What is “prison culture”? Developing a theoretical and methodological foundation for understanding cultural schema in prison

What does it mean to say that a prison has a “culture?” Scholars have long emphasized the presence of a “prison code” and, more recently, a “racial code” as salient cultural domains in men's prisons. Yet, even though most people intuitively understand what is meant by “prison culture,” little progress has been made regarding the conceptualization and operationalization of culture as an analytical construct in prison scholarship. The current study makes two primary contributions to this literature. First, drawing on advances in anthropology, cultural sociology, and cognitive science, we incorporate the concept of cultural schema to provide a concrete analytical construct. Second, we test varying conceptualizations of cultural schema as either characterized by consensus or as overlapping relational structures. Using cultural consensus and correlational class analyses among a sample of 266 incarcerated men, we find little evidence of a culture of consensus for either the prison code or the racial code. Furthermore, we show evidence of heterogenous schema among these cultural domains. Our study is relevant to wider disciplinary work on culture as the problem of analytical precision we address is characteristic of much of the work in criminology and criminal justice that evokes culture as an explanatory device.     

Hungarian Language and Law: Developing a Grammar for Social Inclusion,a Vocabulary for Political Emancipation. Special Issue (IJSL)—Editorial Preface

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique - Having been invited by editor-in-chief, Professor Anne Wagner, to edit the present special...     

The children’s programme: a description of a group and family intervention for children engaging in problematic and harmful sexual behaviour and their parents/carers

ABSTRACT

Children under 10 are increasingly being referred to services for concerning problematic or harmful sexual behaviour, but information about interventions to support these children and their families is limited. A 3-year pilot of a group cognitive–behavioural intervention for children and their parents/carers is described. Forty-nine children were referred to the programme with 27 completing the programme in this period. This is the first intervention of its kind to be delivered with a UK population and demographic information is provided about the children who have been assessed, including information about age, gender, family composition and abuse history. Outcome data from the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children, Child Sexual Behaviour Inventory, Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and the Parental Stress and Social Support Scale is reported. The available outcome data indicates the group has been largely beneficial in reducing problematic sexual behaviour. Key learning and implications for practice are discussed.     

School climate and delinquency – on the significance of the perceived social and learning climate in school for refraining from offending

School is regarded as a central arena for crime prevention. This study analyses the effects of student perceptions of school contextual aspects on self-reported offending, using logistic regression with control for clustering effects. The data comprise a census of pupils in year nine in comprehensive school (15 year olds) and in year two of upper secondary school (17 year olds) in the City of Stockholm in 2006, 2008 and 2010 (n = 25,850 of which 47% are boys and 53% are girls). Besides showing that several aspects of students’ perceptions of the school setting have direct protective effects on offending, the study shows that perceiving schoolwork as meaningful appears to moderate the effect of adverse home conditions on delinquency for boys. The only aspect of school investigated in this study that was not significantly related to offending was the perception of classroom order, indicating that emotional support from teachers is more important for crime preventive implications than maintaining order in the classroom. Controlling for clustering effects shows differences in offending between classes and schools that are not produced by differences between the students.     

“Ice is strong enough for a man but made for a woman”

This paper is concerned with the cultural and gendered context of crystal methamphetamine use among Asian Pacific Americans, and draws on recent sociological discussions on masculinities and feminities. The data are based on an ethnographic study of moderate to heavy ice users, and compares the experiences of Asian Pacific American women and men in their initiation to use, their motivations to continue using, and the changing nature of their relationship to the drug and significant others. The paper concludes with a gender comparison of the violence associated with crystal methamphetamine use.The research for this paper was supported by a grant to theInstitute for Scientific Analysis from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (R01-DA06853) awarded to Patricia Morgan, Ph.D., entitled Ice and Other Methamphetamine Use: An Exploratory Study. The data collected for this paper was helped by the collaborative efforts of the study research staff: Jerome Beck, Douglas McDonnell and Rachel Gutierrez. The author also acknowledges the Social Science Research Institute at the University of Hawaii. The opinions and conclusions are those of the author.     

