Review Symposium: Interdisciplinary Readings of Ari Z. Bryen's Violence in Roman Egypt: Where Law,Violence, and Culture Collide: A Sociolegal Reading of Violence in Everyday Life

Bryen, Ari Z. 2013 . Violence in Roman Egypt: A Study of Legal Interpretation . Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Pp. 376. $75.00 cloth; $75.00 eBook. This comment considers Ari Bryen's Violence in Roman Egypt (2013) from sociological and sociolegal perspectives. Although Bryen is a historian, and his site of inquiry is second‐century Roman Egypt, he turns to contemporary sociologists and law and society scholars to highlight the interplay between law and the social world in the construction of violence. In doing so, he finds a new way to analyze the role of law as a cultural resource for nonelites to make sense of their social world but also to change it (albeit with limits) through law.     

Framing Contests and Policy Conflicts over Gas Pipelines

This paper compares and contrasts high‐conflict policy debates over the siting of three natural gas pipeline projects at different decision stages of the siting process. This paper draws on over 600 newspaper articles spanning 3 years, analyzed through Discourse Network Analysis. Drawing from the Advocacy Coalition Framework and Policy Conflict framework, this paper finds that actor framing of opposing policy beliefs involves more indirect than direct confrontations, with statements in the media waxing and waning over time. Opponents of the pipelines more often explicitly argue against pipelines, while also using a broad range of conceptual arguments, whereas proponents more often couch their arguments around the economic benefits of pipelines and use fewer conceptual frames overall. We also find evidence that opposing coalitions use similar framing across different decision contexts. This paper concludes with a commentary on the status and contributions of this paper to the study of policy conflicts and next steps in advancing similar research agendas.     

Do staff attitudes vary by position?: A look at one juvenile correctional center

Correctional staff are a vital part of an inmate’s institutional experience. Prior research suggests interaction between staff and inmates may be a function of worker attitudes toward crime and punishment. The current study examines attitudes about crime causation and punishment by surveying correctional staff members at a single-purpose juvenile treatment center. Correctional officers and treatment personnel exhibit different levels of support for rehabilitative ideals. Organizational ramifications stemming from these divergent outlooks are discussed.     

Acculturation and mental health: Response to a culturally-centered delinquency intervention

There is a dearth of research examining intervention effectiveness for ethnic minorities and few studies have investigated within-group differences in response to treatment. This study examined the prevalence of mental health problems among Anglo- and Mexican-American juveniles entering probation and their response to a comprehensive intervention designed to address drug, alcohol, and mental health in a culturally-sensitive manner. We hypothesized that all youths would demonstrate mental health improvements from pretest to posttest, and the improvements would be equal for Mexican-American youth of varying levels of acculturation and an Anglo comparison group. Participants included a total of 103 adolescents ages thirteen to eighteen years, of whom 59 percent were male and 81 percent were Mexican American. Hypotheses were supported, indicating this comprehensive, community-based intervention targeting delinquent adolescents and their families was effective in improving mental health regardless of ethnic background or level of acculturation. That is, regardless of group differences in mental health problems at intake, youth with different cultural orientations reported significantly reduced levels of internalizing and externalizing behavior problems at posttest.