Tweeting Toward Transformation: Prison Abolition and Criminal Justice Reform in 140 Characters

The United States is the world leader in confining bodies behind bars. As scholars, practitioners, and activists struggle against the problem of mass incarceration, this article makes a distinction between two competing perspectives, both of which seek to change the current criminal legal system: “prison abolition” and “reformism.” Each represents ideological and political differences in how mass incarceration should and could be resolved. Prior research has relied on historical methods and data to examine theoretical departures between prison reform and prison abolition, yet to our knowledge, there have been no explorations of these perspectives on new media. This article fills the gap, drawing on a sample of 2,112,206 tweets between 2011 and 2020 and engaging in an in-depth qualitative analysis of nearly 5,000 tweets over a 6-year period in order to investigate the ways Twitter users disclose and define their positions on criminal justice reform on one hand, and prison abolition on the other, and how these discussions have changed over time.     

Sexual Identity and Transformation at a South African University

Abstract

Despite the proliferation of policies ostensibly protecting all persons' rights, and mounting critical academic debate and scholarship on sexuality and sexual orientation, sexual orientation in the academy remains a site of deep contestation. The first section of this paper discusses the national legal framework as a basis from which the state's new social engineering uses liberal human rights as tools for the democratic transformation of society. In the second section, by focusing on the University of the Western Cape, my critique examines the persisting evidence of prejudice and homophobia in South African society alongside seemingly progressive policymaking and intellectual debate. I consider the centrality of national law and policymaking in the restructuring of the higher education environment and assess the extent to which the new education, labour, and other national policies and legislative measures substantively change the climate and culture of higher education institutions. In developing this critique, I map out some of the everyday struggles which may often be marginalised by an over-emphasis on national and institutional policy making for change.     

Prison Gang Members' Tattoos as Identity Work: The Visual Communication of Moral Careers

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how symbolic self-completion and moral careers are identity work by examining prison gang tattoos. Data were derived from one author's six-year full-member participation as a correctional officer in the California prison system. We examine tattoos specific to members of the Nuestra Familia, a California-based prison gang. Tattoos make an individual's self-definition more complete by visually communicating gang membership, status, rank, and personal accomplishments; they reflect a person's past career accomplishments and possible future career objectives. To analyze the moral careers communicated by these tattoos, we identify and elaborate upon five distinct phases in a prison gang moral career: pre-initiate, initiate, member, veteran, and superior. The article concludes with discussion of the importance of incorporating symbolic self-completion into an identity work perspective and consideration of some implications for future research on gang tattoos in particular and identity construction more generally.     

Social Cocoons: Encapsulation and Identity Transformation Organizations*

The transformation of personal identities is an implicit or explicit goal of many organizations, including “new” religious movements, self-help groups, “deprogramming” enterprises, rehabilitation programs, and others. This essay describes and accounts for one important structural feature of identity transformation organizations (ITOs): encapsulation. Three types of encapsulation are described–physical, social, and ideological–and reasons why different ITOs emphasize certain types of encapsulation rather than others are suggested. Finally, we discuss how the need for encapsulation may conflict with other organizational imperatives of ITOs and we discuss the implications of this organizational dilemma for the successful functioning of ITOs.     

The Prison and the Border: An Ethnography of Shifting Border Security Logics

This study examines the ways in which border controls have taken on aspects of crime control. To understand this transformation, I draw on the methods of historical anthropologists who blend ethnographic and historical tools of analysis. The historical research shows that the shift occurred in 1990s, when New Democrats adopted crime politics of the New Right and supported bipartisan policies that restructured detention, deportation, and criminal prosecution. The ethnography documents the ways in which border controls have taken on aspects of internal security and domestic policing, shifts seldom captured in contemporary border security debates.     

