DO MORAL COMMUNITIES PLAY A ROLE IN CRIMINAL SENTENCING? Evidence from Pennsylvania

Religion and social control have been a sociological concern since Durkheim and Weber, and the relationship between religion and punishment has long been the subject of speculation. However, surprisingly little empirical research exists on the role of religion or religious context in criminal justice, and almost no research on the role of religious context on actual sentencing practices. We conceptualize the potential relationships between religious context and sentencing severity by drawing from the focal concerns and court community perspectives in the sentencing literature and from the moral communities theory developed by Rodney Stark. We suspect that Christian moral communities might shape notions of perceived blameworthiness for court community actors. Such moral communities might also affect notions of community protection—affecting perceptions of dangerousness, or perhaps rehabilitation, and might influence practical constraints/consequences (e.g., local political ramifications of harsh or lenient sentences). We examine these questions with a set of hierarchical models using sentencing data from Pennsylvania county courts and data on the religious composition of Pennsylvania counties from the Associated Religion Data Archives. We find that county Christian religious homogeneity increases the likelihood of incarceration. In addition, Christian homogeneity, as well as the prevalence of civically engaged denominations in a county condition the effects of important legally relevant determinants of incarceration. Furthermore, we find evidence that Christian homogeneity activates the effect of local Republican electoral dominance on incarceration. We argue that Christian homogeneity affects sentencing practices primarily through local political processes that shape the election of judges and prosecutors.     

The Localized Uses of Federal Sentencing Guidelines in Four U.S. District Courts: Evidence of Processual Order

The federal criminal justice system applies a single set of federal statutes and identical rules of procedure in a variety of local district jurisdictions. It is an underexplored research setting rich with potential to advance our theoretical understanding of how important sociological and political processes work. In particular, the sentencing and case processing practices of federal district courts are governed by the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, which are in part supposed to impose uniformity and predictability in federal criminal sentencing. Guided by a processual order perspective that views courts as communities with their own distinct organizational culture, practices, and relationships, I explore the localized meaning and uses of key provisions of the sentencing guidelines, such as guideline departures for “substantial assistance” to law enforcement, sentence reductions for “acceptance of responsibility,” and the role of federal probation presentence reports. Data for this study come from field interviews with federal prosecutors, judges, public and private defense attorneys, and probation officers in four U.S. District Courts. I supplement these interview data with quantitative sentencing data that show substantial variation in criminal punishment between these four courts. I argue that federal criminal courts, like state courts, are best conceptualized as communities with distinctive processual orders.     

Post-crisis communication and renewal: Expanding the parameters of post-crisis discourse

Crisis communication is growing as a field of study due in part to the frequency and high profile nature of recent crises such as 9/11, Anthrax and bioterrorism in the mail supply, the Tsunami in the Southeast Asia, and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In each of these crises, the role of communication has been highlighted. Communication is particularly challenging during crises because an immediate response is necessary, because of the looming threat, and because these situations are inherently uncertain. Much of the present literature suggests that managing image during a crisis is critical to an effective response [Benoit, W. L. (1995). Accounts, excuses and apologies. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press; Coombs, W. T. (1999). Ongoing crisis communication: Planning, managing, and responding. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; Hearit, K. M. (1995). “Mistakes were made”: Organizations, apologia and crises of social legitimacy. Communication Studies, 46, 1–17]. Although image is important and embedded within the threat, uncertainty, and chaos of crisis so too is the opportunity for growth and renewal. In this case, depending upon the crisis, either issues of image restoration or renewal may emerge as more of a central theme in the post-crisis discourse. This paper argues that renewal, along with image restoration, is an important genre of post-crisis discourse. As a result, efforts to understand post-crisis communication should be expanded to include both image restoration and the discourse of renewal.     

Divisionalization and transfer pricing: A review

This paper reviews the various transfer-pricing systems that have been commonly suggested for divisionalized companies. The properties of an ideal system are discussed and the advantages and disadvantages of each practical system are examined in relation to these properties. The fiscal restrictions that act on multinational companies are also considered. Finally, the contribution of operational research in establishing transfer pricing systems is discussed and criticized. Some very recent work is briefly looked at in the hope that this will form a basis for a more substantial contribution in the future.     