Public procurement as a means to achieving social gains – progress and challenges in European legislation and standards for accessible information and communication technology

This article explores the European Commission goal of improving the quality and level of accessibility in mainstream information and communication technology (ICT) goods and services available in Member States through the use of public procurement legislation and performance standards. Over the past two decades, the Commission has encouraged Member States to adopt common requirements for accessibility and to strengthen efforts to use these requirements in public procurement. In the absence of significant improvements in the level of accessibility over this time, the Commission has more recently committed to bringing forward legislative proposals to harmonize the accessibility requirements used by Member States. A new procurement directive package contains stronger obligations on public bodies to include accessibility as mandatory requirements in Technical Specifications. In parallel to this, a standardization mandate by the Commission to the European Standards Organizations (ESOs) concluded in March 2014 with the publication of the first European standard on ICT accessibility. In light of these developments, this article analyses the trajectory of European policy in the field of accessibility over the last two decades, and the interplay between European public procurement, standardization and law. It examines how far these developments have succeeded in bringing into being a public procurement eco-system that will nudge the market in Europe to producing affordable and accessible ICT products and services for persons with disabilities.     

“Taking a Position and Staying Grounded”

Abstract

This article is a biography of Karlene Faith, one of Canada's leading feminist scholars/activists. It describes: her childhood; high school life; college years; early intellectual influences; how she came to criminology; her entrance into the academy; her important contributions to feminism, criminology, and criminal justice; her future plans; and her love of music. Thanks to Karlene Faith and other feminist academic activists, gender is now a major component of much of the criminological work being done in North America today, and many people became empowered due to her commitment, dedication, and effort.     

The Impact of a Risk Assessment Instrument on Juvenile Detention Decision-making: A Check on “Perceptual Shorthand” and “Going Rates”?

This study assesses the impact of a juvenile detention risk assessment instrument (RAI) on decision-making in five New Jersey counties. It uses a pretest–posttest design, drawing on a sample of decisions matched across time periods using propensity scores (N = 1,432). It suggests that the RAI, supported by other reforms, lowers overall rates of detention. Though evidence is not strong, findings suggest the RAI may have reduced reliance on “perceptual shorthand” variables reflected in the juvenile’s age and the time of day of the decision. There is stronger evidence that the RAI increased reliance on the specific factors contained within its risk score. There is also evidence that RAI reduced disparities in detention rates across counties, perhaps by diminishing the importance of “going rates” for detention, rooted in local courtroom workgroups.     

Bhaṭṭoji Dīkṣita’s “Small Step” for a Grammarian and “Giant Leap” for Sanskrit Grammar

This paper is devoted to theoretical and methodical considerations on our study and understanding of macroscopic transitions in the world of Sanskrit intellectuals from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century (cf. Pollock, Indian Economic and Social History Review 38(1):3–31, 2001). It is argued that compared to his immediate predecessors Bha??oji Dīk?ita’s contribution to Prakriyā grammars was modest. It was to a large extent on account of changed circumstances—over the centuries mainly a slow but steady decline—in the position of Sanskrit and the general public’s need for a simple definition of authoritatively correct Sanskrit that Bha??oji’s grammar met with success so quickly, so widely, and so solidly. I once knew a little boy in England who asked his father, “Do fathers always know more than sons?” and the father said “Yes.” The next question was, “Daddy, who invented the steam engine?” and the father said “James Watt.” And then the son came back with “But why didn’t James Watt’s father invent it?” Gregory Bateson (1972, p. 21)      

Community-Based Corrections for Young Offenders: Proposal for a “Localized” Corrections

Recent years have witnessed the exponential growth of community-based corrections programs for young offenders worldwide. Proponents of these programs contend that such initiatives are effective and humane alternatives to incarceration and operate to reduce youthful misbehavior. These assertions, however, have been called into question by empirical research and there is a danger that the ‘panacea’ of community corrections will be replaced by more punitive and less enlightened policies and programs.

It is argued that the potential effectiveness of community-based corrections has been hindered by the manner in which such programs are designed and delivered, and that insufficient attention has been given to the notions of community and community involvement. Several principles of ‘localized’ corrections which would address many of the current deficiencies are outlined. Localized corrections involves communities, rather than government agencies and ministries, assuming primary responsibility for identifying and addressing the needs of youth.     

