Drug Court through the Lenses of African American Women: Improving Graduation Rates with Gender-Responsive Interventions

Drug courts began in the United States in 1989, and nearly three decades of evidence has shown that drug courts are more effective than other criminal justice interventions at reducing criminal recidivism. There has, however, been a trend in some drug courts where African Americans are less likely to graduate than their White counterparts, which is concerning because evidence has also shown that graduating the program reduces the odds of recidivating. Little is known about African Americans’ experiences in drug court, and this is the first known qualitative study to ask African American women (N?=?8) about the most helpful aspects of drug court that support them in graduating and how the drug court could be more helpful in supporting them to graduate. The women felt that the drug court judge was their advocate and understood the unique challenges they faced with balancing the demands of drug court with motherhood. Conversely, the women felt that they were not receiving effective, gender-responsive treatment for their substance use disorders, which was a barrier to them graduating drug court. The findings are discussed in reference to drug court practice and future research.     

Margaret Moore

Abstract

This essay discusses the early life, education, and career of African American correctional leader Margaret Moore. Moore was the first African American woman to superintend a male prison in Pennsylvania. Moore's lengthy list of “firsts” also includes serving as Deputy Commissioner of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections and overseeing the District of Columbia Department of Corrections. Moore's unprecedented success in overcoming sexism and racism to assume these key leadership roles has paved the way for other minority corrections professionals. This biographical essay is primarily based on two personal interviews with Moore.     

国家主权、思想自立与发展权利——试论当代非洲国家建构的障碍及前景

由松散分割的传统部族社会,向统一聚合的现代主权国家过渡,是当代非洲国家政治发展的核心主题与基本目标。在此发展阶段上,非洲国家需要形成有效能的中央政府,且致力于国家的经济发展、政治稳定和民族融合,以国家力量来集中资源,动员民众,培植国家情感,追求发展目标。迄今,国家成长与民族融合这两大任务在许多非洲国家都没有真正完成。为此,非洲需要一种新的思想变革运动,从自身的现实需要来追求理解政治的意义,从经济的角度来把握政治的本质,以经济发展为中心来建设国家,维护国家主权,追求思想自立,方能最终实现国泰民安,富强稳定。在维护非洲国家主权、推进非洲国家成长方面,中国可以发挥更多建设性的作用。     

教会政治与卢旺达大屠杀

在1994年卢旺达大屠杀中,卢旺达基督教教会深深地卷入了这场血腥暴行。教堂成为主要的杀戮场之一,许多教会的神职人员甚至直接参与了对图西人的屠杀。教会之所以支持大屠杀,原因在于从历史上看教会就与国家政权保持密不可分的关系,并且种族歧视和斗争就存在于教会内部。此外,在内战和民主运动兴起的这样一个特殊历史时期,就像政府官员企图利用大屠杀作为保持权力的手段一样,教会也利用大屠杀作为打击竞争对手、应对内部民主化挑战的重要手段。卢旺达大屠杀的实例说明,推进教会民主化的斗争已经成为非洲大陆政治改革运动的重要组成部分。     

土著话语与非洲民族国家建构——以科特迪瓦危机为例

科特迪瓦危机的关键在于公民身份问题。博瓦尼执政时期刻意淡化公民身份问题以吸纳外来移民,从而使得科特迪瓦长期保持经济增长与社会稳定。然而到20世纪90年代,随着经济的衰退、多党制的实行,执政者为巩固自身统治提出了"科特迪瓦性"概念,其基本含义是"科特迪瓦人的科特迪瓦",而实际目标是排斥北方人。"科特迪瓦性"自诞生之日起就对科特迪瓦社会各领域发展产生了深远影响,因而成为科特迪瓦政治中的核心问题,并最终导致2002年内战全面爆发、南北分裂局面的形成。类似的土著话语也出现在其他非洲国家,折射出非洲民族国家建构进程的复杂性和艰巨性。     

Who are ‘we’? Don’t make me laugh

This paper explores the implications of uses of the word ‘we’ in post-apartheid South African fiction. ‘We’ in these novels is typically a contested linguistic site – which tells of the loss of inherited communities, and reflects the ethically complex negotiations of a ‘we’ perhaps still to come. Yet if the internal narratives assert a loss of community, each event of the novel’s being-read inaugurates a new ‘community’ of readers. The paper considers the ethical implications of the act of reading a literary text in post-apartheid South Africa. In the course of the argument, I draw links between African philosophies of community, and Jean-Luc Nancy’s proposition that ‘I’ does not precede ‘we’. Thus I suggest some ways in which philosophies from Africa contribute towards current debates about ‘we’ in contemporary continental philosophy.

Escaping Poverty and Securing Middle Class Status: How Race and Socioeconomic Status Shape Mobility Prospects for African Americans During the Transition to Adulthood

This article draws on extant research from the disciplines of psychology, sociology, and economics to identify linkages between individual, family, community, and structural factors related to social mobility for African Americans during the transition to adulthood. It considers how race and class together affect opportunities for social mobility through where African Americans live, whom they associate with, and how they are impacted by racial and class-related stigma. Of particular interest is social mobility as accomplished through academic achievement, educational attainment, employment, economic independence, and homeownership. Research on five issues is reviewed and discussed: (a) the unique vulnerabilities of newly upwardly mobile African Americans, (b) wealth as a source of inequality, (c) racism and discrimination, (d) the stigma associated with lower-class status, and (e) social and cultural capital. The article concludes with a summary and directions for future research.

African–American Parents’ Racial and Ethnic Socialization and Adolescent Academic Grades: Teasing Out the Role of Gender

This study examined the relationship of racial and ethnic socialization and academic achievement in a sample of 218 African American adolescents (grades 9–12; 52% girls) attending a public high school in the northeastern United States. Researchers were particularly interested in whether adolescent gender moderated the relationship between racial and ethnic socialization and academic grades. Results indicated that aspects of ethnic socialization, African American cultural values and African American heritage were linked to adolescent grades. Additionally, adolescent gender was found to moderate the association between these socialization variables and grades. The findings also suggest that socialization provided by paternal caregivers around African American cultural values and African American heritage may have differential effects for academic grades than the socialization messages provided by maternal caregivers. Information generated from this study broadens the understanding of socialization factors that can facilitate positive academic outcomes in African American youth and has practical implications for parents and educators.

Talcott Parsons on full citizenship for African Americans: retrospective interpretation and evaluation

In this essay in the Thinking Citizenship Series, Lidz evaluates the contributions of Talcott Parsons for thinking about citizenship and race relations in twentieth century America.     

The centrality of labor time in South African gold mining since 1886

Labor time, as a dimension of South African mining labor history, has been ignored, both conceptually and historically. This article remedies this yawning gap by presenting primary and secondary evidence which demonstrates the centrality of labor time in South African gold mines since the discovery of gold in 1886. To this end, labor time is traced in two ways. Part I tracks industrial working time by tracing the length of the working day and week. Part II tracks the ever-increasing length of the African migrant labor contract. While industrial working hours remain remarkably stable for almost a century, the migrant labor contract systematically increases over a similar period. These two measures of labor time eventually coincide when the migrant labor system dissolves and black African workers take annual leave together with their compatriots across the racial divide. The explanation for the mining industry’s long struggle to both maintain relatively long working hours and increasingly maximize the length of the migrant labor contract is construed as completing the received wisdom of Harold Wolpe's much celebrated and criticized `cheap- labor' thesis. (Wolpe, “Capitalism and Cheap Labor Power.”)