Effects of Network Approval on Accounts of Commitment Trajectories in Intraracial and Interracial Relationships

The current study used dyadic data to investigate the impact of relationship type and social support on the retrospective accounts of commitment trajectories of romantic relationships. Past research suggests that social support is a positive contributor to relationship stability and commitment, which may be especially true for partners in interracial relationships who face broader societal opposition than intraracial couples. Using multilevel modeling, we investigated the effects of sex, relationship type, and social support on reports of commitment. Results showed differences in trajectories of commitment based on couple type (interracial vs. intraracial) for both men and women. Social support was found to have an especially strong impact for women in interracial relationships compared with women in intraracial relationships, but there was no differential impact among men.     

Intra‐ and Interracial Best Friendships During Middle School: Links to Social and Emotional Well‐being

This study examined patterns of intra‐ and interracial best friendships during middle school and their associations with social and emotional well‐being. We hypothesized that intraracial friendships would be beneficial for racial or ethnic minority youth because such relationships provide protection and solidarity in a discriminatory society. Results revealed that most youth had only intraracial best friends during middle school, but 38% had at least one interracial best friend. Associations between interracial best friendships and well‐being varied by racial group; Black and Asian American youth with only interracial best friends reported lower emotional well‐being than those with only intraracial best friends. Additionally, intraracial best friendships were associated with higher conflict than interracial best friendships, especially for Black and Latino youth.     

Interracial Marriage Trends and Migration Patterns: An Analysis of LAFANS 2000

We hypothesized that interracial married couples will migrate more than intraracial married couples. We focus on three mechanisms (education, social support, and discrimination) that provide explanations for interracial couples to migrate more than interracial couples. The theoretical framework included the “Push-Pull” theory and perspective on social network ties and how they link to couples migration patterns. We used information gathered in a wave of the survey conducted in 2000 for the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Study. We used this survey and analyzed in a logistic regression model how the three mechanisms described above affect interracial married couples and migration patterns. The results provide a positive direction but did not provide a statistical significant due to small sample size. In conclusion, we find support from all three mechanisms for interracial marriage couples to have higher possibility for migration. Future implications should examine divorce rate and cohabitation to provide a higher migration pattern with interracial married couples.     

Striking A Balance: Female Correctional Officers,Gender Role Stereotypes,and Male Prisons*

This paper examines the strategies developed by female correctional officers to circumvent interactional and organizational barriers to advancement in the traditionally-male work organization of the men's prison. Data for the analysis are drawn from interviews with female officers and other staff in a state department of corrections located in the western United States. In a dramaturgical-like fashion, female officers seeking to advance must moderate–strike a balance–between a series of countervailing negative sex role stereotypes. However, regardless of their success in presenting a “balanced” image at work, female officers experienced stress from their responsibility of accommodating to this predominantly male work environment.     

Interracial and Intraracial Patterns of Mate Selection Among America’s Diverse Black Populations

Despite recent immigration from Africa and the Caribbean, Blacks in America are still viewed as a monolith in many previous studies. In this paper, we use newly released 2000 census data to estimate log‐linear models that highlight patterns of interracial and intraracial marriage and cohabitation among African Americans, West Indians, Africans, and Puerto Rican non‐Whites, and their interracial marriage and cohabitation with Whites. Based on data from several metropolitan areas, our results show that, despite lower socioeconomic status, native‐born African Americans are more likely than other Blacks to marry Whites; they also are more likely to marry other Black ethnics. West Indians, Africans, and Puerto Rican non‐Whites are more likely to marry African Americans than to marry Whites. Interracial relationships represent a greater share of cohabiting unions than marital unions. The majority of interracial unions, including native and immigrant Blacks, consist of a Black man and White woman. The implications for marital assimilation are discussed.     

Gender,Working Conditions and the Job Satisfaction of Women in a Non-Traditional Occupation: Female Correctional Officers in Men's Prisons*

Despite the recent interest in women working in nontraditional occupations, few analyses have systematically compared the work-related attitudes of such women with those of men holding the same positions. This article presents an exploratory analysis, drawing hypotheses from the “gender” and “job” models described by Feldberg and Glenn (1979), to compare work-related attitudes among male and female correctional officers. Data drawn from a survey of male and female correctional officers working at the same prison facility (three male and one female units) are utilized to contrast the importance of gender, with experiences on the job as determinants of job satisfaction. The results support the job model, which suggests that the attitudes of working women are a function of their position in the organizational structure and immediate working conditions.     

