crime/law

In January the U.S. government announced a new definition of “forcible rape” to include male victims and oral or anal penetration in addition to vaginal. This has legal implications, of course, but also symbolic ones.  Language shapes how we experience the world, potentially changing how we feel about an event in our lives.  This happened to at least one person, prompting them to send in a postcard to Post Secret:

The more inclusive definition is a net good, I believe.  Legally, it’s best that we have the tools to prosecute these crimes and, for some people, being able to use this word to describe something terrible that happened to them will be validating and empowering.  For others, however, it may heighten the trauma. “Rape” is a powerful word and many Americans imagine it to be among the most harmful of crimes.  Like child abuse, but unlike even very violent non-sexual physical assaults, rape is often believed to be a long-lasting harm, maybe even one that you can never truly recover from.

Perhaps the word “dammit” in the card is meant to convey exactly this sentiment.  It was easier, perhaps, to think it was a bad night.  Now, though nothing has changed except for the language, the victim has to contend with having been raped.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

This is the second of two posts about cruel practices in horse industries. The first was about horse racing.

Yesterday we covered the abuse of horses in horse racing; in this post we discuss a recent video released by the Humane Society. The video highlights an instance of a larger issue, which is how arbitrary human tastes can create incentives for cruelty.

The concern revolves around the Tennessee Walking Horse (TWH), a breed developed in the U.S. in the late 1800s and bred to have smooth gaits, including their distinctive “running walk,”  that are unusual in most breeds. Over time, a more exaggerated version became popular among show judges and spectators at TWH shows; called the “big lick,” it requires horses to shift their weight to their back legs and pick their front legs high off the ground. Fans enjoyed the flashy, unusual movements and horses that performed the gait began taking home more prizes. This created a powerful incentive to get horses to exhibit the unnaturally exaggerated gait.

How do you get this gait? It’s possible to get some horses to do so through careful training. But to speed up the process, or for horses that aren’t learning, trainers developed a range of techniques. These first two are still allowed, under varying circumstances, during training and in the show ring:

• Using padding and weighted shoes to change how the horse stands and moves its feet (akin to how high heels shift a person’s weight and stance).
• Placing chains around the tops of their hooves to encourage them to pick their feet up more highly than they would otherwise (presumably they’re irritating).

• Place screws or nails in different parts of their front hooves or soles to cause discomfort.  While horses’ hooves are hard, the soles are quite sensitive.  The screws or nails make it painful for the horse to put its front legs down, so it shifts its weight back, helping to attain the gait.
• Intentionally cut the horse’s front hooves so short that the sensitive sole hits the ground directly, which is extremely painful (think of what happens if your fingernail gets cut or broken off too short).
• Coating a horse’s hooves and lower legs with caustic substances, then wrapping them in plastic wrap, for as long as several days, until they’re very sore — a process called, aptly, “soring.” This causes the horse to shift weight to its back legs in an effort to reduce the pain from the front feet. This is often used in conjunction with chains, which irritate and rub up against the raw skin.

Many inspectors argue that these practices, once widely accepted in the industry, are still common today. Recently the Humane Society released undercover footage of training practices at Whitter Stables, a facility in Collierville, TN that has been the center of a federal investigation. It is a very distressing video that includes many of the practices listed above, as well as horses being whipped when they have difficulty standing:

In 1970, Congress passed the Horse Protection Act, which outlawed the exhibition of sored horses. So trainers have developed techniques to hide them; they paint horses’ hooves and legs to cover evidence of soring or use boots to cover tacks embedded in their hooves.

They also beat them so that they learn not to show any sign of pain when inspected before a show.  They do this by simulating an inspection and then punishing the horse if it shows any signs of distress (e.g., punching or hitting them in the face or administering an electric shock).  Eventually horses learn that if they flinch, they get hurt twice; hiding signs of pain prevents the infliction of more suffering.

Trainers may also use a fast-acting but short-term numbing agent to reduce the pain just long enough to pass inspections. Other trainers and owners simply leave a show if word gets out that USDA inspectors were present.

