The social functions of correctional policy: A case study of the Alabama convict lease system 1845–1928

Private sector involvement in corrections is a controversial contemporary practice. This paper examines, from a historical perspective, one state’s experiment with leasing state sentenced convicts to private contractors for use on a variety of for profit labor projects. The convict lease system in Alabama was noteworthy for two reasons: first, Alabama relied on the lease system of convict labor longer than any other state, and second, the state operated one of the most profitable lease systems in the United States. Convicts in Alabama were used in agriculture, road and railway construction, manufacturing, in quarries and in the coal mines. It was in the coal mines that the lease system brought the greatest profit and controversy. Leases with the coal companies for convict labor became a major source of revenue for the state treasury while at the same time, prison reformers criticized the practice for its cruel and inhumane treatment of inmates (the death rate at some of the mining camps exceeded 40% of the inmates under custody per year). In addition, this paper examines some of the social consequences associated with the correctional policy of convict leasing.     

Mobilisation and legitimisation: The political ambiance of plan implementation

The paper examines the structure of political decision-making which forms the context of regional plan generation and implementation in inchoate states. The established ideas of political science are built upon to suggest a three-tiered structure of power brokerage in which the planner as bureaucrat and technocrat functions in the middle tier. The constraints and opportunities which affect the functions of planning are related to the priorities of government and political elites. The regional planning paradigm is highlighted as an example of the problems of the conflicting interests of professional planners and the state. Whereas regional planning is directed at spatial equity and local development, states are preoccupied with political legitimacy and the spaljialisation of power. Further, the regional paradigm does not recognise that the way in which a state derives its ideology and development strategy impinges on the political interpretation of the aims of planning. The paper concludes that planning and implementational mddes need to make explicit recognition of the political conditions in inchoate states and develop more realistic forms of action.     

Why Party Leaders are More Extreme than Their Members: Modeling Sequential Elimination Elections in the U.S. House of Representatives

Grofman et al. (forthcoming) find thatparty leaders in the U.S. House ofRepresentatives tend to be more extremethan the median member of their party, andthat they tend to come from the party'sideological ``heartland'' between the medianand the mode. This paper shows that if thedistribution of preferences is skewed (asis the case with both parties in theHouse), then we should expect sequentialelimination elections to choose on averageleaders between the median and modalpositions. We show that this is the casewhether or not the party is factionalized.     

Candidates or Districts? Reevaluating the Role of Race in Voter Turnout

Leading theories of race and participation posit that minority voters are mobilized by co‐ethnic candidates. However, past studies are unable to disentangle candidate effects from factors associated with the places from which candidates emerge. I reevaluate the links between candidate race, district composition, and turnout by leveraging a nationwide database of over 185 million individual registration records, including estimates for the race of every voter. Combining these records with detailed information about 3,000 recent congressional primary and general election candidates, I find that minority turnout is not higher in districts with minority candidates, after accounting for the relative size of the ethnic group within a district. Instead, Black and Latino citizens are more likely to vote in both primary and general elections as their share of the population increases, regardless of candidate race.     

When registration barriers fall,who votes?: An empirical test of a rational choice model

It is well known that those with higher SES characteristics tend to vote at higher rates in U.S. elections. Over the past several decades many proponents of eased voter registration requirements have predicted that liberalizing voter registration laws will significantly improve turnout, especially among the least well- educated and the poor. In this article we offer a rational choice model of turnout that leads us to expect the greatest turnout gains from virtually eliminating voter registration costs will instead accrue to those with medium income and education. We test this prediction longitudinally over the period 1972–1992 using a vast survey and a natural experiment comparing voters in states that adopted election day registration (EDR) with those residing in states maintaining more traditional closing dates. Contrary to much of the literature, citizens with medium education and medium income voted more under EDR, as the model predicts. We conclude that the methods used here better capture and empirically identify the curvilinear relationship between voter registration laws and the turnout probabilities at various SES levels.