Where Movements Matter: Examining Unintended Consequences of the Pain Management Movement in Medical,Criminal Justice,and Public Health Fields

Social movement scholars have rarely considered professional fields as sites of social movement consequences and have overlooked how social movement consequences traverse field boundaries. This research examines where movements matter by examining unintended consequences across professional fields. Drawing on a case study of the pain management movement, this study asks (1) under what conditions do movements targeting a focal professional field create consequences in adjacent fields; (2) what factors affect how adeptly the adjacent field responds; and (3) how do social movement impacts on adjacent fields affect the focal field? Findings demonstrate how the success of the pain management movement in medicine helped to fuel the opioid epidemic, which detrimentally affected the adjacent fields of criminal justice and public health. These adjacent fields' strategies for curbing spillover, in turn, created a new set of consequences for medicine. Their responses depended on material and moral resources and authority structures that differed significantly across the two adjacent fields. This article concludes with a discussion of factors that may facilitate or deter cross‐field contagion effects and offers suggestions for future research.     

Shadow Writing and Participant Observation: A Study of Criminal Justice Social Work Around Sentencing

The study of decision‐making by public officials in administrative settings has been a mainstay of law and society scholarship for decades. The methodological challenges posed by this research agenda are well understood: how can socio‐legal researchers get inside the heads of legal decision‐makers in order to understand the uses of official discretion? This article describes an ethnographic technique the authors developed to help them penetrate the decision‐making practices of criminal justice social workers in writing pre‐sentence reports for the courts. This technique, called ‘shadow writing’, involved a particular form of participant observation whereby the researcher mimicked the process of report writing in parallel with the social workers. By comparing these ‘shadow reports’ with the real reports in a training‐like setting, the social workers revealed in detail the subtleties of their communicative strategies embedded in particular reports and their sensibilities about report writing more generally.     

Domestic violence and criminal justice training needs of social services workers

Domestic violence is a multifaceted problem that requires various agencies to work together to serve victims. Among other agencies that are involved in this collaborative effort, criminal justice officials must work with social services workers to ensure that cases are handled effectively. At the root of this collaborative effort, it is natural to question whether various parties have the knowledge needed to effectively respond to specific cases of domestic violence. In this study, attention was given to whether social workers possessed enough knowledge about various aspects of domestic violence, including information required to process domestic violence cases in the criminal justice system. In all, 186 social services worker supervisors in the Commonwealth of Virginia were asked to rate the level of knowledge they believed social services workers had regarding specific domestic violence topics with the level of knowledge workers they believed social workers needed regarding each domestic violence topic. Findings suggested that social services workers might have more problems dealing with the interpersonal nature of domestic violence cases than they do with the legal issues. At the same time, the supervisors suggested the workers knew less about specific legal options than they needed to know. Based on this, the authors suggest changes in training for all human services workers, including criminal justice officials and social workers.     

The effects of criminal justice contact on employment stability for white-collar and street-level offenders

Criminologists increasingly have studied the effects of criminal justice contact on a broad range of offenders' adult outcomes. However, virtually all of this research focuses exclusively on street-level offenders. With the use of a unique data set that includes street-level and white-collar offenders, we investigated the odds of regaining steady employment following criminal justice contact by offender type. Specifically, we investigated the effects of age of onset, number of prior arrests, total time sentenced, timing of first arrest, and timing of first incarceration on employment stability for both types of offenders, while controlling for family background factors, race, educational attainment, and age. Overall, we found that white-collar offenders are better able to rebound following contact with the criminal justice system. However, when the accrue multiple arrests and are arrested or incarcerated before the age of 24, white-collar offenders face the same obstacles to employment stability as their street-level counterparts.     

Citizenship and justice: public prosecutors in social contexts in Portugal

All over the world judicial systems are under tremendous pressure as the instruments used by citizens to access their full rights. The erosion of other state powers has transferred expectations of social intervention or, at least, protection for the rights of the weak and vulnerable, to the sphere of justice. Hence, in some countries the social role of judges or public prosecutors has become more important and their work is publicly scrutinised to ensure that their duties are performed correctly and fairly. In addition to criminal law, social areas of justice (concerning workers and children) have become more central to judicial systems, conferring a new public responsibility on these professionals.

