Colorblindness vs. Race-Consciousness—An American Ambivalence

Racial diversity makes many people both proud and anxious. This ambivalence is no accident. We live in a society with deep racial inequalities and pervasive color-blind ideals. Read More

Wearing Privilege

Trayvon Martin was a black teenage boy. He was walking home from the convenience store when he caught the attention and ire of George Zimmerman. Perceived as a “punk” and a threat, Martin was accosted by the older man, and … Read More

The Struggle for a Truly Grassroots Human Rights Movement

Some say human rights are an ideology imposed on the rest by the powerful west. Read More

White Trash: The Social Origins of a Stigmatype

White trash. For many, the name evokes images of trailer parks, meth labs, beat-up Camaros on cinder blocks, and poor rural folks with too many kids and not enough government cheese. It’s a put-down, the name given to those whites … Read More

Repercussions of Incarceration on Close Relationships

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 … Read More

Discovering Desistance

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 … Read More

Juvenile Lifers, Learning to Lead

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. Read More

Social Fact: The Great Depressions?

During the Great Depression of the late 1920s, suicide rates in the United States reached an all-time high, topping 22 suicides per 100,000 persons. Images of once-wealthy business moguls and industrialists throwing themselves from Manhattan skyscrapers may seem a tragic … Read More

What’s So Funny about Disability?

In 2008, the release of the action-comedy film Tropic Thunder, written, produced, and directed by Ben Stiller, brought forth condemnation from more than a dozen disability advocacy groups, including the Special Olympics and the National Down Syndrome … Read More

The Crime of Genocide

Rain pelted the side of the empty school building, drowning out all other sounds. In the distance I could see lightning strike across the rolling green hills. The weather couldn’t have fit the situation better. For even though the classrooms … Read More