we had our first full-class meeting inside the oregon state penitentiary on wednesday night. i didn’t try to cover too much in terms of content; instead, i tried to set the tone and create a comfortable space for all of the students who will share these 10 weeks together. in separate meetings on monday and tuesday, i had asked both the outside (OSU) and the inside (OSP) students to do a little self-assessment and write a page or two for me detailing how they were feeling and what they were thinking going into the first combined class session. many of my inside students are not used to writing much, so they were teasing me already, joking that: “she thinks 2 pages is short.” i emphasized that thoughtfulness was more important than length and left it at that.

their essays were, in fact, thoughtful and interesting and i’ve promised to return them to their writers before our last class so they can compare their early ideas to their thoughts after the course. in general, most of the outside students had never been in a prison and didn’t quite know what to expect — their images of prisons and inmates came mostly from the media, so they were nervous and excited to get a reality check. my inside students were also excited and eager for the opportunity to interact with people from the outside world. some were also anxious that after serving a number of years in prison, they may have forgotton how to communicate with “free” people.

while i was able to select my 15 inside students and 15 outside students from motivated pools of potential classmates, i had no control over the correctional officer we would be working with. i cannot express how grateful i am to have the good fortune to work with a patient and friendly officer for these 10 weeks. the OSU students and i met at the penitentiary at 5:30 and our officer spent the next half hour going over IDs, taking us all through the metal detectors, sign-ins, and many locked gates up to the education hall. once there, she showed us to our classroom and then, while clearly nearby if/when we needed her, she left us alone. at the end of our course, she patiently led us out.

so how did the class itself go? we had 30 chairs in a circle. the outside students and i arrived first, so i asked them to sit in every other chair. as our inside students filtered in from their various cell blocks, they took a seat and made small talk while we waited for all to arrive. we got started a bit late, because several of our inside students were sent back to their cells to put on their more formal shirts for the occasion — something we had not anticipated. i guess next time we’ll know. once everyone had arrived, we put on nametags and then spent about an hour on an icebreaker where every inside student spent 2-3 minutes talking to every outside student. the noise was incredible (as i can attest since i was responsible for interrupting them and getting them moving) and it proved a very effective way for the students to all meet each other. even those of us who hate icebreakers, had to admit this one really worked.

after that, we took a break and shared some water — something we had to get special permission to do. the small talk continued throughout the break and then i asked everyone to get back in their every-other-inside-outside circle and together we came up with guidelines for the class. one of our guidelines/rules is that we can talk about the course as long as we protect the confidentiality of the participants. i’m taking that as the rule for this blog, too. i’ll share the basics without identifying specifics.

finally, from the inside-out curriculum, i wrote a quote by dostoyevsky on a whiteboard and asked them to get into small groups to discuss it. the quote is: “the degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” each group discussed what they thought it meant or what it made them think of and then i brought the class back together for a full-group discussion. the students had a lot to say and it took us to the end of the class when the inside students had to go back for counts.

i thought it was a successful first class because we had created a comfort zone in which to share ideas and perspectives and i think everyone is looking forward to the next nine weeks. the feedback that i am getting from my outside (OSU) students is that they are surprised at how much they have in common with the inside students. OSP administrators told me that they had heard nothing but wonderful comments from the inside students about the first class. while some mentioned they were nervous at first, one said it was the best experience he has had since coming to prison, “it was a positive ray of light.”

now that we have the first class out of the way, i can breathe a little easier. we’ll hit the academic content very seriously over the next eight weeks (and then have a big graduation/celebration/chance to say goodbye in our last class). i’m thrilled to hear that some of my inside students have already asked permission to get together to form small study groups–they are definitely going to make the most of this opportunity.

i can’t wait for next week’s class!

have you caught the recent press regarding the taser c2, the new consumer taser that comes in pink? i supervised a graduate research partnership with jesse wozniak this summer, in which he attended a taser convention in las vegas and wrote an electrifying paper on policing, masculinity, and tasers.

mr. wozniak will be presenting the shocking results (sorry woz, couldn’t resist) at our department workshop this tuesday at 4 in 1114 social sciences. there is absolutely no truth to the rumor that his new advisor will be tased during the presentation. here’s the ‘stract:

Real Men Use Non-Lethals: Masculinity and the Framing of Police Weaponry

This presentation centers on an examination of masculinity formation in the police subculture. Using first-hand ethnographic accounts of a major non-lethal weapons manufacturer’s annual sales and educational conference, I explore how the introduction of “less-masculine” weapons are marketed to coalesce with the hypermasculine police subculture. Connell’s (1995) theories of masculinity are tested to understand how such a tightly-defined subculture absorbs such challenges to its core values and re-imagines itself to keep those core values intact.

i’m just back from a national institute of Justice conference in dee cee. the orienting question was what have we learned from longitudinal research? and, parenthetically, was it worth it?

after nearly a year and a half of training, planning, and negotiating with administrators from the oregon department of corrections, i’m teaching my first inside-out course in the oregon state penitentiary this quarter. the inside-out program brings university students inside prisons to study for a quarter or semester with inmates — it’s a true collaborative learning experience to help to “break down the walls” between the inside students and the outside students.

