Intermediate punishment: Redistributing or extending social control?

During the past two decades, a major area of debate has been about the meaning and consequences of the community corrections movement that has now evolved into intermediate punishment. A question underlying this debate is whether or not this movement accomplishes its expressed purpose of reducing reliance on prisons by redistributing control into the community or merely extends community control without altering previous reliance on prisons. This study assesses Florida's intermediate punishment strategy of home confinement. Data from observations of program practices and interviews with home confinement officers, offenders on the program and various family members living in the home address the operational features of the program. Pre and post program statistics (1980–1987) on state population, felony convictions and forms of correctional sanctions explore the program's impact upon the state's characteristic sanctioning trends. The findings provide no support that home confinement has reduced Florida's reliance on prisons. Specifically, throughout the decade of the 1980s, and despite the operation of a home confinement program that has involved over 100,000 offenders, Florida's use of prisons experienced major increases disproportionate to the state's population, and conviction increases. The paper concludes with discussion of ironies associated with correctional reforms and related empirical and theoretical implications.     

“Clean up and go straight”: Effects of drug treatment on recidivism among felony probationers

The central question we address in this article is whether participation in court-ordered drug treatment programs reduces future criminal involvement among convicted property offenders who have a history of drug abuse. Using a national sample of male property offenders sentenced to felony probation, we analyze drug treatment experience on probationers’ recidivism rates by employing proportional hazards techniques. Results indicate that how successful white men are in completing courtordered drug treatment programs has no significant effect on their recidivism rates. However, AfricanAmerican and Hispanic men who satisfy the expectations of their drug treatment programs are significantly less likely to be rearrested. Overall, our findings support the contention that drug treatment reduces further criminal behavior among men on probation for felony property offenses. Thus, we recommend that court service personnel strive to provide drug treatment programs for property offenders with a history of drug abuse and that supervisors closely monitor probationers’ activities while in treatment to assure lower rates of recidivism. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Sociological Society in Chicago in April 1996.     

A population study of polyurethane foam fragments recovered from the surface of 100 outer-garments

One hundred outer-garments were examined for microscopic fragments of polyurethane foam. Low power stereomicroscopy was used to classify fragments into 18 groups according to macroscopic colour. Amber, pale yellow and black were the most frequently encountered, whilst navy, pale blue, bright pink, beige, brown, pale green, peach and white were the least frequently encountered. High power comparison/fluorescence microscopy was used to discriminate 166 populations within 16 colour groupings. The majority (95.2%) of populations consisted of three fragments or less. This study demonstrates that the background population of foam fragments on an outer-garment consists of low numbers representing various colours. Therefore, finding a large population of microscopically indistinguishable fragments within a casework situation has the potential to be considered highly significant evidentially.     

Nineteenth‐Century rural England: A case for ‘peasant studies'?

Small‐scale family‐based agricultural production was a common feature of rural England before the First World War. These producers were distinct from capitalist farmers in that labour was not normally employed, and surplus value was therefore not appropriated by the farmer. These people have been largely ignored by historians of rural England on the assumption that they were either numerically insignificant or were unimportant. The first of these assumptions is unsustainable and the second is unsubstantiated. In order to examine these people within a developed capitalist economy, concepts developed by students of the peasantry are likely to be of value, and a plea is made for studies of rural England based on class analyses, and including all of the various groups in the English countryside.     

Apathy and its Discontents: Social Capital and Social Awkwardness in American Life

ABSTRACT

The transformation of the state in the neoliberal era has characterized the debate in international/comparative political economy and political science scholarship. Many of such accounts, however, often assume a static and reified vision of the state. In contrast, this study, by focusing on the dimension of political agency in the state, provides for a qualitative analysis of the transformations of the Italian state during the consolidation of neoliberalism (1988–2009). Through a Critical Discourse Analysis of the political economy of Italian governments, the article tests two main hypotheses. First, similar discursive strategies of legitimation of neoliberal reforms and permanent austerity are found across the party-system. Second, these strategies occur, with no significant variations, throughout the period considered by our study. The aims of the article are three. First, to emphasize the relevance of political agency in the state to the imposition of neoliberalization; second, to explore how the neoliberal idea of state is redefined within a constellation of collateral discursive strategies; third, to emphasize the importance of the analysis of context-based discursive strategies of neoliberalization. While the empirical analysis confirms the cross-party and longitudinal extension of neoliberal political economy, the conclusions discuss the relevance of these findings to understand contemporary democratic crisis.     

The ecology of adolescent activity and experience

Twenty-five adolescents reported their daily activities and the quality of their experiences for a total of 753 times during a normal week, in response to random beeps transmitted by an electronic paging device. In this sample adolescents were found to spend most of their time either in conversation with peers or in watching television. Negative affects were prevalent in most activities involving socialization into adult roles. Television viewing appears to be an affectless state associated with deviant behavior and antisocial personality traits. The research suggests the importance of a systemic approach which studies persons' activities and experiences in an ecological context. The experiential sampling method described in this paper provides a tool for collecting such systemic data.The research reported herein was partially funded through PHS Grant 5-R01MH-22883-03.Received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Latest books includeBeyond Boredom and Anxiety (1975), dealing with the experience of enjoyment, andThe Creative Vision (1976), about problem finding in art.Current interests are problems of juvenile delinquency and aging.Received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Research interests include the sociology of science and the role of women.