For most of us, our only way to know what life in prison is like is through occasional movies and TV shows. But for inmates, the prison impacts all aspects of their lives. Recent stories have filled newsfeeds about a food protest in a Washington state facility, religious discrimination in Michigan, and a massive fire in a Venezuelan jail that claimed 68 lives. These events put the often-dismal conditions, lack of programs, and corruption in carceral spaces on full display. Social science research on prisons can help us understand the conditions of prison life and how broader social context shapes prison structures.

Classical sociological perspectives view prisons as totalizing institutions that define both the day-to-day routines and the personal identities of those incarcerated. This leads to “pains of imprisonment” beyond loss of freedom. More recent scholarship demonstrates how structural inequality, and especially racial inequality in the United States, shaped the development of prisons. Racialization and racial segregation still shape practices within prisons today.

• Rose M. Brewer and Nancy A. Heitzeg. 2008.  “The Racialization of Crime and Punishment: Criminal Justice, Color-Blind Racism, and the Political Economy of the Prison Industrial Complex.” American Behavioral Scientist 51(5): 625-644.
• Erving Goffman. 1961. Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. Penguin Random House.
• Gresham M. Sykes. 2007. The Society of Captives: A Study of a Maximum Security Prison. Princeton University Press.

Prison overcrowding has been a major concern in the United States since the beginning of the prison boom in the 1970s. Research clearly shows that overcrowding has serious physical and mental health effects for the incarcerated, and deleterious impacts for safety in prisons. In Latin America, prisons are also overcrowded, and often include a disproportionately high number of prisoners who are awaiting trial, but have not been convicted. Since these prisons lack government oversight and often have insufficient financial resources, many prisons suffer from corruption, persistent abuse by prison officers, and a crumbling physical infrastructure. Religious entities, and sometimes even prisoners themselves, play crucial role in administering and organizing prisons, as well as providing resources and rehabilitation opportunities.

• Michael Massoglia. 2008.  “Incarceration as Exposure: the Prison, Infectious Disease, and Other Stress-Related Illnesses.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 49(1): 56-71.
• Craig Haney. 2006. “The Wages of Prison Overcrowding: Harmful Psychological Consequences and Dysfunctional Correctional Reactions.” Washington University Journal of Law & Policy 22: 265-293.
• Andrew Johnson. 2017. If I Give My Soul: Faith Behind Bars in Rio de Janeiro. Oxford University Press.
• Markus-Michael Müller. 2012. “The Rise of the Penal State in Latin America.” Contemporary Justice Review 15(1): 57-76.

Recent events and protests shine a light on the importance of continued research on prison conditions across the globe. These studies both help us to understand how social contexts “on the inside” and outside of prisons shape the lives of the incarcerated, and bring awareness to an issue that is often obfuscated from public life.

The effects of violent conflict are difficult to measure, from refugee displacement to PTSD or other mental health concerns. Humanitarian advocates may look at refugee displacement while psychologists examine PTSD or other mental health concerns. Though sociological insights often remain overlooked, a number of scholars have made essential contributions in understanding the long-term effects of violent conflict. Their work illustrates how conflict can have social and relational effects, and their findings may help to prevent future violence or perpetuate tension for generations to come.

In the context of conflict, the word “trauma” often refers to psychological effects for an individual who has experienced violence. However, sociology allows for a look into the social consequences of violence. Coined by Jeffrey Alexander, “cultural trauma” describes the irrevocable impact of violence upon a group which was subjected to atrocities, influencing understandings of identity far past the conflict itself. The violence experienced by subjugated groups like African Americans and Jews, for example, becomes a key part of how members of these groups understand their identity in the present.

• Jeffrey C. Alexander. 2012. Trauma: A Social Theory. Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press.

