Alternatives to abstinence: the practice of (un)safe sex in prison

Correctional rules and regulations requiring sexual abstinence for prison inmates, coupled with unsupported beliefs about the risks of condom provision, keep most inmates in a dangerous muddle of criminalized sexual expression, covert efforts at erroneous myth-based safe sex practices, and high risk of sexual disease contraction and transmission. With the vast majority of inmates eventually released to re-enter communities across the US, these health concerns are not quarantined to the correctional environment, but rather contribute to what has been described as the hidden epidemic in public health . Using inmate voice from a large-scale national examination of inmate sexual behavior, the current study explores inmates’ attempts at ‘safe sex’ in an environment where sexual behavior, though prohibited, frequently occurs, and where no sex is the only accepted form of ‘safe’ sex. Inmates identify many approaches to safe sexual practice including barrier protection, partner selection, and risk reduction strategies. Unfortunately, many improvised, though innovative, inmate protection strategies reflect a very rudimentary understanding of safe sex for the purpose of reducing disease transmission and contraction, frequently exacerbating these risks. Policy implications include widespread condom provision and expanded inmate education and programming around sexual health and disease prevention.     

Researcher–practitioner partnerships and crime analysis: a case study in action research

This paper describes a recent researcher–practitioner partnership designed to address the challenges faced by law enforcement agencies when implementing crime control and prevention strategies. Using an action research methodology, the project embedded a group of trained students within the law enforcement community to assist with local crime problems and supplement existing crime analysis and research capabilities in six agency units. Results of this case study offer several implications for future researcher–practitioner partnerships focused on crime analysis and present an enhanced set of metrics for evaluating success.     

Sex-Based Predictors of Male and Female Property Crime Arrest Rates: Disadvantage and Drug Use

A large body of research has considered the relationship between crime and structural indicators. However, despite trends in the gender gap in offending, fewer studies have separately examined the effects of structural variables on both male and female offending. The present study examined that question through a macro-level examination of property crime across large U.S. cities using data from the Uniform Crime Report and the American Community Survey. The predictors included theoretically supported indicators of disadvantage and drug accessibility/use that were disaggregated by sex. Although the findings indicated some similarities in predictors of male and female arrest rates, they highlighted some important differences as well.     

Defending broad neutrality

ABSTRACT

This paper interrogates Cécile Laborde’s account of the proper role of religion in the liberal state. It begins by examining Laborde’s claims that prevailing liberals are not committed to broad neutrality about the good, but rather only restricted neutrality about the good—and that they are right to do so. It argues against Laborde on both exegetical and substantive grounds. It then turns to Laborde’s minimalist conception of secularism, according to which the state must be justifiable, inclusive, and limited, and it argues that it is not sufficiently demanding. Finally, it argues that the classical liberal presumption of skepticism toward religious establishment is warranted.     

Laborde,liberalism, and religion

ABSTRACT

In this introduction, we provide a brief overview of the debate on religion in political philosophy. We present the main arguments defended by Cécile Laborde in Liberalism’s Religion and explain how these arguments contribute to the debate.