rhode island voters today considered a constitutional amendment to restore voting rights to probationers and parolees in that state. the referendum presented a clash between two deeply-felt imperatives — the desire to punish criminals and the desire to secure civil rights for all citizens.

if i’m reading the ballot wording* and the results** correctly, voting rights trumped punitiveness tonight and about 15,000 rhode island citizens regained the right to vote.

after reviewing the social scientific evidence to the best of our abilities, jeff manza and i advocated reenfranchising probationers and parolees in locked out. so, yes, i’m pleased with this result. more broadly, however, i’m encouraged to see that at least half the voters plainly see convicted felons as fellow citizens rather than as a permanently stained and stigmatized criminal class, unfit for citizenship. these results might offer a ray of hope to those struggling to make it on the outside and perhaps encourage those working on their behalf.

*here is the wording for question 2:

2. AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE (ELECTIONS – RESTORATION OF VOTING RIGHTS) (Section 1 of Article XIV of the Constitution)
Approval of the amendment to the Rhode Island Constitution set forth below will provide that no person who is incarcerated in a correctional facility upon a felony conviction shall be permitted to vote until such person is discharged from the facility, at which point that person’s right to vote shall be restored:
Question 2 APPROVE
Question 2 REJECT

** here are the unofficial results compiled by the rhode island board of elections, as of 1:00 am:

With 565 of 565(100%) precincts reporting statewide STATE QUESTION 2 – VOTER INITIATIVE
Question 2 APPROVE (N) 191,454 51.5%
Question 2 REJECT (N) 180,161 48.5%

the council on crime and Justice sends word of two victim services positions in beautiful downtown minneapolis. one is for a victim advocate/outreach coordinator. here’s a blurb from michael bischoff on the job:

“The person(s) we’d like to hire will work full-time, receive great benefits, and be based at our office in downtown Minneapolis. We’re looking for someone that is passionate about working in partnership with crime victims to advocate for their rights. I’m attaching the job announcement. There isn’t a set deadline for the position. It will be open until filled.”

the council is also seeking a victim services coordinator to coordinate the council’s volunteers and crime victim hotline. the council is a fine local non-profit with an excellent national reputation. i’ve been working with the organization a lot lately and can vouch for its leadership and core mission: “to build community capacity to address the causes and consequences of crime and violence through research, demonstration and advocacy.”

to apply, submit a resume and cover letter to: council on crime and Justice, attn: human resources, 822 south third street, suite 100, minneapolis, mn 55415 or hr@crimeandJustice.org.

the council on crime and Justice sends word of two victim services positions in beautiful downtown minneapolis. one is for a victim advocate/outreach coordinator. here’s a blurb from michael bischoff on the job:

“The person(s) we’d like to hire will work full-time, receive great benefits, and be based at our office in downtown Minneapolis. We’re looking for someone that is passionate about working in partnership with crime victims to advocate for their rights. I’m attaching the job announcement. There isn’t a set deadline for the position. It will be open until filled.”

the council is also seeking a victim services coordinator to coordinate the council’s volunteers and crime victim hotline. the council is a fine local non-profit with an excellent national reputation. i’ve been working with the organization a lot lately and can vouch for its leadership and core mission: “to build community capacity to address the causes and consequences of crime and violence through research, demonstration and advocacy.”

to apply, submit a resume and cover letter to: council on crime and Justice, attn: human resources, 822 south third street, suite 100, minneapolis, mn 55415 or hr@crimeandJustice.org.

rhode island voters today considered a constitutional amendment to restore voting rights to probationers and parolees in that state. the referendum presented a clash between two deeply-felt imperatives — the desire to punish criminals and the desire to secure civil rights for all citizens.

if i’m reading the ballot wording* and the results** correctly, voting rights trumped punitiveness tonight and about 15,000 rhode island citizens regained the right to vote.

after reviewing the social scientific evidence to the best of our abilities, jeff manza and i advocated reenfranchising probationers and parolees in locked out. so, yes, i’m pleased with this result. more broadly, however, i’m encouraged to see that at least half the voters plainly see convicted felons as fellow citizens rather than as a permanently stained and stigmatized criminal class, unfit for citizenship. these results might offer a ray of hope to those struggling to make it on the outside and perhaps encourage those working on their behalf.