“‘Novel food’ for thought” on law and policymaking in the global creative economy

Law and policymaking form a central theme of the global governance debate. In these times of an emerging global creative economy the debate is becoming increasingly complex as global governance is faced with serious challenges of a political, economic, cultural, environmental, social, technological and, last but not least, legal nature. Against the backdrop of a global food crisis, both in terms of food security and food safety for all, the present article explores some of the broader regulatory aspects of these challenges by looking at the regulation of food and notably novel food as engineered by the use of bio- and nano-technologies. It aims to show how the preservation of the integrity of law over time, and with it the objectives of providing legal predictability and legal certainty, are threatened by deficiencies in the institutional design of the current international legal framework as well as in the conceptual understanding underlying the legal instruments adopted by these institutions. The analysis at the international level is complemented by a brief look at the domestic level exemplified by the situation in the European Union and the People’s Republic of China against the backdrop of their attempts to formulate and successfully implement policies enhancing their competitive advantages in the creative economy.     

Identifying “deterrable” offenders: Implications for research on deterrence

This article outlines a theoretical framework that distinguishes three forms of responsiveness to legal sanction threats: acute conformist, deterrable, and incorrigible. It then investigates the implications of the framework with data from a perceptual deterrence survey administered to 412 university students. The findings suggest the preeminent empirical regularity in deterrence research—that the deterrent effect of the certainty of punishment far exceeds that of the severity of punishment—may be overstated. An analysis confined to deterrable offenders suggests that the severity effect (relative to the certainty effect) may exceed that reported in extant research.     

Bestialitatis and the New Ethics on “Human” Animals

This article discusses how the legal systems in several Western countries, with a special focus on Italy, address our present day animal rights movement and how these legal systems can faithfully reflect the movement’s values as well as promote them in a manner that will ultimately change the rights themselves and their cultural context: this is an extremely interesting issue for the semiotic study of the “humanization of animals”. Therefore, I will summarize several semiotic arguments using the model of the four ontologies by Philippe Descola and the concept of prospectivism by Eduardo Viveiros De Castro. I expect several important changes will come about thanks to the ties between philosophical animal rights discourse and legal discourse and I also believe that the two most interesting issues will be animal labor and reproduction. I will concentrate on the debate over zoophilia laws in Denmark, Germany and Italy in order to propose a way to understand the threshold which separates humans and animals in our naturalistic ontology. Nowadays, “becoming animals” and “becoming humans” seem to be two central and open-ended semiotic processes: legal rights and animal rights philosophy help bring several issues into focus such as animal subjectivity and informed consent.     

“Monetary” rules for a linked system of offset credits

Three dominant issues have historically plagued climate negotiations: How to bypass issues of sovereignty, generate sufficient climate finance, and establish an agreement that is inclusive of the current major polluters. These issues are prevalent within the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol, and the CDM has provided policy makers with a useful starting point to understanding how offset credits can be utilised within a post-Kyoto framework. The primary aim of this research is to investigate how project-based offset credits generated by states would interact within a linked framework using monetary rules and exchange rates. The examination of a linked system, specifically, was owing to the structure of the proposed agreement to be finalised in Paris at COP 21 where nationally determined contributions would be submitted by each state, allowing for the possibility of linked domestic carbon market mechanisms. The certified emission reduction credits of the CDM were used as a model to investigate the trade of offset credits within a linked system which act as a unique climate currency of each domestic offset credit mechanism. These offset credits could be earned through the implementation of domestic projects or projects hosted in other states. From this research, we conclude that fixed exchange rates are more stable than flexible exchange rates in a climate currency framework. Fixed exchange rates reduce losses of capital (owing to uncertainty in the markets) and the prominence of asymmetric spatial price transmission associated with fiat offset credit prices. To encourage co-operation between developing and developed countries, it is recommended that a combination of currency area theory and trade blocs be implemented as opposed to a currency union. Currency areas are the most viable option as they maintain that the domestic offset credit mechanism is under the control of the state and retains a level of stability as individual state offset credit prices are fixed to the same price. Even though this research forms the basis for a new climate policy architecture, the overall effectiveness of the policy will be determined by the selection of appropriate discount schemes, increased participation and agreement by states, and most significantly, political will.