Cultural trauma does not always occur following a violent event. An event must first become widely understood and accepted as a violation, and this generally occurs with the help of institutions, like the law, education, or the media. Some injustices, like violence against native populations in the Americas, are still not fully accepted as persecution. Powerful institutions may seek to limit a group’s capacity to identify as victims, like educational structures that don’t teach the persecution of Native Americans to students. Conversely, those who experienced the violence (or their ancestors) can use institutions to try and reframe this narrative.

• Jeffrey C. Alexander, Ron Eyerman, Bernhard Giesen, Neil J. Smelser, and Piotr Sztompka. 2004. Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
• Hannah Arendt. 2005. Responsibility and Judgement, New York City, NY: Schocken.

Over time, understandings of past violence can change. Commemorative events can pass on memories from atrocities, but often shift in content over time as new individuals take over elements of the commemorative process. Narratives may also shift to reflect contemporary understandings of violence or identity. For example, recognition of Native American genocide — and subsequent declarations of Indigenous People’s Day on Columbus Day — captures a shift in attitudes about past violence.

• Jeffrey Olick. 1999. “Genre Memories and Memory Genres: A Dialogical Analysis of May 8, 1945 Commemorations in the Federal Republic of Germany.” American Sociological Review 64: 381-402.
• Alejandro Baer. 2011. “The Voids of Sepharad: The Memory of the Holocaust in Spain.” Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 12(1): 95–120.

This month many celebrated Easter Sunday, symbolizing the resurrection of Christianity’s most prominent figure, Jesus. In this context, we find ourselves reflecting on the rise of the U.S. evangelical movement and the individuals who constitute its membership. Most recently progressives criticized evangelicals for their support of Donald Trump, who received over 80 percent of the evangelical vote despite his lack of religious practice, and his purported incidents of sexual misconduct. Sociological research provides a complicated picture of evangelicals in the United States and their beliefs.

The evangelical movement emerged during the mid-twentieth century and quickly gained popularity among conservative Whites in the 1990s. The core belief of evangelicalism, which has its roots in fundamentalism, lies in its assertion of the Protestant Bible as God’s actual word. Evangelicals see the Bible as the ultimate authority over moral matters and believe it cannot be contested. Their mission seeks to convert non-believers to Christianity so they may see Jesus as their savior and save their souls from eternal damnation.

• Christian Smith. 1998. American Evangelicalism: Embattled and Thriving. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Andrew M. Greeley and Michael Hout. 2006. The Truth about Conservative Christians: What They Think and What They Believe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Evangelicals also make up an essential part of the Republican Party. Several explanations exist for the strong link between evangelicalism and right-wing politics, including religiosity, gender and family ideologies, and moral standards. For example, evangelicals support political causes that reaffirm Biblical beliefs and support ideologies that center patriarchal models of family. Further, moral traditionalists hold universal ideas about what is right and wrong and support political causes and figures that uphold moral principles they perceive to be under threat.

• Steven Brint and Seth Abrutyn. 2010. “Who’s Right About the Right? Comparing Competing Explanations of the Link Between White Evangelicals and Conservative Politics in the United States.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 49(2): 328-350.
• Jeff Manza and Clem Brooks. 1997. “The Religious Factor in US Presidential Elections, 1960-1992.” American Journal of Sociology 103(1): 38–81.

Yet, several scholars warn against overgeneralizing about evangelicals. For example, Andrew Greeley and Michael Hout point out that while a significant amount of African American Christians share some of these evangelical beliefs, they overwhelmingly support democratic policies. Furthermore, outside of the U.S. context, many conservative White Christians reject right-wing social politics.

• Lydia Bean. 2014. The Politics of Evangelical Identity: Local Churches and Partisan Divides in the United States and Canada. Princeton University Press.

Following the arrest of two Black men at a Philadelphia Starbucks, public attention has increasingly focused on how race impacts whose presence in certain areas is questioned or not. The incident at Starbucks is part of a broader phenomenon about who we see as belonging or not-belonging in social settings and different spaces. Often, these perceptions — about who should and shouldn’t be at particular places — are rooted in race and racial difference.