群体转换与校漂族的社会认同

基于参照群体的理论视角,研究校漂族角色期望中参照群体的转换和在此影响下社会认同的变化和困扰,力图揭示出校漂行为选择背后的个体成因和认同危机中的能动策略。选择校漂是因为在与隶属群体成员跨阶层比较中,他们习得的公平正义价值观和人的自由全面发展观陷入认同危机,他们以潜在的非隶属群体为参照取向,通过扮演学生角色实现预期社会化。边际人的身份在学校出现了认同的模糊化危机,此时他们转向寻求内群体的情感认同,并以理想认同来补偿情感认同的内卷化和疏离化困境。校漂族主体性的社会认同在校漂前后实质上经历了一个由断裂走向重构的过程,其中,参照群体的转换在这个过程中发挥了中介机制的作用。     

Gift Giving, Identity, and Transformation: The AIDS Memorial Quilt

Those who have originated the AIDS Memorial Quilt have often referred to it as a gift. In this essay, the author discusses theories related to gift giving to discuss the quilt and its constructed effects for those who experience it as a gift. In particular, Weiner's notion of inalienable possessions is highlighted to address how the quilt, as a gift that is kept inalienable from its original creators, maintains historical identity and immortality for its originators, many of whom are gay and bisexual men. Also, Hyde's notion of erotic gifts is presented to consider the quilt's ability to draw people together, create feeling-bonds among them, and affect their transformation.     

Identity Transformation and Family Caregiving: Narratives of African American Teen Mothers

This article explores connections between informal caregiving and identity transformation as experienced by pregnant teens. Based on in‐depth interviews with 51 African American teen mothers, the article examines teens’ pregnancy narratives as an example of narrative repair, illuminating how attending to processes that connect one’s identity to the care of others can work to empower individuals to resist threats to a positive sense of self or a damaged identity. The authors suggest that family caregiving can provide an important context that supports identity transformation not only among pregnant teens as they strive to become good mothers but among those experiencing other types of disruptions to their lives.     

Walking an Emotional Tightrope: Managing Emotions in a Women's Prison

Until recently, the emotional experiences of women in prison have been overlooked by symbolic interactionists and social scientists. Similarly, research relevant to the sociology of emotions has not been explored in the social context of a correctional institution for women. The purpose of this study is to investigate emotional experiences from the unique perspective of incarcerated women. This research examines how women in prison perceive and manage their emotional lives while confined and asks whether their chosen strategies have an impact on their interactions and thus affect the institutional environment. Data were collected through in‐depth interviews with thirty‐five women incarcerated in a correctional institution located in the midwestern United States. Using a semistructured interview schedule, respondents were asked about a range of topics, one of which involved their emotional lives while incarcerated. Findings indicate these women define their emotional experiences as being simultaneously provocative and constrained. Respondents suggest that their emotional resources are individually, contextually, and culturally grounded. They discuss employing various strategies to manage their emotional lives while incarcerated, including diversions, spiritual pursuits, blocking exercises, self‐reflection, and humor. The majority of the techniques employed to control emotions are intrapersonal. Respondents describe personal efforts designed to manage their emotional experiences rather than share their feelings with others.     

Reclaiming the Prison Boom: Considering Prison Proliferation in the Era of Mass Imprisonment

While mass imprisonment is a central topic of investigation within the sociology of punishment, less is known about the prison boom – the period beginning in 1970 during which the number of US prison facilities tripled. Surprisingly, our understanding of prison impact on rural communities is minimal despite nearly 70 percent of the new facilities being constructed in rural areas. With little fanfare, prison proliferation has severely altered the physical, social, economic, and political landscape of rural America. With few exceptions, scholars fail to consider where and why prisons are built, and how these places are impacted economically, or local perceptions of these impacts. As the next steps for this research agenda have not been clearly defined, this paper serves two purposes: (i) to differentiate and redefine the contours of the prison boom from mass imprisonment and then (ii) to explore the causes and consequences of the prison boom in building a framework to conduct future research into these critical issues.     