my course is a special topics course on “crime, Justice, and public policy” and will include 12 senior-level undergraduates and 3 graduate students from oregon state university. with very little advertising, i had nearly 40 students who were interested in taking the class and i had to make difficult decisions to choose only 15. assuming all goes well, i am planning to repeat the course in summer, and i have 15 students waiting to take it then.

i also had to choose 15 inside students. after advertising the class in the prison, there were 36 men who were interested and met the eligibilty requirements (including have to spend their scarce resources to buy the text books used in the course). i met with them all in two large sessions, talked about the class, answered their questions, and had them write short answers about why they wanted to take the class, what they hoped to get from it, etc. again, after choosing 15 for next quarter, i have nearly 15 more planning to take the course in the summer. the 15 inside students have varied circumstances: 6 are serving life sentences, two have release dates in 2008, and the rest fall somewhere in between. at least one of the inside students has served more than 20 years. another was a first-time offender incarcerated at 17, so prison is most of what he knows about the world. one common feature these men share is that they are all so excited for this opportunity, so anxious to learn, and eager to try to improve themselves.

this will be a fascinating quarter. our first class meets on january 10th, although i ‘ve got two big training sessions for the department of corrections and the penitentiary between now and then. the set-up has taken an incredible amount of time, but i’ve had incredible support from both oregon state university and the oregon state penitentiary. we’ll be the first inside out class in a men’s prison (and, in fact, the only maximum-security prison in the state) on the west coast, so i do feel a lot of pressure to make sure it goes well.

in a way, this post is a good match for chris’s last post on soc of deviance in the real world. while he was able to reflect on what his students took from his deviance course to use in their lives outside of the classroom, i’m anticipating all of the life experiences that my varied group of students will bring into my course. i suspect i’ll learn at least as much as they do.

because this feels like an important form of public criminology, i’ll try to post updates on the blog for anyone who is interested. comments, suggestions, and feedback are all welcome!

my biggest fear as an instructor — the one that summons the late-night howling fantods — is that i will somehow manage to teach students nothing they can take beyond the classroom. i confronted this fear directly last month at the conclusion of my sociology of deviance class. as a two-point bonus question on my final exam, i asked students for a specific example showing how they used course materials outside of my class during the semester.

my favorite year in review stories are those showcasing the local paper’s political cartoonist. maybe that’s because the best cartoons always strike me as inherently sociological — putting big concepts into play around a particular case. as today’s story makes clear, my minneapolis strib is fortunate indeed to get regular images from steve sack.

op-eds are great, of course, but there’s a magical whoa! moment when a fine cartoonist nails a complex set of ideas in a single image. the conceptual weight of such pictures can make the accompanying editorial seem ridiculously oversimplified by comparison. would a windy sociological essay on the meaning of civilization and its incompatibility with torture pack the same punch as the cartoon above?

i treasure my daily encounters with such powerful material over strong coffee and wheaties. too often, i suppose, we take these first amendment moments for granted. as cartoonists found themselves at the center of intense religious conflict this year, i was glad to see that few seemed to shrink from the controversy. if you agree, you might browse daryl cagle‘s rich archive of political cartoons, including many by mr. sack. did any cartoons move you this year?

i just heard my october interview on npr’s Justice talking show about felon voting. for some chair/meeting-related reason, i had to run to the kfai studios that day, so i arrived winded and overcaffeinated in the midst of a pledge drive (hint: diet coke is a no-no before on-air interviews).

i liked the show and its host, margot adler, so i’m disappointed that the program isn’t carried locally. they asked me for a quick “big-picture overview” on felon disenfranchisement, which is fine with me. my bit preceded a more intense debate between spencer overton and john lott on the subject. i really dislike debating, so i usually decline invitations to argue for or against policy changes. part of this is due to my self-concept as a social scientist, but part of it is because i’m a ridiculously conciliatory debater (yeah, i can sort of see your point there, mr. rumsfeld. are we almost done here?). i’m probably not alone — many of us are probably more at home doing the “current state of knowledge” segment rather than the “what is to be done?” portion of such programs.

courtney love has successfully completed rehab and probation and is now officially off-paper. judge rand rubin terminated ms. love’s probation early when she finished a substance abuse treatment program. according to reuters, ms. love entered guilty pleas in 2004 and 2005 to some [silly] drug charges and pleaded no contest to [scary] assault charges in 2005:

Love was accused of dousing King with a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label scotch, throwing a lit candle at her head and pinching her breast. The attack came after Love found King sleeping on a couch at the home of Love’s ex-boyfriend.

courtney love has successfully completed rehab and probation and is now officially off-paper. judge rand rubin terminated ms. love’s probation early when she finished a substance abuse treatment program. according to reuters, ms. love entered guilty pleas in 2004 and 2005 to some [silly] drug charges and pleaded no contest to [scary] assault charges in 2005:

Love was accused of dousing King with a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label scotch, throwing a lit candle at her head and pinching her breast. The attack came after Love found King sleeping on a couch at the home of Love’s ex-boyfriend.

the pioneer press reports today that the city of st. paul will no longer require jobseekers to state on their applications whether they have ever been convicted of a crime. cities such as boston have already implemented this sort of pro-reintegration policy, but it remains a gutsy move by mayor chris coleman. background checks will continue to be conducted for positions involving direct contact with children, law enforcement, and positions of financial trust.