Research shows that beliefs about belonging particularly affect how Black people are treated in America. Sociologist Elijah Anderson has written extensively about how certain social settings are cast as a “white space” or a “black space.” Often, these labels extend to public settings, including businesses, shopping malls, and parks. Labels like these are important because they can lead to differences in how some people are treated, like the exclusion of the two Black men from Starbucks.

• Anderson, Elijah. 2011.  The Cosmopolitan Canopy: Race and Civility in Everyday Life. W.W. Norton & Company.
• Elijah Anderson. 2015. “The White Space.” Sociology of Race & Ethnicity 1(1): 10-21.

When addressing the intersections between race and social space, social scientists often focus on residential segregation, where certain neighborhoods are predominantly comprised of members of one racial group. While these dynamics have been studied since the mid 20th century, research shows that race is still an important factor in determining where people live and who their neighbors are — an effect compounded by the 2008 financial crisis and its impacts on housing.

• Jacob S Rugh, Len Albright, and Douglas S. Massey. 2015. “Race, Space, and Cumulative Disadvantage: A Case Study of the Subprime Lending Collapse.” Social Problems 62(2): 186-208.
• Matthew Hall,  Kyle Crowder, and Amy Spring. 2015. “Neighborhood Foreclosures, Racial/Ethnic Transitions, and Residential Segregation.” American Sociological Review 80(3): 526-529.
• Ray Sin and Maria Krysan. 2015. “What Is Racial Residential Integration? A Research Synthesis, 1950–2013.” Sociology of Race and Ethnicity  (1)4: 467-474.

On Earth Day, we think about the environment and how we can protect it. While we tend to think of “going green” as something that began in the 1970s, the history of U.S. environmental movements stretches much further into the past. Over the course three specific historical periods — Conservationist/Preservations, Ecocentrist, and Political/Deep Ecology — environmental activism has shifted in its issues, from parks to pollution and clean water to climate change.  

The early Conservationism and Preservation movements emerged in the 1860s as reactions to the Industrial Revolution and explosion of cites. The mostly White, male elites argued that nature has a functional value in maintaining human societies. These activists were largely unconcerned with the rights and livelihoods of rural residents and native peoples, and were more focused on their own need for distinction, space, and recreational opportunities. We can thank these early movements for the National Arbor Day Foundation, The Sierra Club, the World Wildlife Organization, and the creation of National Parks.

• Dorceta E. Taylor. 2016. The Rise of the American Conservation Movement: Power, Privilege, and Environmental Protection. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 

The Ecocentrist movement began its development at the turn of the 20th century, but remained dormant until Rachel Carson’s publication of Silent Spring in 1962 connected the maintenance of clean, pollution-free ecosystems to public health and human survival. This period’s series of landmark successes includes the establishment of the Environmental Defense Fund in 1967, Earth Day in 1970, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act.

• Robert J. Brulle. 1996. “Environmental Discourse and Social Movement Organizations: A Historical and Rhetorical Perspective on the Development of US Environmental Organizations.”
  Sociological Inquiry 66: 58-83.

The later historical period and the Political and Deep Ecology period linked social inequalities and consumerism to environmental degradation. Environmental issues like toxic waste, for example, primarily affect poor and working-class citizens. In contrast to earlier periods of elite-driven environmental activism, the toxic waste movement has been made up of people who experience environmental hazards first-hand.

• Phil Brown and Susan Masterson-Allen. 1994. “The Toxic Waste Movement: A New Type of
  Activism.” Society and Natural Resources 7: 269-287.

The most recent period of the U.S. environmental movements has seen less success than previous eras. By the 1980s, environmental issues became more complicated and abstract. Ozone depletion, acid rain, and global warming fell outside the jurisdiction of existing regulatory agencies and were more difficult to see than something like chemicals and garbage in rivers, lakes, and streams. Although many citizens generally support environmental protection, fewer people support government spending on environmental issues, especially since these issues are often invisible. Furthermore, contemporary concerns like climate change require international cooperation because they span geographic boundaries.

