Publication Type: Poster
Abstract: Durkheim’s theories of punishment have been both influential and widely criticized. While he spoke to the role of punishment in society and the evolution of the kind and quantity of punishment, he did not speak to purposes of punishment (e.g., rehabilitation, incapacitation, deterrence) except retribution. This study describes the relationship between penal rehabilitation and Durkheim’s concept of social solidarity by examining the writings of certain Pennsylvanians who were involved in the creation and maintenance of the Eastern State Penitentiary between 1829 and 1850. Specifically, it seeks to answer two questions: (1) How does rehabilitation affect (strengthen, weaken, or not affect) social solidarity? and (2) What circumstances lead a society to choose rehabilitation over other methods or purposes of punishment? This study argues that penal rehabilitation strengthens social solidarity through its negative and positive expressive statements and results in solidarity-generating and solidarity-enhancing effects. This study also offers a framework for what conditions lead a society to choose rehabilitation, conditions that lead a society to be “optimistic” instead of “pessimistic.” It closes with suggestions for future work in this area.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Day structuring and providing meaningful and enjoyable activities for persons with chronic mental health problems is one of the key goals of psychosocial and vocational rehabilitation. Nevertheless, organizational characteristics promoting or inhibiting the experience of meaningfulness in clients are seldom investi-gated. In the present study, these organizational determinants are explored us-ing information gathered among 646 clients of 53 psychosocial rehabilitation and vocational rehabilitation centres in the Flemish region of Belgium. We try to predict the prevalence of boredom, as a feeling of anxiety about the lack of meaningfulness of an activity or a situation (Barbalet 1999) from several fea-tures of the rehabilitation settings. Using multilevel analysis the effects of both objective rehabilitation conditions and of clients subjective appraisals of those conditions are separated. The experience of boredom proved sensitive to the presence of routinized activities, deprived of intrinsic meaning, and lacking em-phasis on completion. In larger centres, emphasis on task completion functions as a mechanism to create meaning. To obtain the same goal in smaller centres, the staff provide clients with non routinized, intrinsic rewarding activities.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Eleven years after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo, the farmers were asked how they have adapted to the adverse farming condition in their area. Fourteen municipalities were randomly selected among the 21 municipalities in the province. A total of 100 farmers in the 20 villages were interviewed and their answers were documented by tape and written in the interview schedule. The schedule included farm related questions on two-time period: before and after Mt. Pinatubo eruption. The number of planting season, number of yield and annual income were analyzed by land types, land ownership, and severity of damage. Reduced yield was observable for the severely and moderately affected areas. Most farmers plant once or twice a year, few have three planting seasons. Farming practices have now differed because of varying experiences in relation to the calamity. Adaptation and rehabilitation techniques depended on the degree and level of severity of the damage. These included the change on land cultivation (e.g. scraping the sand; continuing the traditional method of farming and relying on credit institutions to buy the needed farm inputs every planting season; conversion of some farmlands into fishponds or orchards; farmers relying on their children who are more educated and have stale jobs to provide the farming capital; planting several kinds of rice varieties; vegetable gardening; and off-farm activities such as tricycle driving, furniture making etc. The farmlands in Pampanga require rehabilitation to restore the damage in its degraded environments. Important and acceptable strategies should be adapted to restore Pampanga as an important producer of rice.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Public attitudes have been the subject of considerable research inside and outside of criminology, but often this research remains at a fairly surface level. This paper will present some preliminary findings of a new study of attitudes toward punishment and justice that involve both a large-scale postal survey followed by a series of in-depth interviews with the 30 most punitive and 30 least punitive respondents to that survey. The findings suggest some of the possible processes underlying these extremes in attitudes.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This manuscript compares turnout differentials and the political ramifications of disenfranchisement laws of three populations ? African Americans, Latinos and Whites ? using Justice Department statistics, Census data and election returns.