The Society Pages
TSP Special

Repercussions of Incarceration on Close Relationships

by Megan Comfort, Mar 27, 2013, at 09:59 am
Doing Time Together
Megan Comfort is a senior research sociologist in the Behavioral Health and Criminal Justice Research Division at RTI International and is in the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. She is the author of Doing Time Together: Love and Family in the Shadow of the Prison.
When an arrest is made, all eyes are on the person in handcuffs. At a trial, the jury focuses intently upon the defendant. And when the prison door slams shut, we envision the solitary individual “doing time” far from the outside world. The “outlaw,” the “offender”: even the words commonly used to describe people who are arrested, sentenced, and incarcerated suggest loners, isolated beings whose only interactions involve other lawbreakers, …Keep Reading
TSP Special

Discovering Desistance

by Sarah Shannon and Sarah Lageson, Mar 22, 2013, at 10:29 am
Shadd Maruna and Fergus McNeill have spent the better part of their careers asking questions about “desistance”: why and how people transition out of crime. As their work has shown, desistance is a tricky concept to define and measure. While …Keep Reading
White Paper

Creating a “Latino” Race

by Wendy D. Roth, Mar 13, 2013, at 01:48 pm
Editors’ Note: The author prefers to capitalize Black and White along with other socially constructed racial categories. For much of American history, race has been a dichotomous, Black-White affair where the “one-drop rule” dictated that people with any amount of …Keep Reading
TSP Special

Juvenile Lifers, Learning to Lead

by Michelle Inderbitzin, Trevor Walraven, and Joshua Cain , Mar 4, 2013, at 03:00 pm
It is quite extraordinary to sit in a Lifers Club meeting at the Oregon State Penitentiary. First, the facts: individuals who identify as “lifers” have been convicted of taking a life and have made a commitment to change their own. …Keep Reading
White Paper

A Social Welfare Critique of Contemporary Crime Control

by Richard Rosenfeld and Steven F. Messner, Feb 25, 2013, at 12:57 pm
Few politicians ever promise to increase crime rates, just as few constituents ever demand greater crime in their neighborhoods. But this anti-crime consensus breaks down when we map out the different policy routes to reducing crime—and the sacrifices each might …Keep Reading