In several countries, including Portugal, public prosecutors are unusual within the legal profession given that they have equal status in both social and criminal areas of law. In certain systems, public prosecutors may act as a party, defending the rights of powerless citizens and leading them through the judicial process. Such powers offer great potential for fairness and justice but at the same time can lead to dangerous professional controversies. Through an analysis of the Portuguese model, one of the more advanced of its kind (in terms of intervention), some of the main features will be described and identified.

Public prosecutors in Portugal have, for many years, been in charge of a set of very varied responsibilities within the context of the Family and Juvenile and Labour Courts which far exceed what is publicly acknowledged, particularly in criminal matters. However, their functions are not limited to those of the ‘public prosecutor’ or ‘coordinator of the investigation’ typically associated with responsibilities in criminal matters.

Within the context of these two major and socially sensitive areas, public prosecutors act as intermediaries between the different parties and entities involved in litigation, a fact which, in professional terms, endows them with features which are atypical of magistrates and places them in close contact with citizens. Thus, taking a case study based on the Coimbra Family and Juvenile and Labour Courts as its starting point, this paper aims to map out these formal and informal functions, which create a level of importance that is probably much higher than would have been expected, particularly given the lack of truly credible and effective alternatives that enable citizens to access law and justice.     

论社会管理创新中的刑事法治问题

社会管理创新是当今法学界讨论颇多的一个话题。对于社会管理创新与刑法的关系,要建立在法治的认识前提下,社会管理创新与刑法的基本原则并不冲突,刑法的天然属性使得其与社会管理存在紧密的互动关系,同时,刑法的保障法地位,又决定了社会管理创新需要刑法做坚强的后盾,保障秩序稳定。为了适应社会管理创新的要求,基于两者的契合,刑事法治发展需要从五个方面作出努力:关注社会情势,贯彻宽严相济刑事政策;保障公民权利,重视民生犯罪;"刚柔并济",坚持以人为本;革新纠纷解决机制,灵活、多样化解矛盾;落实行刑社会化,契合多元治理理念。     

Victims' Rights, Victims' Expectations, and Law Enforcement Workers' Constraints in Cases of Murder

Research on crime victims and their experiences with the criminal justice system suggests that victims' rights (e.g., victim impact statements) and victims' services (e.g., crime victims' compensation, counseling) have not significantly improved victims' satisfaction with the criminal justice system or their recovery from the crime. Thus, we appear to know little about how to satisfy and assist victims of crime. This study uses the symbolic interactionist perspective to examine victims' experiences with law enforcement workers (e.g., detectives, counselors) with a focus on people who have lost a loved one to murder ("bereaved victims"). The data come from in-depth interviews with thirty-two bereaved victims, seven law enforcement workers, and three crime victims' advocates in Union County (pseudonym). Bereaved victims define the victim role differently from law enforcement workers, creating two main points of conflict with workers: (1) a conflict over their deceased loved one's body, and (2) a conflict over the flow of information in the case. Bereaved victims' frustrations over these conflicts created problems for their recovery. Bereaved victims' efforts to see their deceased loved one's body, guide detectives' investigation, and learn information about the murder and the investigation took a back seat to detectives' interests in protecting the integrity of the investigation and building a strong case for the prosecution. Policy implications are discussed.     

社会危害性与刑事违法性辨析--重在从"罪刑法定"视角观之

一个时期以来,社会危害性与刑事违法性的争论越来越引起人们的极大关注。社会危害性与刑事违法性是属于两个不同学科、不同领域的问题。在“罪刑法定”原则下,社会危害性更应当回归于犯罪学之中,而在刑法学中用法益侵害和严重的法益侵害取而代之,并且它们只有被明确规定在刑法中才能叫刑法法益侵害。这样规定,不仅剔除了“社会危害性”这一宏观、模糊的、甚至易受主观价值取向改变的犯罪定义标准,而且有利于刑事司法操作。     

The quality of doctoral programs in deviance,criminology, and criminal justice: An empirical assessment

While information regarding the doctoral programs in any discipline is of obvious and considerable relevance both to those in the discipline and to those seeking access to the best possible sites for graduate training, our knowledge about the quality of doctoral programs continues to be based on little more than speculation and highly ambiguous measures of institutional or departmental prestige. This study attempts to fill this gap for those who have special interests in the related fields of deviance, criminology, and criminal justice by ranking the thirty-six most significant doctoral programs in the nation by means of data derived from the Social Science Citation Index. Perhaps the most striking of our findings—and certainly to us the most distressing finding—is that those departments ranked by our measures as being the highest quality are consistently those which exist within the broader structure of departments of sociology. Given our firm conviction that the discipline of criminology is far, far more than that aspect of it which is closely related to issues of substantive significance to the field of sociology, we can only speculate that those in leadership positions in the growing number of independent schools or departments of criminology or criminal justice are not meeting their obligations to the discipline whose vitality and prospects depend so heavily on the quality of their judgment.     

