Sexual victimization against transgender women in prison: Consent and coercion in context

In this article, we conjoin two long‐standing lines of inquiry in criminology—the study of prison life and the study of sexual assault—by using original qualitative and quantitative data from 315 transgender women incarcerated in 27 California men's prisons. In so doing, we advance an analysis of the factors and processes that shape their experience of sexual victimization in prison. The results of qualitative analysis of 198 reported incidents of sexual victimization exhibit a range of types of sexual victimization experienced by transgender women in prison and reveal the centrality of relationships to their experiences of victimization. Findings from logistic regression models buttress the qualitative results, highlighting a factor that consistently and powerfully indicates vulnerability to sexual victimization is involvement in consensual sexual relationships with male prisoners. Together, the data demonstrate the prominence of intimate partner violence in prison, complicate the distinction between consent and unwanted sexual experiences in the lives of transgender women in prisons for men, and shine a light on the workings of gender in a total institution that privileges heteronormativity at the expense of the safety of transgender women in prisons for men. We discuss the implications of our findings in light of timely policy concerns.     

Using Administrative Data to Monitor Racial/Ethnic Disparities and Disproportionality Within Child Welfare Agencies: Process and Preliminary Outcomes

Child welfare administrative data are increasingly used to identify racial/ethnic disproportionality and disparities at various levels of aggregation. However, child welfare agencies typically face challenges in harnessing administrative data to examine racial/ethnic disproportionality and disparities at meaningful levels of analysis due to limited resources and/or tools for reporting. This article describes the process through which a multi-state workgroup designed and developed management reports to monitor racial/ethnic disparities and disproportionality using a web-based child welfare administrative data reporting system. The article provides an overview of the process, outcome, and challenges of the group’s work with the goal of offering a starting point for discussion to others who may be seeking to monitor racial/ethnic disparities and disproportionality, regardless of their reporting system.     

The Why and How of the New Capital Asset Reporting Requirements

New requirements for reporting capital assets associated with the governmental funds of state and local governments are among the most significant changes that will be required by Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) Statement No. 34. Under Statement No. 34, the historical cost of these assets, including general infrastructure assets (for example, roads and bridges), must be reported in the government-wide Statement of Net Assets. The cost of using those assets—generally depreciation expense—must be reported in the government-wide Statement of Activities. This article explores why the GASB established these requirements and how it worked with preparers and others to make meeting these requirements less costly.     

State supported segregation? Examining migrant clustering in schools in Ireland

Recent education policy debates in Ireland have focused on whether the dominance of the Catholic Church in primary school provision is an appropriate model for an increasingly diverse population, rather than concern with migrant clustering and/or segregation per se. Efforts to ensure that students from a range of religious or non-religious backgrounds are catered for in education contexts are to be lauded. However, this research provides clear evidence of migrant segregation as a result of how school choice impacts attendance patterns on the ground. This is not surprising, given the evidence from research on school choice which highlights the fact that it can exacerbate socio-economic and demographic segregation. As such, enshrining parental choice as the corner-stone of school provision in Ireland is flawed since it, intentionally or otherwise, builds an educational infrastructure that encourages school segregation.     

Elements Needed for Quality Batterer Intervention Programs: Perspectives of Professionals Who Deal with Intimate Partner Violence

Batterers intervention programs (BIPs) constitute a primary intervention for perpetrators of intimate partner violence (IPV). There is little understanding as to what elements are necessary for a good intervention program. We conducted 36 individual semi-structured interviews with professionals working with BIPs. Our results yielded three thematic categories: (1) optimal BIP structure—group size and program duration should foster change and interaction, (2) facilitator characteristics—co-facilitation is ideal, and facilitators should have IPV training, and (3) program approaches–programs should challenge their clients on their behavior, promote an environment of safety and openness, and strive to adapt to clients.     

Responses to corporate versus individual wrongdoing

For many years, researchers assumed that the public was indifferent to corporate wrongdoing, but recent surveys have discovered evidence to the contrary. Taking insights from these data a step further, this study employed an experimental design to examine whether people responded differently to corporate versus individual wrongdoers. We varied the identity of the central actor in a scenario involving harm to workers. Half the respondents were informed that a corporation caused the harm; the remainder were told that an individual did so. Respondents applied a higher standard of responsibility to the corporate actor. For identical actions, the corporation was judged as more reckless and more morally wrong than the individual. Respondents' judgments of the greater recklessness of the corporation led them to recommend higher civil and criminal penalties against the corporation.Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the annual meetings of the Law and Society Association (1986), the Society for the Study of Social Problems (1986), and the American Psychological Association (1987). Writing was facilitated by a NIMH Fellowship in Psychology and Law at Stanford University to Valerie Hans. The authors wish to thank Jeffrey Davidson, Sam Gaertner, Michael Levi, Nancy Pennington, David Sciulli, Wes Skogan, and Robert Wood for their contributions to the work.