SUPERMAX INCARCERATION AND RECIDIVISM*

Since the early 1980s, supermax incarceration has emerged as a common feature of the American corrections landscape. This special type of high‐cost housing, which involves extended isolation with little programming or contact with others, remains largely unevaluated and is of interest for three reasons. First, the study of supermax housing offers a unique opportunity to understand the factors related to the successful reentry of offenders back into society. Second, it affords an opportunity to test the claims, many of which are grounded in mainstream criminological theory, that have been made about the putative effects of supermax confinement. Third, it provides an empirical touchstone that can help inform policy debates about the merits of such confinement. Examining data from the Florida Department of Corrections, we test competing hypotheses about the effects of supermax housing on 3‐year recidivism outcomes. We find evidence that supermax incarceration may increase violent recidivism but find no evidence of an effect of the duration of supermax incarceration or the recency of such incarceration to the time of release into society. We discuss the findings and their implications for theory, research, and policy.     

Rule omission,rule migration and the limits of financial industry power

This paper seeks to deepen our understanding of financial industry lobbying efforts that result in specific regulatory rules being dropped from the regulatory agenda, or what we call ‘rule omission’. Critically, existing research either ignores rule omission or characterizes it as the pinnacle of lobbying success. We argue that only in carefully mapping out industry preferences and tracking what happens to rules following their omission can we say something about the extent to which finance wins or loses in its effort to shape regulation. Our analysis is based on two in-depth case studies from the European Union: (1) solvency rules in the Institutions for Occupational Retirement Provision Directive (IORPP II), where rule omission does reflect a strong case of industry influence; and (2) short selling rules in the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD), a case of rule omission resulting in more stringent rules over industry activities.     

Nationalising International Theory: Race,Class and the English School

Much work has been done to deconstruct the links between knowledge and power in IR as "an American Social Science". This topic has arisen again with the re- launching of the English School of IR Theory in 2001. This essay argues that although the English School is critical of the power-knowledge dynamic, it actually exacerbates the problem by deliberately "nationalising" international theory. The essay traces the emergence and logic of the English School and its key concept "International Society". It argues that the English School is tied not only to national identity but to the rules of European Empire. Using the case of International Society's intervention in China, the essay shows how International Society uses "standards of civilisation" to draw borders between the subjects and objects of IR. But rather than tracing civilisation/empire to racial/national differentiation, the essay argues that "class" is used to differentiate between aristocratic member states of the club of International Society, and lower class colonies outside Europe. In other words, rather than looking to international ethics to regulate world politics, International Society relies on aristocratic etiquette for world ordering. Hence the theory is not as radical as its promoters suggest; rather, by limiting theoretical discussion to nation-states, the English School is a conservative confederate of other state-centric approaches to world politics. To do this, the essay looks beyond Eurocentric discourse and high diplomacy; it engages in a comparative IR theory that uses a new set of texts from China and the popular culture of manners.     

TOWARD A MACRO-SOCIOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF GENERAL DETERRENCE

This paper is focused on the problem of general deterrence as a macro-sociological phenomenon. An attempt has been made to integrate existing literature into a set of testable hypotheses Three perspectives on general deterrence are examined, including the classical school of criminology and the positions of Durkheim and Sumner. The variables of certainty and seventy, type of threatened behavior, latent deterrent functions of legal threats, and normative structure are discussed. It is suggested that compliance rates may be used as an empirical index of general deterrence.