American social work, corrections and restorative justice: an appraisal

Social work played an active role in American corrections until the 1980s when the ethic of rehabilitation began to give way to a more conservative doctrine of retribution. Changes in the field of social work, characterized by preference of social workers to work only with certain populations, contributed to social work's diminishment in corrections. Although efforts at rehabilitation continue in corrections, the concept of restorative justice that emphasizes assisting victims, communities, and offenders in dealing with the consequences of crime is gaining acceptance in the field of corrections in the United States and in other countries. This study explored social work's presence in corrections, the decline of that presence, and how the concept of restorative justice can invigorate social work within the field of corrections. Several examples of social work's contemporary efforts to use the concept of restorative justice in the United Kingdom are presented.     

e-Justice: A Comparative Study of Computerization and Procedural Justice in Social Security

Procedural justice, which refers to the fairness of the process of decision making, is contrasted with substantive justice, which refers to the fairness of the outcomes. Extending the work of Mashaw, it is argued that there are six normative models of procedural justice: bureaucracy, professionalism, legality, managerialism, consumerism and markets. Using data from a comparative study of computerization in the social security systems of 10 countries in Europe, North America and Australasia, bureaucracy emerges as the dominant model, followed either by managerialism or by legality. Professionalism and the market are the least important models. The effect of computerization has been to intensify and entrench the bureaucratic and managerial models and undermine the professional model. In addition to presenting general trends, the paper also presents and attempts to account for differences between the 10 countries in the study.     

Lessons from the Third World for Understanding American Criminal Justice

This paper argues for and attempts to demonstrate the case for including materials related to the operation of Third World criminal justice in courses dealing with American criminal justice system. The author argues that an examination of the contexts and processes of criminal justice in Third World nations increases one's ability to understand and critique the history and operations of our criminal justice enterprises. The Third World context offers laboratories for testing assumptions about American criminal justice without the implicitly pervasive ideological overtones we come to accept unquestionably in our own system simply because it is the one in which we operate.

Within the context of poverty, “dual societies,” chronic political instability, the struggle for economic development, and colonialism, the Third World offers an opportunity to study the interaction and impact of law, politics, economics, social control, and social change on the development and operations of criminal justice. Using examples from the literature of anthropology, law and social change, and political and economic development, the author attempts to demonstrate the usefulness of this interdisciplinary approach and the Third World context in teaching about the criminal justice system.     

Professionalizing Prison: Primitive Professionalization and the Administrative Defense of Eastern State Penitentiary, 1829–1879

This article describes the process of “primitive professionalization”—the efforts of a small set of actors to claim professional status before their field has professionalized. Using a case study of Eastern State Penitentiary (1829–1879), I examine the strategies by which one prison's administrators claimed status as professionals—those whose command of a specialized knowledge grants authority within their domain. Eastern's administrators deployed a series of evolving discursive strategies aimed at establishing themselves as professionals long before more formal, field‐wide efforts to professionalize criminal justice. These strategies allowed Eastern's administrators to establish their professional status without traditional status markers of national networks, college degrees, or special training, which emerged later. Beyond illustrating a new pathway to professionalization, examining criminal justice professionalization at this early stage illuminates the early prison's precarious position and the internecine warfare among actors competing to control its meaning.     

Interpreting the U.S. Human Trafficking Debate Through the Lens of Symbolic Politics

By enacting the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, U.S. policymakers acknowledged trafficking in persons as criminal behavior, punishable under federal law. The legislation was developed through the congressional policy-making process, usually studied from the perspective of who gets what, when, and how. To expand our understanding of criminal justice policymaking, this article analyzes the act from an alternative perspective—symbolic politics. It examines how the act performs symbolic functions identified in the criminal justice literature—reassuring the law abiding/threatening the lawbreaker, communicating a moral message, providing a model for the states, and educating about a problem.     