*here is the wording for question 2:

2. AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE (ELECTIONS – RESTORATION OF VOTING RIGHTS) (Section 1 of Article XIV of the Constitution)
Approval of the amendment to the Rhode Island Constitution set forth below will provide that no person who is incarcerated in a correctional facility upon a felony conviction shall be permitted to vote until such person is discharged from the facility, at which point that person’s right to vote shall be restored:
Question 2 APPROVE
Question 2 REJECT

** here are the unofficial results compiled by the rhode island board of elections, as of 1:00 am:

With 565 of 565(100%) precincts reporting statewide STATE QUESTION 2 – VOTER INITIATIVE
Question 2 APPROVE (N) 191,454 51.5%
Question 2 REJECT (N) 180,161 48.5%

the new york times recently ran an interview with will smith, discussing his new movie, the pursuit of happyness. the movie is based on chris gardner’s autobiographical book and tells the story of a particularly challenging time in gardner’s life when he and his son found themselves homeless in san francisco even as the single father sought to better their futures by working an internship at a brokerage firm.

the former fresh prince said that he could relate to gardner’s struggle and his continual striving:

“I have to be the best I can be. I have to achieve everything I can possibly achieve. I feel like I owe it to every single person I came into contact with, who knows my life, I owe it to them. It’s a call from God, or Allah, or Jehovah. I don’t even necessarily know why.

“The beauty of America is that we’re not realistic. The idea that anything is possible, that idea is being kept alive here. This story is why America worked — as an idea. The idea is that this is the only country in the world where Chris Gardner is possible. The pursuit is what makes America great.”

Then Will Smith did something surprising. He recited the Declaration of Independence. The whole first segment, including the “pursuit of happiness,” rapid-fire. When he finished, and noted the surprise of an observer, he said: “I believe it.” Pause. “I don’t believe we do it well.” And he recalled a moment from when he was walking through the Tenderloin with Mr. Gardner.

“We were just standing out there in this place of broken dreams. Of extreme poverty. And it washed over me that the greatest poverty is the poverty of ideas. Chris was equally impoverished as these people, but he never had the poverty of ideas. He was rich with belief. Rich with faith.” He smiled, that sunny It’s-Will-Smith-Things-Are-Looking-Up smile. “And I’ve always felt like that.”

why would i quote will smith on our public criminology blog? as criminologists, one of our jobs is to try to understand and explain why individuals commit crime, and why others who may be dealing with much more difficult circumstances embrace conformity. the poverty of ideas may be one explanation. i speak more often of the importance of hope, especially for our adolescents. how do we instill in them hope and belief and faith and then follow through by giving them the opportunity for meaningful work and satisfying lives?

anything is possible, right? how do we keep that idea alive for those who most need to believe it?

the new york times recently ran an interview with will smith, discussing his new movie, the pursuit of happyness. the movie is based on chris gardner’s autobiographical book and tells the story of a particularly challenging time in gardner’s life when he and his son found themselves homeless in san francisco even as the single father sought to better their futures by working an internship at a brokerage firm.

the former fresh prince said that he could relate to gardner’s struggle and his continual striving:

“I have to be the best I can be. I have to achieve everything I can possibly achieve. I feel like I owe it to every single person I came into contact with, who knows my life, I owe it to them. It’s a call from God, or Allah, or Jehovah. I don’t even necessarily know why.

“The beauty of America is that we’re not realistic. The idea that anything is possible, that idea is being kept alive here. This story is why America worked — as an idea. The idea is that this is the only country in the world where Chris Gardner is possible. The pursuit is what makes America great.”

Then Will Smith did something surprising. He recited the Declaration of Independence. The whole first segment, including the “pursuit of happiness,” rapid-fire. When he finished, and noted the surprise of an observer, he said: “I believe it.” Pause. “I don’t believe we do it well.” And he recalled a moment from when he was walking through the Tenderloin with Mr. Gardner.

“We were just standing out there in this place of broken dreams. Of extreme poverty. And it washed over me that the greatest poverty is the poverty of ideas. Chris was equally impoverished as these people, but he never had the poverty of ideas. He was rich with belief. Rich with faith.” He smiled, that sunny It’s-Will-Smith-Things-Are-Looking-Up smile. “And I’ve always felt like that.”

why would i quote will smith on our public criminology blog? as criminologists, one of our jobs is to try to understand and explain why individuals commit crime, and why others who may be dealing with much more difficult circumstances embrace conformity. the poverty of ideas may be one explanation. i speak more often of the importance of hope, especially for our adolescents. how do we instill in them hope and belief and faith and then follow through by giving them the opportunity for meaningful work and satisfying lives?

anything is possible, right? how do we keep that idea alive for those who most need to believe it?

aside from a few notorious cases where the accused quickly left a program, i don’t hear much about cheating among sociology grad students.