Crafting the Collective Identity: The Origin and Transformation of Taiwanese Nationalism*

Abstract This essay starts with the observation that the common perspective on third world nationalism, which emphasizes the centrality of West/non-West tensions, is inadequate in explaining the development of specific nationalist discourses in the third world. As an attempt to come closer to a good understanding of the specific situations of third world nationalism, it engages in a case study of post-war Taiwan, whose nationalist discourse had gone through three phases: Political Nationalism, Rational Nationalism, and Identity Nationalism. How and why these different phases developed constitutes my overarching question. Noting the importance of social relationships and the specificity of contextual constraints in the life of a nationalist movement, I develop a perspective which stresses relationality and contingency. This newperspective leads to the recognition of the centrality of the relationships among the ruling party (the KMT), Taiwanese nationalists, social groups in Taiwan, and the dominant regimes in the world system in understanding the transformation of the Taiwanese nationalist discourse. This study points to the multiplicity of domination and contention, the reflection upon which reveals that particular groups, such as the bourgeoisie, are likely to occupy contradictory positions in the nationalist struggle, and that such contradictions may amount to transformative forces.     

Identity Transformation,Hegemonic Masculinity and Research on Professionalization

Despite more than two decades of antidiscrimination policies, diversity measures, and greater gender equality in graduate school admissions, recent studies reveal that hegemonic masculinity remains dominant in the socialization processes common to most professions. Hegemonic masculinity refers to the current dominant form of masculinity, which is a culturally idealized form of behavior that creates and reinforces institutions of male dominance over women and other men, including working class and men of color (Connell, Masculinities, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2005). These socialization processes involve the transformation of cognitive skills, the inculcation of ethical values, and emotions. I address the masculine nature of professionalization and suggest that centering on the ‘female’ professions in future research would provoke important questions about alternatives to standard ‘male’ forms of professionalization. I conclude by identifying directions for future research, particularly using action research to examine resistance and the institutionalization of inequalities in the professions.     

The Globalization of Self: Role and Identity Transformation from Above and Below

The process of globalization is transforming society with unprecedented speed and scope. Along the way, social roles are being altered and identities are being transformed. How do the forces of globalization shape the self? How do changes to the self affect social relationships and alter larger social structures? This paper offers a conceptual framework for addressing these questions. The ‘role‐as‐resource’ perspective is employed as a tool for differentiating between two opposing processes. On the one hand, top down forces associated with technocapitalism serve to colonize the self by sustaining roles associated with global consumption and production, while disrupting or erasing traditional roles. On the other hand, bottom‐up forces associated with local grassroots organizations and democratic social movements facilitate resistance by providing resources for a more agentic political self.     

Fathers in Prison

ABSTRACT

The parenting roles and responsibilities of incarcerated men have not traditionally been considered an important public concern. The impact of criminal justice policies and practices on family functioning has rarely been addressed by policy makers or family scholars and men's family obligations have not been a priority for the individuals responsible for the safety and security of correctional institutions. Similarly, and with few exceptions, fathers in prison have been out of sight and out of mind of community organizations concerned with family life and children's wellbeing. Several recent developments challenge this historical approach to handling parental incarceration and responsible fatherhood initiatives involving incarcerated fathers are being promoted. This article examines the individual and societal issues that must be addressed if responsible fatherhood among incarcerated men is to become a serious social goal. It presents an overview of the complex family roles and relationships of incarcerated men and describes ways in which individual situations and family preferences affect their ability to function as parents. Analyses of prison location strategies and communication regulations and the post-release environment are used to show how public policies influence and shape family relationships and responsible fatherhood. The article concludes with an agenda for research to guide informed and humane policy decisions.     

The Liminal Effects of Social Movements: Red Guards and the Transformation of Identity

Social movements transform participants' identities. Why they do so is an unresolved puzzle. I argue that for participants, social movements are liminal phenomena characterized by varying degrees of freedom, egalitarianism, communion, and creativity. As such, the transformative power of social movements depends on their degree of liminality. Those that approximate most to the pure type of the liminal offer to the participants high degrees of freedom, egalitarianism, communion, and creativity. They transform identities most powerfully. In the 1960s, China's Red Guards experienced a profoundly liminal movement. As a result, an age-cohort that was coming of age began to recreate itself. The personal transformations of the Red Guards would persistently bear on Chinese politics and society up to the 1989 Chinese student movement.