• Robert J. Brulle and J. Craig Jenkins. 2008. “Fixing the Bungled U.S. Environmental Movement.” Contexts 7(2): 14-19.

April 20th isn’t exactly your average holiday, but ever since the late 1970s, 4/20 has been commonly associated with marijuana, as many refer to this date as “Weed Day.” Social scientists have studied marijuana use since the mid 20th century, and this has continued alongside changing norms, beliefs, and policies in the United States. In light of this, we rolled up some research on marijuana use.

In the mid 20th century, social scientists studied how social forces shape marijuana use and the norms surrounding it. Howard Becker’s famous research illustrates that learning to smoke and enjoying marijuana isn’t a simple, intuitive process. Instead, users must take cues from one another. Through this social interaction, they also form bonds and group identities. Further, their experiences and identities reflect the ways that marijuana use is culturally cast as “deviant” and sanctioned by legal penalties. This approach — understanding marijuana use, subcultures, and criminalization as social processes — is common in social science research about marijuana users.

• Howard Becker. 1953. “Becoming a Marihuana User.” American Journal of Sociology 59(3): 235-242.
• Erich Goode. 1970. The Marijuana Smokers. New York: Basic Books.

Social norms, public attitudes, and policies about marijuana use changed considerably throughout the early 21st century. While once heavily criminalized, some new policies legalize marijuana use for medical purposes. The medicalization of marijuana is also a social process. Views of marijuana and its use shifted in response to new medical approaches, policies, and narratives. Of course, recreational use of marijuana continues, and research suggests that lines between medical marijuana and recreational marijuana are neither rigid nor impermeable. For example, users may engage in marijuana use both as a medical necessity and enjoyable activity. In sum, social contexts and norms still affect marijuana use, as well as public attitudes and policies.

• Landon Schnabel and Eric Sevell. 2017. “Should Mary and Jane Be Legal?: Americans’ Attitudes toward Marijuana and Same-Sex Marriage Legalization, 1988–2014.” Public Opinion Quarterly 1(1): 157-172.
• Patrick K. O’Brien. 2013. “Medical Marijuana and Social Control: Escaping Criminalization and Embracing Medicalization.” Deviant Behavior 34(6): 423-443.
• Nicholas Athey, Neil Boyd, and Elysha Cohen. 2017. “Becoming a Medical Marijuana User: Reflections on Becker’s Trilogy—Learning Techniques, Experiencing Effects, and Perceiving Those Effects as Enjoyable.” Contemporary Drug Problems 44(3): 212-231.  

Migration on the southern border has been a hot topic in U.S. media and politics of late, only intensified by the recent release of plans for the first phase of the construction of a wall and the end of Temporary Protected Status for a number of Central American countries. Unfortunately, media reporting and the debates about these policies are all too rarely informed by social science research on border policies and their impacts on migrants and migration flows.

Since the late 1980s, restrictive policies and measures on immigration (e.g. limiting the number of visas available) and the tightening and militarization of the U.S. southern border have kept potentially undocumented Mexican migrants in the country. With higher costs and risks at the border for undocumented migrants, research suggests that the choice to stay in the United States, rather than moving back and forth over the border, is more of a necessity today than ever before.

• Douglas S. Massey, Jorge Durand and Karen A. Pren. 2015. “Border Enforcement and Return Migration by Documented and Undocumented Mexicans.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 41(7): 1015-1040.

On the other hand, as undocumented Mexican migration to the United States wanes — driven also by demographic changes in Mexico — undocumented migration from Central America is increasing. This shift is largely caused by civil wars in the region that sent refugees north, subsequent U.S. immigration policies of the 1990s that expelled many of these refugees that had criminal records, and the social instability in Central America that continues to drive migration back to the United States.

