ROLE STRESS, CUSTODY ORIENTATION, AND DISCIPLINARY ACTIONS

Shifting correctional philosophies and institutional policies concerning the handling and control of inmates have contributed to experiences of role stress among prison guards. The present study, based on questionnaire responses of 144 prison guards from a maximum security prison, suggests that role stress is resolved by an intensified commitment to the custodial role. A major consequence of this is a higher rate of disciplinary reports filed by the guards. Apparently, an increased custody orientation disposes guards to a pattern of closer surveillance and control of the inmate population. This study concludes with a discussion of the implications of our findings for guardinmate relationships and for the administration of justice in the prison setting.     

Community Participation and the Function of Rules: The Case of Urban Zoning Boards

Data from a case study of piecemeal zoning change suggest that the decisions of citizen zoning boards of appeal are neither lawless nor ineffective – the majority of requests that come before them are for bulk and dimension variances which typically do not threaten the land use status quo and are usually granted unless there is local opposition. When substantial changes of land use are involved two factors are influential in determining the outcome of zoning cases – the consistency or clash between the proposed land use and that of the neighborhood surrounding the site, particularly in single-family residential areas; and the expression of opinion (positive or negative) by the residents of the community.
Despite criticism of zoning boards as defective and illegitimate legal institutions and calls for their abolition, they remain popular and extremely resistant to change because they have come to play important dispute settling and community maintenance functions in the urban environment in addition to their explicit rule enforcement functions. These broader community functions of zoning can only be understood in terms of a participatory model of legal process where legal rules are understood as functioning to identify situations as much as they are norms to be enforced.     

Where There Is Connectivity,There Is Surveillance

In 2013, NPQ editor Nathan Gardels spoke with Google's executive chairman ERIC SCHMIDT , and the director of the Google Ideas think tank, JARED COHEN , about their new book, The Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business.     

EXTENDING SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION THEORY: A MULTILEVEL APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF VIOLENCE AMONG PERSONS WITH MENTAL ILLNESSES*

Prior studies of violence among individuals with mental illnesses have focused almost exclusively on individual‐level characteristics. In this study, I examine whether the structural correlates of neighborhood social disorganization also explain variation in violence. I use data on 270 psychiatric patients who were treated and discharged from an acute inpatient facility combined with tract‐level data from the 1990 U.S. Census. I find that living in a socially disorganized neighborhood increased the probability of violence among the sample, an effect that was not mediated by self‐reported social supports. Implications for future research in the areas of violence and mental illness are discussed.     

Representatives and Represented in England, 1660–89

SUMMARY

This article considers the tensions and ambiguities in the attitudes of members of the English House of Commons towards those they represented. Constitutionally, the Commons assented to laws and taxes in the name of, and on behalf of, the people and presented the nation's grievances to the king. They were thus conscious to some extent of the need to defend the people's interests and to justify their conduct to the electorate and to their neighbours. However, memories of the civil wars made them nervous of popular involvement in politics and strongly resistant to any suggestion that ‘the people’ in whose name they spoke had any right to be consulted on ‘public’ issues, still less to tell them how to act. The latter part of the article explores one aspect of this attitude, the concern to maintain the confidentiality of proceedings in Parliament and to restrict the dissemination of parliamentary news, which meant that only in 1680–81 did the Commons agree to the printing of their ‘votes’.