The Tennessee Walking Horse Breeders’ and Exhibitors’ Association argues that these practices are not widespread. However, in 2006 the last class in the World Grand Champion competition at the Tennessee Walking Horse Celebration (the TWH show equivalent of the Kentucky Derby, in terms of importance) was canceled because of the 10 entered horses, 5 did not pass the inspection and another was removed by the owner without being inspected. In 2009, the USDA issued over 400 violations at the Celebration.

A USDA report states the organization only had the resources to send their own veterinarians to 6% of official TWH shows in 2007; the other 94% were inspected by individuals hired, trained, and licensed by organizations sponsoring shows, a system the USDA found to be plagued by conflicts of interest. The report also noted that hostility toward USDA inspectors is so high that they routinely bring police or armed security with them to shows.

Jackie McConnell, the trainer in the video, has been indicted on federal charges. But without sustained attention and commitment to punishing violators, the problem will continue due to the pressure to produce horses that satisfy the tastes that have become entrenched in the industry. As one industry insider explained to Horse Illustrated magazine in 2004,

As long as the big lick wins at shows, the trainer must produce it to stay in business….The day a trainer stops producing big lick horses is the day all the horses in his or her barn are removed and taken to another trainer.  The pressure is enormous.

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Gwen Sharp and Lisa Wade are professors of sociology. You can follow Gwen on Twitter and Lisa on Twitter and Facebook.

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.

Last week, on the heels of Obama’s announcement that he supports gay marriage, NPR interviewed the President of the Pew Research Center, Andrew Kohut, about trends in American support for the issue.  Kohut explained that American opinion has changed dramatically, and unusually, in a very short time.  In 1996, for example, 27% of people supported gay marriage (65% opposed).  This “really didn’t change very much” for a while.  In 2004, when Republicans mobilized the issue to get conservatives to the polls, 60% still opposed it.  But today, in the space of less than a decade, we have more people supporting gay marriage than opposing it.  Some polls show the majority of Americans believe that we should have the right to marry someone of the same sex.

This trend is driven, in part, by young people replacing the old, but focusing on this overshadows the fact that essentially all Americans — of every stripe — show higher support for gay marriage than they did a decade ago.  Both men and women and people of all races, political affiliations, religions, and ages are showing increased support for gay marriage.  This is a real, remarkable, and rare shift in opinion:

Opinion by age:
Opinion by religion:
Opinion by political party:
Opinion by political orientation:
Opinion by race:
Opinion by gender:
Via Montclair SocioBlog.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Many of you may have seen a video featuring Reverend William Barber speaking out against North Carolina’s Amendment One, which banned same-sex marriages (and which was approved by voters on Tuesday). The video is heartfelt and passionate, and is also a great example of the importance of how we frame issues in social movements.

Reverend Barber argues that media coverage of the amendment has asked the wrong questions. Whether same-sex couples should be allowed to get married isn’t the core issue here, he says; what’s really at stake is whether the majority should get to vote on which rights will be guaranteed to those in the minority, a decision he sees as a dangerous standard in a nation that has used it previously to exclude racial/ethnic minorities, women, and the poor from the full benefits and protections of citizenship. This reframes the amendment from an issue about same-sex marriages to a broader question about rights, equal protection, and the dangers of codifying inequality into our governing documents:

Jay Smooth — always insightful and earnest — praises the movement for justice in the Trayvon Martin case, and points us forward to what’s next:

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

The first drug court started in Miami in 1989 as an effort to stop the cycle of drug addiction and crime.  The program brought together judges, prosecuting and defense attorneys, addiction counselors, and social workers to collaboratively build an individualized treatment program.  Rather than sending people to jail, the drug court program was designed to treat addiction while participants lived in the community.  Drug courts have become an increasingly common way for communities to engage with low-level drug offenders.

Seeking to raise awareness and support for drug courts, the National Association of Drug Court Professionals has released a series of PSAs entitled, “All Rise.”  Using a mix of celebrities and drug court judges, these commercials assert that 75% of drug court participants are never arrested again.

The promise is clear.  Drug courts not only treat addiction, they also treat a number of social problems (“no more families torn apart… no more neglect… no more overdoses”).

Are drug courts really this successful?

