Coverture and Dignity: A Comment

This short comment challenges efforts to expand the notion of a dignity taking to traditional legal structures, like those identified with “coverture.” It suggests that the inequalities of gender oppression are better understood as forms of “slow violence.” It also suggests how difficult it is to imagine and to institute remedies for wrongs rooted in long histories and in powerful structures of socialization.     

Imprisonment and unemployment: A comment

The current state of research dealing with the relationship between the unemployment rate and the imprisonment rate is assessed, and directions for further research are suggested.     

Immigration and Terrorism: A Constructed Connection

In the aftermath of 9/11 several European countries intensified their counter-terrorism policy. This article refers to the Spanish response to the terrorist attacks in the USA and Madrid, with special attention paid to the consequences that (illegal) immigrants faced in relation to their rights. This collective is often depicted in public opinion as “folk devils” in the terminology of the Moral-Panics Theory. Using the latter as a model, this paper establishes that the connection between counter-terrorism policy and more restrictive legislation for foreigners is a construction, which is either insufficient or not satisfactorily explained by the social actors who propose it. The result is a policy that limits the immigrants’ liberty without necessarily making the rest safer.     

A Comparison of uninformed and informed death penalty opinions: A replication and expansion

This study examines the influence on death penalty opinions of participating in a college class on the death penalty. Students in the class (the experimental group) and in another class offered at the same time (the control group) were asked to complete a questionnaire regarding their attitudes toward capital punishment at the beginning and at the end of the semester. They were also asked factual questions that measured their knowledge about capital punishment. Overall, the results of the study suggest that both groups were not well informed during the pretest measure. However, at the end of the semester, the group enrolled in the death penalty class were more knowledgable, less supportive of the death penalty based on general/absrtact questions, and more likely to favor alternatives to capital punishment than were the students in the control group.     

一个被遗忘的"红学家"——周作人与《红楼梦》

在众多古代白话小说中,周作人认为只有<红楼梦>才属于真正的"人的文学";他以读者学的思维,持平视的视角,从平民的角度把玩<红楼梦>;周氏很欣赏<红楼梦>所描写的众多儿女,对晴雯评价尤高,因为她的真性情;他还认为,<红楼梦>属于平民文学一类,其描写的人生情景、家庭悲剧和众多女儿性格类型,在中国社会中具有普遍的意义和永恒的魅力.     

Christianity and punitive mentalities: A qualitative study

According to David Garland (1990) scholars should be concerned about the cultural foundations of punishment in modern western society, such as religion. To this end, Garland conceptualizes punitive mentalities and sensibilities that provide the cultural support for structural systems ofpunishment. Punitive mentalities are ways of thinking about punishment, whereas punitive sensibilities are ways of feeling about punishment. Garlandsuggests that religious traditions are an important source of punitive mentalities and sensibilities. This research is an empirical analysis ofpunitive mentalities and their cultural roots, using qualitative research.Research questions focus on the following: Are there distinctively punitivementalities? How do punitive mentalities influence the desire for officialpunishment? Data from a previous study (Cook, 1998a) are analyzed here to explore terrains of punitive mentalities within the contexts of Christianity.Findings identify four distinct categories: anti-punitive, non-punitive,retributive and vengeful mentalities where Christian (non)belief systemsare important cornerstones. Respondents in each group have specific desires regarding the state's use of punishments, especially the ``death penalty''.     

Patriarchal ideology and wife-assault: A meta-analytic review

Using the framework of patriarchal theory, the present meta-analytic review examined the predicted relation between wife assault and the maintenance of a patriarchal ideology. This relationship was evaluated using three measures of patriarchal ideology: (1) attitudes toward violence, (2) gender attitudes, and (3) gender schemas. Overall, assaultive husbands reported more positive attitudes toward marital violence and lower scores on masculine and feminine gender schema scales than nonassaultive husbands. Methodological factors accounted for the significant heterogeneity among the gender attitude effect estimates for men. A nonsignificant average effect in the males' gender attitude emerged in studies which used husbands' self-report data and case-control comparison groups. In contrast to men, assaulted wives held more feminine gender schema and tended to exhibit more liberal gender attitudes than nonassaulted wives across studies. These meta-analytic findings offer limited support for the ideological component of the patriarchal theory of wife assault and are discussed with respect to their theoretical and methodological implications.     

Minority threat and punishment: A cross-national analysis

There has been considerable recent interest in understanding how changes within the racial and ethnic landscape contribute to both the increased segregation of minority populations and their punishment. The minority group-threat hypothesis proposes that punishment is one outcome of the regulation of groups that are racially, culturally, or ethnically different. This study examined the relationship between population heterogeneity and the use of punishment, measured in terms of abolition of the death penalty and imprisonment rates in 140 nations. Controlling for modernization, political repression, violent crime, and economic stress, the findings indicate that population heterogeneity was positively associated with imprisonment. Likewise, lesser diversity was associated with the abolition of capital punishment. Our results suggest that definitions of minority threat be expanded to include indicators of language and religion as well as race and ethnicity.