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last week i was invited to attend a meeting of the 7^th step inmate club at the oregon state penitentiary. i spoke about education at an earlier meeting of the club last year and I was impressed with the sincerity of the men in attendance. the club’s mission is to reduce recidivism from the inside; as such, the members work hard to deal with their issues, to grow and to change, and to become better men.

last week’s meeting focused on victim impact and awareness, and the club had invited a representative from ‘parents with murdered children’ to speak. the speaker spoke of a crime that had taken place on the east coast – he was there to share his story, not point fingers at any individuals in the oregon prison. at the club president’s request, i brought a few carefully selected osu students along to witness the event, and, not quite knowing what to expect, we made our way into the visiting room to join the inmates in attendance.

i chose to sit with one of my inside students who i have known now for nearly two years. he is a sensitive soul and feels grief and deep remorse every day for the crime he committed when he was 16. i knew this would be difficult for him and i was impressed with the courage it must have taken him to attend and to face his demons so directly. we sat in the front row and as the speaker began telling the story of his son’s life, i could feel the pain wracking through the body of the young man sitting beside me. by the time the father finished describing the brutal murder of his son and the devastating impact on his family, my inside student was weeping.

after the father spoke – to an incredibly attentive and supportive audience – three different inmates stood up and told their stories. they each spoke articulately about how they had committed their crimes very young and how in the years that followed, they finally began to understand the full impact of their actions and how many people had been affected.

attending the meeting was a moving experience and i’ve been thinking a lot since then about empathy. i’m also reminded how quickly many, many lives can be destroyed. we’re ultimately pretty fragile beings. it takes years of hard work to build a career, a relationship, a home, but all of that can change in a moment with one very bad decision. and, as much as you might wish otherwise, you can never take it back.

via talkleft and the national law journal:

i’ve been spending a lot of time in the oregon state penitentiary lately. i’m currently teaching my fifth inside-out class and it continues to be an inspiring, rejuvenating experience. it’s amazing how much good will can be generated in a tiny room on the fifth floor of a maximum-security prison where 15 oregon state university students come together with 15 (or so) inmates in order to learn and work together. the inmates in the group are men who are working hard to change their lives and to make their time behind bars meaningful. of the approximately 2300 men in the penitentiary, i’ve selected about 60 to participate in inside-out classes; as such, i’m well aware that i’ve worked with a skewed sample of the best citizens in the prison. we’ve received good press for the program and i’ve been singled out for some honors for my part in the process, but what i appreciate most is knowing that these classes have offered hope and motivation in a place where both can be very hard to find.

this quarter, we’re focusing again on the topic of preventing delinquency, and i’ve challenged the class try to figure out what action(s) they can take to make a difference. they’re trying to come up with small-scale projects that can be implemented relatively quickly and with no budget. a challenge, to be sure.

and so, i’ll offer my own small-scale project as an example. i applied for a “literacy grant” from a national program last year and did not get it. because i thought the idea was a good one, i pitched it to administrators at the penitentiary and they agreed to fund a pilot program (two inmate clubs are also providing funding). it’s a simple enough idea, but it just might make a difference: incarcerated fathers will have a chance to sign up to read the same books as their children. with help from the lifer’s club (and others), we’ll start with a volunteer group of fathers and their children. with help from local librarians and bookstores, i’ll choose age-appropriate, interesting books and give one to the father and one to the kid. reading the same book(s) will hopefully give them another chance to connect, another topic to discuss, whether it’s in person, on the phone, or via mail. the fathers are enthusiastic about the idea; presumably the kids who agree to participate will get on board if we choose good books.

simple, small-scale, do-able. i’m hoping this little program succeeds and grows. i don’t know if it will make a difference, but at least we’re trying to do good and we’re working to translate our good intentions into action.

if anyone has suggestions for the program, for projects for the inside-out students, or recommendations for interesting kid/teen books, i would love to hear them.

doctors and other medical professionals are now trained to recognize signs of domestic abuse and other violence. of course, many of us never see doctors or other medical professionals. the strib reports on the clever new(ish) cut it out program that trains hair stylists to recognize signs of domestic abuse.

i can’t vouch for its efficacy, but i like the idea of training folks who actually interact with the targets of abuse. for example, i see my talented haircutter jackie about five or ten times per year, while (aside from race-side medical tents and my good friend carl), i haven’t seen an actual m.d. in ten years. i don’t have data on this, but i wouldn’t be surprised if the most vulnerable targets of violence are quite unlikely to see physicians.

i’m visiting columbus on friday, meeting old friends and new at ohio state and the ohio department of corrections. my talk will feature new work with some of the grad student collaborators on the minnesota exits and entries project team. if you happen to be in the neighborhood, please stop on by to say hello.