全球化和刑事司法

刑事司法的全球化正在逐步成为现实。而且全球化的进程旨在在世界范围内采取联合行动预防和惩治某些特定的犯罪。然而,刑事司法全球化的构建需要建立在统一的刑事司法文化基础上,与修正的报应模式和法律与秩序模式不同的是,刑事司法全球化必须有整合一致的人权文化。提高个体、政治、社会和经济人权的整体文化,是保障建立刑事司法全球化的最佳途径,它服务于国际公共价值和秩序,同时还致力于社会公正,确保相关人员,特别是被害人和被告人的权利保障。     

Justice Matters: lifting the lid on Pandora's box

The starting point of Justice Matters is simple: criminal justice is far too big; far too costly; far too intrusive. Far from being a means of delivering social justice, it is the cause of much social injustice. The large footprint in society occupied by the combined criminal justice institutions is profoundly socially harmful.

The criminal justice process inflicts unnecessary suffering on many thousands of suspects, defendants and convictees every year. This suffering is experienced very differently depending on your position in society: for instance whether you are young or old, black or white, male or female, rich or poor.

The collateral damage of the criminal justice process is also profound. A criminal record isa life sentence for many: an ongoing obstacle to participation in work and the wider community. Families and communities whose loved ones are arrested, prosecuted, imprisoned and supervised experience deep and lasting loss. Collateral damage is also found in the stress experienced by many victims, whose traumas and distress are often left unresolved, and in the dissatisfaction of witnesses, whose experience of the criminal justice process can be so negative.

Criminal justice also crowds out other, more innovative, just and effective policy and practice solutions to the problems our society faces. It is good at punishing certain individuals and groups. It fails to prevent social problems from arising, or to resolve those that occur.

To get involved in Justice Matters visit: www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/why-justice-matters     

Citizenship, mental illness, and the criminal justice system

The concept of citizenship in regard to persons with mental illness has gained increasing attention in recent years, but little empirical research has been conducted on this topic. In addition, little research or conceptual writing has been done on the topic of criminal justice in regard to citizenship for people with mental illness, in spite of the high incidence of criminal charges and incarceration among this group. We review our work on an applied theoretical framework of citizenship, including its origins in mental health outreach work to people who are homeless and in a jail diversion program. We then suggest the contribution the framework can make to the intersecting issues of mental illness, its criminalization in the U.S., and the goal of community integration for people with mental illness.     

Wither Criminal Justice? An Argument for a Reformed Discipline

The American criminal justice system fails to achieve justice, reduce crime, and provide equal protection to Americans regardless of their social class, race, and gender. But, criminal justice as an academic area of study has become a popular and fast growing liberal arts major in the United States, churning out tens of thousands to work in the criminal justice system. Given the demonstrable harms caused by criminal justice, which are suffered disproportionately by the least powerful people, academic criminologists and criminal justicians have the obligation to promote a reformed discipline. This article briefly summarizes the evidence of bias in the criminal justice system and then turns to how these biases relate to criminal justice as an academic discipline. Using the war on drugs as an example, I argue that the practice of criminal justice as an academic endeavor runs counter to the goal of promoting social justice in America. One of the ironic conclusions of this article is that criminal justice as an academic discipline must get smaller if we are to achieve larger goals of social justice outlined here. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Meeting the enemy: American exceptionalism and international law

Howard Zinn has been classified in a number of ways for his many social contributions. However, despite the breadth of his work, he has never been considered a criminologist. It is likely that this is the result of the inaccurate perceptions many Americans have about crime being a predominantly street‐level social problem. Zinn maintains that the social harms caused by those in positions of political and economic power are in fact crimes against humanity that are far more destructive and violent than the actions our legal system has historically deemed criminal. He also points to the ways our criminal justice system is unjust and ineffective, and has demonstrated how social inequality ensures that the disadvantaged will be further subordinated by the criminal justice system. Zinn’s critical contributions about the most significant sources of social harm, the unjust nature of the American justice system, and the influence of social inequality offer an unorthodox criminological perspective that deserves special consideration. His unconventional criminology calls for increasing social justice by means of political dissent, social resistance, and civil disobedience.