The truth is, we still don’t know.  The 75% success statistic comes from a study published in 2003.  The authors report that only 27.5% of drug court participants had been re-arrested and charged with a serious crime within two years.  So, we don’t know what re-arrest rates look like after that two-year period and the data doesn’t include arrests for minor crimes or arrests for serious crimes that did not result in a charge.  This is a far cry from the claim made in the video: that 75% of drug court participants are never arrested again.

The claims asserted in the “All Rise” campaign, then, should be treated with caution.  That said, drug courts are a significant move away from punitiveness for addicted offenders. Increasing the time to reoffending is a very positive step for the offender, for the community, and for the criminal justice system.  Additionally, most recidivism occurs within three years of release, so if the drug court program is helping participants to make it past this milestone it may indeed lead to some graduates leaving criminality altogether.

But before we turn to drug courts as “the” solution, we need more research on the effectiveness of drug courts.  Women and Caucasians fare better in the program than men and people of color.  And large courts tend to be more effective than small courts. Nevertheless, since the 1990s drug courts have spread across the nation to all major cities and many medium and small-sized cities, some of which have limited resources and less dedication.  All Rise’s enthusiasm should be tempered with a critical eye aimed at making these programs work well, and for as many people as possible.

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Kimberly Baker is an assistant professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies at Ithaca College.  She teaches classes in crime, deviance, and law.  Her research is on drugs, addiction, and U.S. drug policy, including drug courts.

Capital punishment in the U.S. has gotten renewed attention recently, with Connecticut’s governor signing a bill repealing the death penalty this week and Californians set to vote on a ballot initiative in November that would get rid of capital punishment in the state.

Think Progress recently reposted a map showing the legality of the death penalty across the U.S. (now out of date since the change in Connecticut), as well as data on the number of people on death row per state (dark red boxes) and the number executed since 1976 (white boxes):

Talking about capital punishment in the U.S. hides a significant amount of variation. While the death penalty is technically available in most states, its use is very uneven. In many states where the death penalty is legal, prosecutors rarely push for it, and the vast majority of death penalty sentences are never actually carried out (for instance, notice that while over 700 people are currently on death row in California, the state has a much lower number of executions since 1976 than many other states). The exception is the South, which accounts for a disproportionate number of death penalty sentences and carries out such sentences at a much higher rate than other states.

In a podcast just posted at Office Hours, David Garland, author of Peculiar Institution: America’s Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition, discusses why capital punishment persists in the U.S. and also highlights the unevenness in its application. It’s a really great summary of the various factors that lead to the patterns we see in the map.

A resolution to the matter described below was announced yesterday.  In order to preserve the religious memorial without violating the separation of church and state, the Park Service has agree to give the land it sits on to two private citizens who take care of the monument.  Problem solved?

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The Supreme Court is in the process of deciding whether a cross erected 75 years ago as a memorial to war veterans violates the constitutional separation between church and state. The cross sits on the Mojave National Preserve and, therefore, is on public land. After lower court rulings, the cross was covered in plywood.

In deliberations, Justice Scalia tried to argue that the cross is a neutral and universal symbol. He said:

It’s erected as a war memorial. I assume it is erected in honor of all of the war dead… What would you have them erect?… Some conglomerate of a cross, a Star of David, and you know, a Muslim half moon and star?

Faced with an argument that the cross is distinctly Christian, he said:

I don’t think you can leap from that to the conclusion that the only war dead that that cross honors are the Christian war dead. I think that’s an outrageous conclusion.

Scalia’s comments reveal a common phenonemon that we’ve discussed in terms of race and gender, but not yet religion.  As Jay Livingston pointed out at MontClair SocioBlog, one can only think of Christian symbols as non-specific if one thinks of Christianity as somehow normal, neutral, and for everyone.  In the U.S., because Christianity is the dominant religion, many people simply see it as default.  You’re Christian unless you’re something else.  Something else that marks you as different and specific, Christianity does not.

This is one way that dominance works.  It makes itself invisible.

UPDATE! Dmitriy T.M. pointed out that Steven Colbert addressed this issue on The Colbert Report back in 2009:

See our other posts on how whiteness and maleness are the characteristics we attribute to “person,” unless there are reasons to do otherwise, here, here, here, and here.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.