Entries and Exits: Contrasting Pathways to Community Reentry
Christopher Uggen, University of Minnesota

October 24, 2008
9:00-10:30 a.m.
Frank W. Hale Black Cultural Center, Rm 100A, OSU
Coffee, bagels and refreshments are being served

Dr. Uggen will discuss the design and some very early findings from the new Minnesota Exits and Entries Project and related projects. You will hear excerpts from pre-release interviews with young people age 18 to 25 as they are leaving the following institutional settings: (1) foster care; (2) mental health treatment; (3) chemical health treatment; (4) the armed forces; (5) the juvenile justice system; (6) a county jail system; and, (7) the state prison system. Some of these groups, such as former prisoners, are highly stigmatized. Others, such as Iraq war veterans, typically return home to brighter prospects and more welcoming communities. By taking a more comprehensive and comparative perspective on the reentry phenomenon, project organizers hope to reveal the processes operating in each institutional domain and to explain how vulnerable young adults fare once they leave the care or custody of the state. Graduate student collaborators on this project include Arturo Baiocchi, Jeanette Hussemann, Shelly Schaefer, Sarah Shannon, and Tom Walton.

each year, i get about a dozen calls or emails from people with criminal records who are interested in graduate study. many of them ask whether their record would bar them from becoming a professor. i usually say, “that depends” and offer stories in which certain records have or haven’t precluded employment at certain places. i then say that the academic track is tough (but not impossible!) and that their records will just make it that much tougher (but not impossible!).

the fine folks at the new york times freakonomics desk gave me a few hours to respond to the following question:

The Office of National Drug Control Policy recently released results of a joint study with Nielson on exposure of teens (age 13-18) to online videos with drug and alcohol-related content (see the summary here). Among the findings:

• Of 18mm ‘unique viewers’, teens watched an average of 35 videos in one month. Of these, about 1 video per person contained drug or alcohol-related content
• About 5% of online teens viewed a video with drug or alcohol-related content
• Females were slightly more likely to watch videos with drug or alcohol-related context (57% to 43%)
• More than 2/3 of viewers of drug and alcohol-related context were under age 16
• 78% of drug-related videos included positive comments on drug use, 40% of videos showed explicit drug use.

What are we to make of this? Well, one ought not be too concerned if only 5% of teens viewed videos that some may deem dangerous or objectionable. And, we don’t know that watchers end up being users. On the other hand, it looks as if a small percentage of teens are watching a lot of stoner videos. And, there’s one more rub: the methodology section gives no information on whether or not kids knew they were being monitored (I suspect they did). After all that, should we be concerned about a nefarious You Tube-drug use link? I dunno.

from the sentencing project:

The Sentencing Project has just published a new edition of “Reducing Racial Disparity in the Criminal Justice System,” a comprehensive manual for practitioners and policymakers. The publication provides insight into how racial disparities develop in the criminal justice system, and workable solutions to address and reduce disparities. The manual provides strategies for addressing disparities at each stage of the system, as well as 17 “best practices” illustrating practitioner approaches for enhancing fairness. “Reducing Racial Disparity in the Criminal Justice System” is a tool for criminal justice practitioners, policymakers, and community organizations seeking to develop constructive approaches to one of the most challenging problems facing the criminal justice system.

whenever i go a few days between posts, folks start wondering whether all is well. well, aside from a mounting backlog of email, all is well. swell, really. i’ve just returned from a few busy days in beautiful oregon, where i enjoyed a productive trip as department chair, researcher, and public criminologist.

As chair, i had a lovely meal with a generous donor to the minnversity’s sociology department. i know that not every academic enjoys this sort of thing, but I love this aspect of being chair. i’ve met a lot of very smart, successful, and civic-minded people this way. and, contrary to my expectations when i became chair, i never ever have to ask them for money.

as researcher, i spent some time on an nsf grant with melissa thompson, a former advisee who is now professin’ at portland state. melissa is the p.i. on this grant, so i’m mostly following her lead – not quite a full role reversal from her days as my research assistant, but we’ve both come a long way. she’s the first of my advisees to come up for tenure, so i’m feeling a bit senior these days.

as public criminologist, i spent yesterday afternoon at oregon state penitentiary, where my pubcrim colleague michelle inderbitzin has led several inside-out classes. several of the men on a-block had read my work on disenfranchisement with jeff manza, but we had a long and wide-ranging group discussion about mandatory minimums, family support, public opinion, the economics of crime, and the politics of criminal justice. i learned a lot — and hope i struck the right balance between talking and listening.

i didn’t have time to see all of portland, but i saw enough to know why melissa is so happy there. the pic above is from the japanese garden — a last-minute stop on the way to the airport this morning. beautiful.