Examining the Effects of Race/Ethnicity and Race Relations on Public Opinion about the Overrepresentation of Black People in U.S. Prisons

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to determine whether persons of different racial/ethnic backgrounds differ in their perceptions of the role racial discrimination plays in the overrepresentation of Black people in the U.S. prison system. The paper also tested the gradient hypothesis of comparative conflict theory, which predicts Black people perceive the greatest amount of racial discrimination, followed by Latinx and white people, respectively. This study also tested whether perceptions of race relations between Black, Latinx, and white people influenced the role participants thought racial discrimination played in Black people’s overrepresentation. Nationally representative Gallup Poll data were used. Results partially supported the gradient hypothesis. Black people were more likely than Latinx and white people to perceive racial discrimination to explain Black people’s overrepresentation in prison, but Latinxs’ views did not differ from whites’. Participants who perceived poorer relations between Black, Latinx, and white people were more likely to consider racial discrimination to explain Black people’s overrepresentation. Findings suggest Black people and those who perceive poorer race relations are most likely to support criminal justice reform efforts aimed at reducing racial disparities in the criminal justice system.     

Measuring motivation to change in offenders

Abstract

Measuring motivation to change in offender populations is important both for selection into treatment programmes and for assessing progress in therapy. Two studies are reported in this paper, both looking at the psychometric properties of questionnaires designed to measure stage of change in therapy. The samples used were patients detained in special hospitals under the Mental Health Act (1983) classification of psychopathic disorder. The first study provides norms for this group on the stages of change in psychotherapy questionnaire, plus some additional information on its relationship with self-esteem and self-efficacy measures. The second study looked at a brief version of the stages of change questionnaire, concluding that its psychometric properties were such that further use was contra-indicated.     

Anatomy of a Riot: The Social Imaginary,Single Women,and Religious Violence in Niger

This article asks us to rethink the models that have conventionally represented the coming of Islam to Africa: that of a pre-established entity, given from the outside, coherent, monadic, unity, like an already formed identity. Using Lacanian challenges to conventional notions of identity, this article contests the above version of Islam, viewing it as an incarnation of the imago: always there, always obeying the logic of a model of transmission into Africa as a reception from abroad. The conventional representation of its irruption into Africa has always involved the misrecognition of an identity as a pre-existent, already-whole form, wait ing to be born, presumably in complete unity. What this model ignores is that the language and form of what it came to recognize and name as Islam were already there, and that the Islam that formed its newlyconscious sense of self was grounded in the same act of misrecognition as characterizes the mirror stage, that is, the stage at which the subject comes to state: “This is who I am.” In order to rethink the identitarian model, this article evokes the figure of the dead father, the “McGuffin” on which turns the drama of Hampaté Ba’s Wangrin and Sembène Ousmane’s Faat Kine. In both works, the act of exhuming the father’s body takes on a degree of fantastical importance because it situates the struggle between two competing mirror stage tendencies: narcissism and aggression, tendencies around which all forms of subject-identity formation take place.     

Personality and Job Satisfaction: Evidence from a Sample of Street-Level Bureaucrats

Job satisfaction is an important component of bureaucratic success. In this article, we build on the emerging literature on the five-factor model of personality and argue that basic personality characteristics can help us understand why certain employees are more satisfied with their jobs than others. Multivariate analysis of personality and job satisfaction data from over 1,000 public servants supports this argument. We conclude with a discussion about how personality can add to our theoretical understanding of public personnel management, and help public managers identify applicants who are likely to be satisfied with work in the public sector.     

Political Indigestion: Germany Confronts Genetically Modified Foods

Why has German policy toward agricultural biotechnology been notably unsupportive, compared to other countries with large biotechnology industries, despite its economic significance and the senior governing party's initial support across both the SPD–Green and Grand Coalition governments? I argue that German policy is the result of the interlocking dynamics in the economic and political arenas. In both realms, the GMO issue led to ‘business conflict’ by dividing economic sectors into pro-GMO and anti-GMO blocs. This enhanced the anti-GMO movement's ‘opportunity structures’ in both the economic and the political arena. It also affected the relative strength of contending political coalitions on both sides of the GMO issue, which in turn affected policy outcomes. Finally, I argue that the partisan composition of Germany's coalition governments also contributed to the outcome.     

Path Dependence as an Explanation of the Institutional Stability of the German Parliament

The theory of path dependence identifies sources of institutional stability and change. It emphasises the importance of early, contingent events and increasing returns over time to explain patterns of institutional persistence. Used to describe the evolution of the procedural practices of the German Bundestag, this theory points to the long-term importance of the consensus that developed early in the 1950s among the floor leaders of three dominant parties, which is in stark contrast to the absence of such inter-party consensus in the early years of the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic. Path dependence identifies factors endogenous to the institution to explain how the institution responds to external shocks, such as the entry of new parties. When the Greens and the PDS entered the Bundestag, the established parties responded by accepting their vigorous exercise of minority rights and they accepted the established practice of managing these rights by inter-party consensus.     

