What is “prison culture”? Developing a theoretical and methodological foundation for understanding cultural schema in prison

What does it mean to say that a prison has a “culture?” Scholars have long emphasized the presence of a “prison code” and, more recently, a “racial code” as salient cultural domains in men's prisons. Yet, even though most people intuitively understand what is meant by “prison culture,” little progress has been made regarding the conceptualization and operationalization of culture as an analytical construct in prison scholarship. The current study makes two primary contributions to this literature. First, drawing on advances in anthropology, cultural sociology, and cognitive science, we incorporate the concept of cultural schema to provide a concrete analytical construct. Second, we test varying conceptualizations of cultural schema as either characterized by consensus or as overlapping relational structures. Using cultural consensus and correlational class analyses among a sample of 266 incarcerated men, we find little evidence of a culture of consensus for either the prison code or the racial code. Furthermore, we show evidence of heterogenous schema among these cultural domains. Our study is relevant to wider disciplinary work on culture as the problem of analytical precision we address is characteristic of much of the work in criminology and criminal justice that evokes culture as an explanatory device.     

Cannabis Regulatory Confusion and Its Impact on Consumer Adoption

The regulation of cannabis in the United States is inconsistent and contradictory, to put it mildly. While marijuana remains classified as a Schedule I substance under the federal Controlled Substance Act—in the same category as heroin and morphine, with accompanying criminal penalties up to and including life imprisonment for its production, distribution, and possession—as of the end of 2020, eleven states and the District of Columbia had legalized recreational marijuana use and thirty-six states and the District of Columbia had decriminalized the use of marijuana for medical purposes. Despite the trend toward legalization, however, marijuana is a stigmatized product. Stigmatized products are those toward which a significant portion of consumers hold negative attitudes and beliefs, whereas the concept of legitimacy is defined as a generalized perception or assumption that the actions of an entity are desirable, proper, or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs, and definitions. This article addresses how current legislation and regulations influence consumer perceptions of a product category, and how conflicting regulations (or the lack of regulations) influence the adoption of a stigmatized product such as cannabis (i.e., marijuana and cannabidiol products)     

On the function of saṁhitā in the Saṁhitā Upaniṣad

Journal of Indian Philosophy - The Sa?hitā Upani?ad [SU] is a little-known Vedic text that presents ‘typical’ Upani?adic teachings on the truth of identity...     

The Effect of Lower Transaction Costs on Social Security Disability Insurance Application Rates and Participation

Transaction costs pose significant barriers to participation in public programs. We analyze how Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) application behavior was affected by iClaim, a 2009 innovation that streamlined the online application process. We use a difference‐in‐differences design to compare application rates before and after 2009 across counties with varying degrees of access to high‐speed internet. We estimate that counties with internet connectivity one standard‐deviation above the mean experienced a 1.6 percent increase in SSDI applications, and a 2.8 percent increase in appeals after the reform. We estimate that the increase in applications due to iClaim can explain 15 percent of the overall increase in applications between 2008 and 2011. Higher exposure to the online application led to a slightly larger increase in SSDI awards, meaning there was a small but significant increase in the overall award rate. Application rates increased the most in rural areas, while appeals and awards had more significant increases in urban areas. These results suggest that the online application reduced transaction costs to applicants, and the lower costs improved the overall targeting efficiency of the application process.     

The Classification of Inkjet Inks Using AccuTOF™ DART™ (Direct Analysis in Real Time) Mass Spectrometry—A Preliminary Study

A novel approach for the analysis of inkjet inks is being reported. A time‐of‐flight mass spectrometer, coupled with a Direct Analysis in Real Time (DART?) ion source (AccuTOF? DART?), was used to determine if inkjet inks from various manufacturers and models of printers could be reliably differentiated, characterized, and identified. A total of 217 ink standards were analyzed. As inkjet printing often involves the use of multiple colors (e.g., cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) to form an image or text, two different approaches to creating a library of standards and sampling methods were evaluated for implementation in a standard operating procedure. This research will show that a microscopic examination of the region of interest is requisite to identify what colors were utilized during the printing process, prior to comparing with known standards. Finally, blind testing was administered with 10 unknown samples to assess the validity and accuracy of the methodology.     

Gender as social threat: A study of offender sex,situational factors,gender dynamics and social control

Purpose

Adopting a social threat perspective, the assessment explores how gender and social gender dynamics affect the labeling of convicted felons using a unique sentencing outcome - adjudication withheld.

Methods

This research investigates the direct effect of gender, and interactive impact of offender sex/crime type, on adjudication withheld for a sample of probationers (N = 110,419) sentenced in Florida between 2000 and 2002 using Hierarchical Generalized Linear Modeling. The study also explores how social gender dynamics moderate these relationships.

Results

Female offenders are significantly more likely than men to receive adjudication withheld. Women convicted of atypical crimes, such as assault, auto theft and drug sale/manufacturing have better odds of avoiding the felon label than females convicted of other crimes. Finally, measures of gendered threat do not increase the use of social control for female offenders.

Conclusions

Women have significantly better chances of avoiding a felon label; however, this varies by crime type. Criminal justice actors may be reluctant to penalize female offenders with a felon label and the stigma of violent crime convictions. Finally, gendered threat measures did not weaken the leniency shown to female probationers in Florida, possible due to the increased resources available to women in the study areas.     

Making Volunteers: Civic Life after Welfare's End,by Nina Eliasoph

Extant research is not very specific about when the media matter for vote choice. In this study, we test multiple theories about the influences of the media on vote choice in 21 countries. The European Parliamentary (EP) election campaign offers a unique research context to test these influences. We rely on a two-wave panel survey conducted in 21 European Union (EU) member states, asking both vote intentions before the campaign and reported actual votes (among 14,000 voters). We link these data to media content data of campaign coverage between the two waves in these countries (37,000 coded news items). We conclude that media evaluations of the EU affect voting for Eurosceptic parties. On average, the more positive the evaluations of the EU a voter is exposed to, the less likely she or he is to cast a vote for a Eurosceptic party. In addition, our findings indicate that in countries where political parties have markedly different views on EU issues, the more a voter is exposed to framing of the EU in terms of benefits derived from membership in these countries, the less likely she or he is to cast a Eurosceptic vote. This suggests that the outcome of the 2009 EP elections was influenced by how the media covered EU-related news during the campaign.     

Experiential Teaching in an Adult Development Course: Promoting an Understanding of Intergenerational Interactions

Twelve students in a developmental psychology service-learning course engaged in a service-learning project with two groups of elders in an urban setting. Nine members of the class provided quantitative and qualitative feedback on this experiential learning experience. Survey results indicated that students believed the project increased their interest in the content area and that the project was a valuable aspect of the course. Based on student reflection papers in the course, students could identify specific ways the project helped them to learn course content. Finally, two interviewed students commented on how the project helped dismantle ageist preconceptions they held prior to completing the course. The project illustrates the advantages of experiential teaching in promoting interactions and understanding between diverse age groups. Three recommendations for implementing experiential teaching in community psychology and service-learning courses are presented.