When Birds of a Feather Don't Flock Together: A Macrostructural Approach to Interracial Crime

The greater prevalence of intraracial crime to interracial crime is a common finding in criminology. This issue is best understood when specific crimes are studied from a proper theoretical basis. We argue that variation in rates of cross‐racial crime is explained by homophily bias, reflected in residential segregation, in conjunction with the motivational mindset of an offender, specifically whether a crime is instrumental or expressive in nature. We hypothesize that homophily bias is stronger in expressive crimes than it is in instrumental crimes. Using the National Incident‐Based Reporting System (NIBRS) for 2009 and 2010, we analyze robbery and aggravated assault as instrumental and expressive crimes, respectively. The analyses show that racial residential segregation increases, as expected, the relative frequency of black intraracial assault to black interracial assault, whereas it does not affect the relative frequency in robbery. Contrary to our hypothesis, however, the same variable shows little effect on the relative frequency of white intraracial to interracial assault. We give possible explanations as to why white crimes are insensitive to residential segregation.     

DO RACE AND ETHNICITY MATTER AMONG FRIENDS?

Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (or Add Health), a nationally representative sample of adolescents in 1994–1995, we examine if and how friendship activities differ among interracial, interethnic, and interethnic friendships of white, black, Hispanic, and Asian youths. We find that best friends are more likely than higher-order friends to be from the same ethnic group and that best friends report more shared activities during the past week than do their higher-order friendship counterparts. Hence, we argue that shared activities is a useful indicator of friendship intimacy. In general, interracial friends report fewer shared activities than do intraracial friends, although this difference is strongest for white respondents. Moreover, we find that white, Asian, and Hispanic youths all report fewer activities with their black friends. We find little difference in friendship activities between interethnic and intraethnic friendships. Our findings suggest that, even when youths manage to break racial boundaries in friendship selection, these friendships face greater challenges than do those between individuals of the same race.     

Disparate Levels of Stress in Police and Correctional Officers: Preliminary Evidence from a Pilot Study on Domestic Violence

New data from a prevention curriculum project on officer-involved domestic violence reveals significant differences in the reported job stress of Florida's correctional officers when compared to police officers who took the same surveys. The significantly higher reported levels of organizational stress in particular—especially those related to staff and resource shortages and attitudes about leadership—raise concerns about the relationship between organizational stress and the reported drastic budget cuts, hiring freezes, and layoffs experienced by the Department of Corrections in 2009. The surprising disparity has significant implications for policy makers, who should be aware of the high cost of stress in officer health and well-being when making budgetary decisions about the state's rapidly increasing inmate population.     

EVALUATING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PRISON RAPE ELIMINATION ACT (PREA): A “LESSONS LEARNED” APPROACH

The Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) was designed to address sexual violence in prison. While previous has focused on sexual violence occurring in correctional facilities, there has been a dearth of studies that document the expertise, experience, or reflections of program following the cimplementation of PREA- within a correctional system. The current study utilizes a “lessons learned” approach to discuss the impact of the PREA Demonstration Project on a state prison system that includes 19 correctional institutions. Results indicate the benefits of merging the philosophical orientation of key stakeholders, establishing benchmarks, and the need for partnerships with prosecutors. A comparison of the perceptions of correctional administrators, inmates, and front-line correctional officers regarding PREA is included. Also featured are the “lessons learned” from the implementation of PREA into four prison sites, along with the concept of building trust and the impact of lockdowns due to staff shortages.     

Applying a US Police Integrity Measurement Tool to the Eritrean Context: Perceptions of Top-Level Eritrean Police Officers Regarding Police Misconduct

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of data from a police integrity measurement survey administered to 107 top-level Eritrean police officers. Respondents were asked for their opinions regarding the seriousness of police misconduct, disciplinary action recommended, and their willingness to report fellow police officers engaged in such misconduct. The surveyed police officers considered some types of misconduct (e.g. off-duty work and accepting gifts) to be significantly less serious than others (e.g. opportunistic thefts from crime scenes and bribery). The findings suggest that the greater the seriousness of the offence, the more likely the officers were to recommend more severe disciplinary action. The survey evidence also indicates that, for six of the ten police misconduct cases, the majority of the respondents revealed they would report the misconduct, which suggests the police code of silence in the context of the Eritrean policing environment is weak.     

"Don't come home again": parental banishment of delinquent youths

Through a study of 22 delinquent youths in a correctional school, the author examines the factors and conditions that may affect the eventual return of the child to the family home.     

Racial Habitus, Moral Conflict, and White Moral Hegemony Within Interracial Evangelical Organizations

Re-conceptualizing habitus as a complex of inculcated moral dispositions that—particularly within the racialized social system of the United States—are racially-constituted, this article proposes a framework through which racial conflict and structural/cultural domination within interracial religious organizations, and perhaps other volunteer organizations, may be analyzed. Drawing upon qualitative data from a study of fundraising experiences within interracial evangelical organizations, I demonstrate, first, that racial conflicts within these organizations are best framed as disputes over moral standards arising out of divergent, racially-constituted, moral dispositions, and second, that these conflicts are worked out via the institutionalization and instilment of white cultural norms, ultimately resulting in the hegemony of white moral standards within the organizations.     