Political and economic issues within the alliance: The future of Burden‐sharing and the Southern region

Annuario 1999: la costituzione europea : atti del XIV Convegno Annuale, Perugia 7–8–9‐ ottobre 1999 / Associazione italiana dei costituzionalisti. ‐ Padova : Cedam, c2000. ‐ XXXII, 633 p. ‐ ISBN 88–13–22621–7

La constitution de I'Europe / edité par Paul Magnette. ‐ Bruxelles : Editions de I'U‐niversité de Bruxelles, c2000. ‐ 201 p. ‐ ISBN 2–8004–1245–3

Europe's first constitution : the European Political Community, 1952–1954 / Richard T. Griffiths. ‐ London : Federal trust, c2000. ‐ 275 p. ‐ ISBN 1–903403–21–9

Consolidation of democracy in Africa : a view from the South / edited by Hussein Solomon, Ian Liebenberg. ‐ Aldershot: Ashgate, c2000. ‐ xii, 367 p. ‐ (The making of modern Africa). ‐ ISBN 0–7546–1174–4

The dissolution of Yugoslavia and the Badinter Arbitration Commission : a contextual study of peace‐making efforts in the post‐Cold War world / Steve Terrett. ‐ Aldershot: Ashgate, c2000. ‐ xxii, 395 p. ‐ ISBN 0–7546–2102–2

Europe and the breakup of Yugoslavia : a political failure in search of a scholarly explanation / Sonia Lucarelli. ‐ The Hague : Kluwer Law International, c2000. ‐ xvi, 278 p. ‐ ISBN 90–411–1439–4

Evolution and devolution : the dynamics of sovereignty and security in post‐Cold War Europe / Tom Lansford. ‐ Aldershot : Ashgate, c2000. ‐ viii, 242 p. ‐ ISBN 0–7546–1255–4

Funding virtue : civil society aid and democracy promotion / Marina Ottaway, Thomas Carothers, editors. ‐ Washington : Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, c2000. ‐ x, 340 p. ‐ ISBN 0–87003–178–3 (pbk)

The third force : the rise of transnational civil society / Ann M. Florini, editor. ‐ Tokyo : Japan Center for International Exchange ; Washington : Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, c2000. ‐ viii, 295 p. ‐ ISBN 0–87003–179–1 (pbk)

The geostrategic triad: living with China, Europe, and Russia / Zbigniew Brzezin‐ski. ‐ Washington : CSIS, c2000. ‐ XII, 75 p. ‐ (Significant issues ; v.23, n.1). ‐ ISBN 0–89206–384‐X

Islam and European legal systems / edited by Silvio Ferrari, Anthony Bradney. ‐Aldershot: Ashgate, c2000. ‐ x, 203 p. ‐ ISBN 1–84014–466–1

The nuclear challenge : US‐Russian strategic relations after the Cold War / Christoph Bluth. ‐ Aldershot : Ashgate, c2000. ‐ viii, 190 p. ‐ ISBN 1–85521–896–8

The politics of British arms sales since 1964 : ‘to secure our rightful share’ / Mark Phythian. ‐ Manchester: Manchester University Press, c2000. ‐ xii, 340 p. ‐ ISBN 0–7190–5907–0

The role of small states in the European Union / ’Baldur Thorhallsson. ‐ Aldershot : Ashgate, c2000. ‐ x, 252 p. ‐ ISBN 0–7546–1423–9.

South American Free Trade Area or Free Trade Area of the Americas?: open regionalism and the future of regional economic integration in South America / Mario Esteban Carranza. ‐ Aldershot: Ashgate, c2000. ‐ xiv, 245 p. ‐ (The political economy of Latin Amrica). ‐ ISBN 1–84014–795–4

Taiwan's security in the post‐Deng Xiaoping era / Martin L. Lasater, Peter Kien‐hong Yu; with contributions from Kuang‐ming Hsu and Robyn Lim. ‐ London : Frank Cass, 2000. ‐ xii, 355 p. ‐ ISBN 0–7146–5083–8

Taiwan Strait dilemmas : China‐Taiwan‐U.S. policies in the new century / edited by Gerrit W. Gong. ‐ Washington : The CSIS Press, c2000. ‐ XVIII, 174 p. ‐ (Significant issues ; v.22, n.1). ‐ ISBN 0–89206–363–7