a new self-report study finding high rates of cheating among business students is getting some press this week. business professor donald mccabe of rutgers, kenneth butterfield of washington state, and linda klebe trevino of pennsylvania state collected data from 5,331 graduate students at 32 colleges and universities in the united states and canada from 2002 to 2004. the researchers asked about 13 behaviors, including cheating on tests and exams, plagiarism, faking a bibliography or turning in someone else’s work.

here is the prevalence of cheating by area of study:

Percentage of graduate students who acknowledged cheating in the past year:
Business: 56%
Engineering: 54%
Physical sciences: 50%
Med students/health care: 49%
Education: 48%
Law: 45%
Arts: 43%
Humanities/social sciences: 39%

i haven’t seen the full study, but my guess is that the high prevalence rates are due to one or more common but less serious offenses. nevertheless, the study includes some good data on frequency and variety of cheating as well, which also seems to point the finger at business students.

the raw results raise some interesting questions. it is easy to formulate a selectivity hypothesis (e.g., business and law students are greedier), but there may also be more strain or competition in these fields (e.g., high-stakes exams and class ranks that matter) and, perhaps, more frequent opportunities to cheat (e.g., midterms and finals rather than seminar papers). is it selection, strain, or opportunity that places business students at the top of the list and social scientists at the bottom?

my friday talk was co-sponsored by a law school and a soc department. over the years, i’ve spoken in econ departments and crim departments and law schools and african american studies departments. it is always fun to see the different norms regarding length, interruptions, and so forth. in the soc series, the speakers are expected to talk for an hour and then take questions for thirty minutes. in the law series, in contrast, they are expected to speak for seven minutes before engaging in questions. this must have something to do with billable hours.

i spoke about public criminology (and, by extension, public sociology), using clifford shaw as an exemplar. many law professors have been doing pubcrim for years, particularly on the op/ed front, but one of the economists in attendance suggested that the idea of public economics would never get much momentum. i mumbled something about lester thurow and john r. commons, and, of course, steven levitt’s name came up. still, i think my questioner was probably right about the prospects for pub econ. is there a public aspect to other disciplines (e.g., pub polisci, pub anthro, pub psych, pub history, pub philosophy, pub geography, pub genetics), or is sociology somehow uniquely positioned to want or need a public moniker? if so, does this signal the relative weakness or the relative strength of sociology as a discipline?

aside from a few notorious cases where the accused quickly left a program, i don’t hear much about cheating among sociology grad students.

a new self-report study finding high rates of cheating among business students is getting some press this week. business professor donald mccabe of rutgers, kenneth butterfield of washington state, and linda klebe trevino of pennsylvania state collected data from 5,331 graduate students at 32 colleges and universities in the united states and canada from 2002 to 2004. the researchers asked about 13 behaviors, including cheating on tests and exams, plagiarism, faking a bibliography or turning in someone else’s work.

here is the prevalence of cheating by area of study:

Percentage of graduate students who acknowledged cheating in the past year:
Business: 56%
Engineering: 54%
Physical sciences: 50%
Med students/health care: 49%
Education: 48%
Law: 45%
Arts: 43%
Humanities/social sciences: 39%

i haven’t seen the full study, but my guess is that the high prevalence rates are due to one or more common but less serious offenses. nevertheless, the study includes some good data on frequency and variety of cheating as well, which also seems to point the finger at business students.

the raw results raise some interesting questions. it is easy to formulate a selectivity hypothesis (e.g., business and law students are greedier), but there may also be more strain or competition in these fields (e.g., high-stakes exams and class ranks that matter) and, perhaps, more frequent opportunities to cheat (e.g., midterms and finals rather than seminar papers). is it selection, strain, or opportunity that places business students at the top of the list and social scientists at the bottom?

my friday talk was co-sponsored by a law school and a soc department. over the years, i’ve spoken in econ departments and crim departments and law schools and african american studies departments. it is always fun to see the different norms regarding length, interruptions, and so forth. in the soc series, the speakers are expected to talk for an hour and then take questions for thirty minutes. in the law series, in contrast, they are expected to speak for seven minutes before engaging in questions. this must have something to do with billable hours.

i spoke about public criminology (and, by extension, public sociology), using clifford shaw as an exemplar. many law professors have been doing pubcrim for years, particularly on the op/ed front, but one of the economists in attendance suggested that the idea of public economics would never get much momentum. i mumbled something about lester thurow and john r. commons, and, of course, steven levitt’s name came up. still, i think my questioner was probably right about the prospects for pub econ. is there a public aspect to other disciplines (e.g., pub polisci, pub anthro, pub psych, pub history, pub philosophy, pub geography, pub genetics), or is sociology somehow uniquely positioned to want or need a public moniker? if so, does this signal the relative weakness or the relative strength of sociology as a discipline?