Finding renewal in the midst of disaster: The case of the deepwater horizon oil spill

In 2010, the United States experienced the worst environmental disaster in its history. An explosion on a BP oilrig located in the Gulf of Mexico triggered the crisis. As a result, the United States coast guard and BP were charged with crisis communication in its response to the crisis. This essay provides an unprecedented examination and analysis of the communication experiences of public information officers who worked in the unified command center in Houma, Louisiana during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill response. The authors use the discourse of renewal theory to understand the communication practices and choices of the public information officers. Then, using the renewal framework, the authors present three implications for improving crisis communication research and practice.     

Race and the Religious Contexts of Violence: Linking Religion and White,Black, and Latino Violent Crime

Research has demonstrated that concentrated disadvantage and other measures are strongly associated with aggregate‐level rates of violence, including across racial and ethnic groups. Less studied is the impact of cultural factors, including religious contextual measures. The current study addresses several key gaps in prior literature by utilizing race/ethnic‐specific arrest data from California, New York, and Texas paired with religious contextual data from the Religious Congregations and Memberships Survey. Results suggest that, net of important controls, (1) religious contextual measures have significant crime‐reducing associations with violence; (2) these associations are race/ethnic specific; and (3) religious contextual measures moderate the criminogenic association between disadvantage and violence for blacks. Implications for future research are discussed.     

THE ORGANIZATION AND CONSEQUENCES OF SOCIAL PASTS IN CRIMINAL COURTS

This article demonstrates the contributions of Katovich and Couch's (1992) formal theory of social pasts to conceptualizations of social world contexts and processual order (Strauss 1978; 1993). Using interview and observational data from three criminal courts, I focus on the interrelationship of two social world contextual features: (1) the organization of participants' social pasts, and (2) the degree of ideological consensus between participants in terms of sentencing goals. These two factors interact to influence interorganizational relationships in the three courts; and, in combination with individual criminal case characteristics, influence actors' case processing strategies. The article concludes by discussing the implications of the organization of social pasts in criminal courts and organizational arenas in general for the availability and attractiveness of alternative action strategies, as well as the management of uncertainty in organizational decision making. I also suggest several directions for further research.     

The Potential Contributions of Quantitative Research to Symbolic Interactionism

Symbolic interactionism is often mischaracterized as a perspective that rejects quantitative research. We argue that the rich conceptual tradition of symbolic interactionism allows for the use of quantitative data and statistical analysis within a pragmatist epistemology and that this is desirable, especially in conjunction with qualitative data. We discuss types of quantitative data and their appropriate uses and then describe types of contemporary multivariate statistical methods and what they offer. To illustrate these data and analytic techniques, we draw from examples in our area of specialization, criminology, and from our own quantitative work. Researchers can use quantitative data and methods in the service of six core symbolic interactionist concerns—meaning, variation, comparisons, situations, contexts, and probability—and we contend that quantification and statistics pose no threat to the interactionist perspective. In fact, the principled, critical use of quantitative research can enhance it.     

SOCIAL WORLDS OF STRIPPING: The Processual Orders of Exotic Dance

Is stripping exploitation? This ideological question often plagues exotic dance research, with diverse and often contradictory findings across the literature. Existent research highlights both potentially positive and negative experiences among women involved in exotic dance. In this article, we focus on the social organization of strip clubs and how this organization contextualizes the experiences and commitments of dancers. We present ethnographic data collected by the first author, including extensive field observations of 49 strip clubs, formal interviews from 50 dancers and ex‐dancers at various career stages, and informal interviews with dozens of other dancers. We present a typology of strip clubs—hustle clubs, social clubs, and show clubs—and describe the processual orders. We also explain how the processual orders of these different types of clubs relate to dancers’ workplace experiences. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for sociological and public understandings of sex work.