Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Agnew’s (1992) general strain theory has greatly contributed to the revitalization of strain theories. The large amount of empirical work testing the theory and the fair amount of supportive findings indicate its importance for research on the causes of crime. Yet, studies using the theory have been limited in scope, focusing almost entirely on juvenile samples. Thus there is a need to test the theory in other arenas. One important focus may be that of the prison. In short, strain experienced in prison may significantly affect later outcomes for individuals, and this may provide insight into ways in which general strain theory can be both tested and extended. This paper considers this issue by suggesting that deprivation models of inmate adjustment to the prison can be used as foundations for the construction of a test of Agnew’s theory that seeks to explain inmate misconduct and post-release recidivism.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: During 2003 Congress passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA; 42 U.S.C. § 15601), and President George W. Bush signed this act into law (P.L. 108-79) on September 4, 2003. As part of this law, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) was required to conduct “a comprehensive statistical review and analysis of the incidence and effects of prison rape” (PREA § 4 (a)(1)). The BJS review, however, has focused almost exclusively on sexual assault incidents with male victims, and failed to address the needs and related problems associated with the female prison population. In our presentation, we will report the early findings of our research designed to address this gap in the “comprehensive” review. Specifically, we evaluate the impact of incidents of coerced (rape), as well as, consensual sexual relationships on female prisoners’ sexual orientation during incarceration and after release. As part of our analysis, we also examine the prisoners’ self-identification of their sexual orientation prior to incarceration. We anticipate that this research will reveal the necessity for a different model for female confinement beyond the slightly modified male model currently deemed adequate for this deferentially socialized population.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Prisonization theory asserts that inmates who internalize the attitudes and behaviors of a criminal lifestyle are most likely to continue their criminal careers and thus less likely to desist from crime. Unfortunately, virtually all prior studies of prisonization have used male samples and ignored female inmates. Using official data from 174 female inmates in Arizona, the current study examined predictors of 10 forms of institutional misconduct. Net the effects of demographic, social history, criminal career, and other risk factors, women who had served prior prison terms were significantly likely to commit all forms of misconduct. The effect of prior prison experience was separate from other measures of criminal career/criminal propensity, which suggests that recurrently going to prison exerts a unique and powerful effect on inmate behavior. Implications for prisonization research are provided.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: People who are transgendered are more likely to be victims of violent crime, HIV disease and discrimination in all sorts of public accommodations. These problems are exacerbated when they are incarcerated. Often, they are placed into a sex-segregated facility that matches their former sex, as opposed to their “transitioned” sex. Their maltreatment may be caused in part by failure of the law to incorporate evolved concepts of gender and sex. General societal ignorance of the issues presented by the transgendered further complicates their lives in prison. Even in jurisdictions with progressive laws and rules, the employees who implement these rules may not have sufficient knowledge of transgender issues to implement these policies effectively. I examine the legal and social underpinnings of the policies that direct placement of prisoners into binary prison populations.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In keeping with the American Studies Association 2006 theme, “Inside and Out,” this paper seeks to examine the practice of prison studies scholarship in the current context of widespread University funding of the U.S. private prison industry. Specifically, this essay will examine specific significant historical contours of the modern anti-prison movement from its 1970s roots in prison and prisoner publications to its current situation in an academy that is marked by investments in private prisons.
While completing a research project on 1970s prison and prisoner publications I learned that Yale University invests in the nation’s largest private prison company, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). Moreover, Farallon Capital Management, an endowment investment manager for at least 25 other colleges and universities owns 5% of Corrections Corporation of America, making it CCA’s fourth largest corporate investor. Higher education, then, is one of the most significant financiers of U.S. private prisons. While a burgeoning divestment campaign has been brewing at Yale and other campuses which has infused both classrooms and the streets, the neoliberal impulse of University endowment investment poses a grave threat to teaching and scholarship on prisons within and outside of the field American Studies.
This essay will analyze critical interventions and challenges to prison studies scholarship, tracing its trajectory from black radical and prisoner periodicals and publications in the late 1960s and 1970s through contemporary grassroots and scholarly writings. By interrogating this historical context and focusing on the current challenge of neoliberal university policy, this paper will raise broader questions about the U.S. academy’s positionality and praxes in what its scholars have termed the world’s first prison society. Moreover, this analysis will pay particular attention to current agitation against University investment in prisons by graduate teachers and professors. Prison studies has held a longstanding and central place within the trans-discipline of American studies as an inquiry into the nexus of culture, politics, and history; this essay will examine how the historical and contemporary discourse on of prisons both from within and outside of prison walls challenges and is challenged by the organization of the U.S. academy.