• Douglas S. Massey, Jorge Durand and Karen A. Pren. 2014. “Explaining Undocumented Migration to the U.S.” International Migration Review 48(4): 1028-1061.

And these policies not only drive the movement of peoples, but also the transfer of their monies. Recent research shows that legal status in the United States (or lack thereof) affects decisions to send money and travel to home countries. For example, Salvadorans — many of whom arrived in the United States undocumented — sent remittances at high rates than other national groups, though traveled back home less than half the rate of the typical Latino migrant. This same research finds that Mexican migrants were more likely to travel back to their home country than Cubans (as travel home was tightly restricted), though both sent remittances at similar frequencies.

• Thomas Soehl and Roger Waldinger. 2010. “Making a Connection: Latino Immigrants and Their Cross-border Ties.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 33(9): 1489-1510.
• Roger Waldinger. 2008. “Between “Here” and “There”: Immigrant Cross-Border Activities and Loyalties.” International Migration Review 42(1): 3-29.

As online education gains more traction, educators wonder about the benefits of actual physical interaction in academic environments. Social science research helps us understand the importance of universities as physical spaces — buildings, classrooms, offices, labs, and libraries — and the relationship between space design and the development of creative ideas and fruitful academic experiences. It turns out that the way a space is organized matters greatly for the type of experience individuals have at universities and other organizations.  

The design and organization of college campuses have long played a crucial role in the practical, emotional, and intellectual life of students and professors. As built environments, universities aim to impact daily activities in ways that promote knowledge and creativity. Universities also frequently renovate buildings in order to make improvements, but sometimes these designs can backfire. For example, a study interviewed faculty and graduate students after transitioning from an old to a new building. The new design reinforced a sense of isolation and academic alienation among faculty and students, where the academic hierarchy (senior faculty, junior faculty, and graduate students) determined space, the rigid placement of furniture such as desks and cabinets inhibited social interaction, and offices served more as spaces for administrative tasks than creative activities. This new design led to faculty closing their office doors and graduate students avoiding the building as a place of study.

• Aaron M. Kuntz, John E. Petrovic, and Lou Ginocchio. 2012. “A Changing Sense of Place: A Case Study of Academic Culture and the Built Environment.” Higher Education Policy 25(4): 433-451.
• Victoria A. Cook and Peter J. Hemming. 2011. “Education Spaces: Embodied Dimensions and Dynamics.” Social & Cultural Geography 12: 1-8.

Structuring spaces in buildings also reorders the relationships between people. Studies on workplaces and built environments suggest that elements like natural construction materials, the placement of the building, and offices’ distribution define the sense of community among members of an organization. Workplaces that promote circulation and visual interaction create better opportunities for collaboration. An architectural study found that buildings that promoted the use of stairs and contact with nature encouraged movement and improved collaborative work. Educational institutions can create learning spaces — like lecture halls, libraries, laboratories — that map onto educational needs. By managing the places that people inhabit, universities can create a proper environment for developing social relationships and favoring learning.

• Alisdair McGregor, Ann Marie Aguilar, and Victoria Lockhart. 2017. “Environmentally Smart Design: Designing for Social Wellbeing Across the City and in the Workplace.” Architectural Design 87(2): 48-55.
• Robert A. Ellis and Peter Goodyear. 2016. “Models of Learning Space: Integrating Research on Space, Place and Learning in Higher Education.” Review of Education 4(2): 149-191.
• Paul Temple. 2009. “From Space to Place: University Performance and its Built Environment.” Higher Education Policy 22(2): 209-223.

In short, physical space matters. And the way a building or organizational space is designed can make or break its effectiveness.

With recent calls from President Trump for the death penalty for opioid drug traffickers, it is no surprise that the United States is one of the most punitive democracies in the world. But does the Trump administration’s position reflect that of most Americans? Gallup recently re-released findings from a 1987 poll that suggests a majority of Americans opposed the death penalty for drug dealers during a period of heightened concern about drugs. Social scientists continue to investigate the social factors that inform punitive attitudes. 

