates, particularly in Canada. In this study, 325 public housing residents in six estates in an Eastern Ontario urban center filled out survey questionnaires, while fifty-one were interviewed. Compared to the United States, there were significantly fewer single mothers and significantly more Whites. Predatory crime victimization was reported by these residents at a much higher level than for the general population in other Canadian or U.S. surveys. Still, males and youth were the residents most at risk for predatory crime victimization and substance abuse.