Outline, Week 7, Sociology 2306

I. Groups and discussion: "Streetwise"

Compare families of origin and "street families"

"Dates" and prostitution

Relate to Heyl: square world and racket world--resocialization

Theory: must take into account failings in families of origin, as well as effect of kids on each other...

II. Conflict theory

A. Connection with labeling theory: why are some behaviors more apt to be negatively labeled? Ongoing competition and conflict between groups over everything from material goods to education to religious freedom... balance of power and privilege

B. Marxist theory... priority to social class, economic inequalities

1. Spitzer... monopoly capitalism continually generates surplus population... control tht population via welfare system or criminal justice system...

2. Chambliss: "The Saints and the Roughnecks"

C. Feminist theory: gender inequalities...

1. Meda Chesney-Lind: "Girls' Crime and Women's Place"

a. Persistence of a double-standard in the juvenile court... girls more apt to be adjudicated for status offenses

b. Physical and sexual abuse much more prevalent among girls and women who end up both in the juvenile justice and the adult justice systems... e.g., Wisconsin study: 79% of girls in the jjs had been physically abused and 32% sexually abused, often by a parent or someone close to their family (remember the girls' stories from "Streetwise")

c. Greatly increased likelihood of becoming runaways and street kids, which in turn involves them both in prostitution and use of drugs...

III. Justice System Reform (Currie)

A. "Get tough" vs. rehabilitation... we made the wrong choice beginning in the early 1970s, based not on careful research but on popular myths about deterrence... (remember Kai Erikson's analysis of crime waves)

1. Decline of education programs in prisons...
1994: federal Omnibus Crime Bill eliminated Pell Grant funding for prisons

Center for Rational Corrections (UMD criminology graduate Brian Pierce)

2. Drug treatment

a. California: 1996-- 145,000 inmates in state prison system, 400 beds for drug treatment (1200 more added since that time)

b. Key program in Delaware: 12 months in-prison treatment, followed by 6 months continued drug treatment and job training in transitional house in the community

Comparison group not in the program: 18 month recidivism of 70%

In-prison treatment only: 52%

After-care only: 35%

In-prison treatment and after-care: 29%

3. More general lack of investment in aftercare despite theoretical and empirical support for the necessity of such programs... what happens when the offender returns to the community... see description of Violent Juvenile Offender program (VJO): graduated reentry into the community (167-8)... a great deal of success, even with this very difficult population

4. Policing strategies

a. community policing

b. targeting of hotspots and guns... "Efforts to get guns off the streets and to target open air drug markets and violent drug gangs... may be the most important ingredient of police successes in New York and elsewhere."

also reduces vicious cycle of defensive gun carrying