Among Whites, racial stereotypes about crime drive punitive attitudes. Whites’ racialized perceptions of crime — like the idea that Black individuals are more violent — contribute to support for several policies, including mandatory minimums, lowering the adult age-limit for juveniles, and the death penalty. Among Blacks and Hispanics, racial stereotypes do not appear to drive punitive attitudes. Instead, political beliefs and crime concerns seem to be more consequential for the punitive attitudes for people of color.

• Lawrence D. Bobo and Devon Johnson. 2004. “A Taste for Punishment: Black and White Americans’ Views on the Death Penalty and the War on Drugs.” Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race 1(1): 151-180.
• Ted Chiricos, Kelly Welch, and Marc Gertz. 2004. “Racial Typification of Crime and Support for Punitive Measures.” Criminology 42(2): 359–89.
• Justin T. Pickett and Ted Chiricos. 2012. “Controlling Other People’s Children: Racialized Views of Delinquency and Whites’ Punitive Attitudes Toward Juvenile Offenders.” Criminology 50(3):673–710.
• James D. Unnever and Francis T. Cullen. 2012. “White Perceptions of Whether African Americans and Hispanics Are Prone to Violence and Support for the Death Penalty.” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 49(4): 519–44.

Recently, research indicates that criminal stereotypes about Hispanics and Latinos, anti-immigrant sentiments, and xenophobia also contribute to Whites’ punitive attitudes. One cross-national study comparing punitiveness across the European Union found that individuals who endorse anti-immigrant sentiments are more likely to support harsh punishments, even when accounting for other individual characteristics, like religious background. In the U.S. context, xenophobia may be more important than racial attitudes for heightened punitiveness.

• Joseph Baker, David Cañarte, and L. Edward Day. Forthcoming. “Race, Xenophobia, and Punitiveness Among the American Public.” The Sociological Quarterly.
• Graham C. Ousey and James D. Unnever. 2012.  “Racial-Ethnic Threat, Out-Group Intolerance, and Support for Punishing Criminals: A Cross-National Study.” Criminology 50(3): 565-603.

This research helps us to understand what influences the increased “get tough on crime” talk in U.S. politics. Concerns about crime control reflect more than just current crime trends. They are connected to both race relations and immigration patterns. So, while many of us may dispute the notion of executing drug dealers in general, keep in mind that racial stereotypes and racial or ethnic hostility drive many current — and likely future — criminal justice policies and practices in the United States.

Check out this Contexts piece by Chris Uggen and Ryan Larson about how the American public may be “getting smarter” on crime and crime control.

Embracing and shaping fashion are not without issues of power and inequality. Different consumers have varying degrees of access to certain products, whether in terms of money or knowledge of what is happening in a particular arena of fashion. In most societies, clothing is a way to signal social class and occupation. While some privileged consumers assert class identities through conspicuous consumption of luxury goods, not all fashion choices are about creating or maintaining an image of wealth and power. Researchers have studied various subcultures to understand how fashion relates to identity.

• Thorstein Veblen. 1899. The Theory of the Leisure Class. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Dick Hebdige. 2002 [1970]. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. New York: Taylor & Francis.

Think of English punks or the 1970s or goth teens as examples of subcultures that use style and clothing to brand their identities rather than fit in with mainstream culture. In light of this, interpreting and predicting fashion trends remains difficult because individual and group identity expressions are in constant states of negotiation. Consumers decide if and to what extent they adopt a new trend or practice in order to fit in with a certain group or distinguish themselves from them. In other words, fashion is not just about the clothes themselves; it is a process of constant change that occurs in the contexts of existing culture and society.

• Paul Hodkinson. 2002. Goth: Identity, Style and Subculture. New York: Berg Publishers.
• Fred Davis. 1992. Fashion, Culture, and Identity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.