Parental Attitude: A Mediating Role in Disciplinary Methods Used by Parents

This study examines the mediating effect of parental attitude in the relationship between environmental factors (educational attainment, income status, and marital status) and disciplinary methods used by parents. A structural model was designed to examine the impact of the selected environmental factors on disciplinary methods once parental attitude (defined as “devaluing attitudes” and “belief in corporal punishment”) was added to the equation. Parents with low educational attainment who valued corporal punishment were more likely to use psychological abuse, corporal punishment, and physical assault against their children. Parental attitude, however, did not mediate the relationship between income or marital status and disciplinary methods.     

A Dynamic Model of Racial Competition, Racial Inequality, and Interracial Violence

Race relations and stratification literatures offer explicit expectations concerning interracial conflict. Causal arguments derived from these perspectives are examined in this study to explore their ability to explain interracial violence above and beyond criminological perspectives of economic deprivation and racial inequality. The vast majority of previous aggregate-level studies on violence are cross-sectional, ignoring the importance of a dynamic model that incorporates the influence of changing structural conditions in urban areas on interracial violence. We explore theories that incorporate dynamic explanations for the influence of structural factors related to crime as well as racial conflict and employ a methodological approach that models the change in structural conditions for rare events such as interracial homicide. We find that changes between 1980 and 1990 in urban Black and Hispanic population composition, racial competition and racial inequality differentially explain the variation in White and Black interracial homicide offending.     

The Age of Independence,Revisited: Parents and Interracial Union Formation Across the Life Course

Romantic relationships that cross racial lines have grown since anti‐miscegenation laws were deemed unconstitutional. In The Age of Independence, Rosenfeld argued that parental influence over children's mate selection processes had waned. Rosenfeld, however, was not able to test this supposition directly because of his reliance on cross‐sectional census data. Using Waves I and III of Add Health for a cohort of individuals from 1994 to 2002, we examine whether parents matter in shaping their offspring's romantic attachments, by exploring whether adolescent reports of maternal closeness and parental control are associated with youth's likelihood of being in an interracial relationship in emerging adulthood. We find that parental factors do influence emerging adults’ romantic relationships; these associations vary by race, ethnicity, and gender. Among white men, maternal closeness in adolescence reduces the likelihood of being in an interracial relationship in emerging adulthood. Parental control elevates the odds of being in an interracial relationship among black and Hispanic women. We also find that parental decisions on where families live shape offspring's choices, as relative exogamous group size in adolescence is associated with interracial union formation in later life. Our findings suggest that parental influence remains salient in the partner choices made by emerging adults.     

Gambling Among Prison Inmates: Patterns and Implications

There is an absence of research on gambling among prison inmates during their incarceration. Little is known about how prisoners organize gambling activities or the potential risks they face from gambling. Similarly, no empirical attention has been given to how correctional institutions respond to inmate gambling. This study employed interviews with 55 male prisoners and self-administered surveys with 159 correctional officers and staff, at two medium security prisons in Ohio. Data were gathered on prevalence and patterns of inmate gambling, perceived hazards of gambling, and perceived institutional responses to prisoner gambling. Findings suggest that inmate gambling is common and constitutes an important feature of the underground economy of prisons, yet little is done to deter or prevent this activity. Suggestions are made for more effective institutional responses.     

Lesbian Studies after The Lesbian Postmodern: toward a new genealogy

While Lesbian Studies is established as a commodity in the academic marketplace, its disciplinary contours are rather more obscure-and even more problematically, its disciplinary genealogy remains somewhat crude. The dominant genealogy of Lesbian Studies might best be characterized as a 'collision model,' a battle between politics and theory, even though much existing scholarship draws on both Lesbian-Feminist Theory and Queer Theory.1 This article proposes that the tools and methods of a sub-field called 'Lesbian Cultural History' might be useful in generating other historical accounts of the origins and evolution of Lesbian Studies. Such a project is vital because the writing of our disciplinary History clarifies how we envision a disciplinary future.     

CAT FIGHTS AND GANG FIGHTS

This article uses Joan Acker's (1990) theory of gendered organizations to frame an analysis of the construction of occupational choice. Utilizing interview data collected from correctional officers (N = 36) working in a men's and a women's state prison, I examine these officers' strong preference for work in the men's prison. Reasons for preferring work with men draw on a comparison of male to female inmates in which the latter are seen as emotional and irrational, an ideal typical construction of the men's prison as a "real penitentiary,'and a feeling among officers that supervisors in women's prisons are less able to enforce institutional rules. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of this case study for a theory of gendered occupational choice and gendered organizations.