White Prisoners Research Articles

Assessing Racial Discrimination in Parole Release

We investigate possible racial discrimination in the context of discretionary parole release. We develop a rational choice model of release whereby a parole board must balance parolees risk of violation with the cost of not releasing prisoners who may not violate their parole. A color-blind parole board would release all individuals below a certain risk threshold. To test this prediction, we take advantage of a unique data set that reports all prisoners released on parole between 1983 and 2003 in the U.S. We apply the outcome test methodology recently used to assess racial pro ling in police search decisions. Here, a higher rate of parole violation within a group suggests that the parole board used a less restrictive paroling criterion, and is thus biased in favor of that group. To overcome the concern of inframarginality that traditionally plagues outcome tests we provide evidence that parole boards strategically time the release of parolees. In turn, both minority and white prisoners become marginal from the perspective of their probability of parole violation. Parole boards operating under an indeterminate sentencing regime appear biased against white prisoners whose violation rate is significantly smaller than that of African Americans. In contrast, this gap is smaller or null when there is no discretion in the paroling system. Further evidence rules out post-release discrimination. We propose different hypotheses to account for the evidence.

““Draggin' the Chain””: Linking Civil Rights and African American Representation in <em>The Defiant Ones</em> and <em>In the Heat of the Night</em>

Discourse surrounding racial representation, particularly filmic representations of African Americans, has been overwhelmingly couched in terms of stereotype. For this reason, scholars have largely conceptualized African American representation as an example of ahistorical and detrimental continuity. The central black character in The Defiant Ones , Cullen, tells fellow white prison escapee Jackson when he trips that he is “draggin’ the chain” to their freedom, but to film and history scholars, the representation of African Americans is itself “draggin’ the chain,” presenting blacks only as signifiers whose meaning is largely homogenous and whose capacity to reflect the realities of black experiences is nonexistent. This paper aims to engage and explore this discourse of stereotype and the representation of race through a case study of two civil rights–era films starring Sidney Poitier: The Defiant Ones (Stanley Kramer, 1958) and In the Heat of the Night (Norman Jewison, 1967). In undertaking a comparative analysis of these two films it will be argued that these racialized representations evolved over time in a historically contingent manner that reflects directly upon, and is informed by, the changing nature of the civil rights movement. When stereotypes are utilized they are not necessarily ahistorical or of homogenized meaning; rather, a complex interplay of processes of subversion and containment of white patriarchal (stereotypical) values is presented that sits distinctly at odds with this notion. It is in examining this interplay, the process through which stereotype is used and given meaning, that we can begin to understand and deconstruct representations and construct new ones of greater meaning.

The Allocation of a Scarce Correctional Resource: Deciding Who Is Eligible for an Electronic Monitoring Program

Participants rated hypothetical prisoners with respect to their suitability for a place on a British Home Office electronic monitoring (tagging) program. Five dichotomous variables (gender, race, previous criminal record, dependents, skill level) were combined in a factorial fashion to generate 32 descriptions. Females were favored over males; first‐time offenders over those with a criminal record; individuals with dependents over those with no dependents; and the skilled over the unskilled. White participants favored White prisoners over Black, while the reverse was true for Black participants. Those with a negative attribute (criminal record) attracted lower priority ratings than did White prisoners with a record, but those with a positive attribute attracted higher ratings than did White first‐time offenders.

Mapping prison proliferation: Region, rurality, race and disadvantage in prison placement

Perhaps the leading perspective on how and where prisons are located stems from the perspective of the prison industrial complex (PIC). Implicit, if not explicit, in the PIC perspective is the notion that Black and Hispanic prisoners are exploited for the benefit of poor, unemployed, White prison towns. Unfortunately, however, there has been a shortage of empirical scrutiny of this central notion. This paper examines this claim with a rare event logistic regression analysis of 176 new prison placements across 13,155 rural places in the 1990s in the US. In contrast to the PIC perspective, prison towns are disproportionately southern and poor, and have a larger population with a greater share of Blacks and Hispanics. The analysis yields three further challenges to the PIC perspective on prison towns. First, findings suggest rural prison placement does not cause racial and economic inequality as much as prison siting results from concentrated rural disadvantage. Second, there is not one prototypical prison town. Instead, there are typologies of prison towns based on US region, race, town population size, race, prior proximate prison, and SES. Lastly, future studies should consider the theoretical and methodological implications of rural concentrated disadvantage in measuring prison impact.

Performance of the CJDATS Co‐Occurring Disorders Screening Instruments (CODSIs) among Minority Offenders

Previous research has shown the performance of the CJDATS Co-Occurring Disorders Screening Instruments (CODSI-MD and SMD)--six- and three-item instruments to screen for any mental disorder (CODSI-MD) and for severe mental disorders (CODSI-SMD), respectively--to be comparable or superior to other, longer instruments. This study tested the stability of the performance of the CODSI-MD and SMD across three racial/ethnic groups of offenders entering prison substance abuse treatment programs (n = 353), consisting of 96 African American, 120 Latino, and 137 White admissions. The Structured Clinical Interview (SCID) was used to obtain DSM-IV Axis I and II diagnoses; a lifetime SCID diagnosis of a mental disorder or a severe mental disorder was the criterion against which the CODSI-MD and SMD were validated. Results showed no statistical differences in sensitivity or specificity for either the CODSI-MD or SMD across the African American, Latino, and White prisoner groups. The value of the CODSI-MD and SMD as brief screens for mental disorders among offenders with diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds is discussed.

Assessing Racial Discrimination in Parole Release in the U.S.: An Approach Based on Outcome Tests

While there is an extensive literature on assessing racial bias in sentencing, no convincing quantitative study has been done for parole release. It is well documented that blacks are less likely to be paroled than white prisoners. Judges have answered that this is the consequence of statistical discrimination and not racism. We develop a model where the judge (or a parole board) is facing a population of prisoners eligible for parole. We assume that this information is summarized by a single-dimensional index about the likelihood that the prisoner will violate parole. Our main assumption is that the judge's objective is to minimize the number of violations subject to the constraint imposed by overcrowding in the prison system. The optimal rule is then to pick a common threshold that depends on this over-crowding constraint. We design an outcome test to see whether parole success data are consistent with this rule. The idea is similar to the strategy that has been used for the determination of racial discrimination in police car searches for drugs. In our context, the key variable is the parole violation rate which is constructed from the National Corrections Reporting Program data. A finding that paroles have systematically lower success for whites may raise concerns that the judge is using a race-contingent parole threshold. Yet, merely observing that the average violation rates vary across groups does not prove that the threshold was different. It is a common issue raised in this literature. We use data on prison capacity expansion to solve this so-called infra-marginality problem. Under the null hypothesis of no discrimination, the ratio of the change in parole violations over the change in the number of paroles granted should be equalized across groups.

Chapter 6: Incarcerated Latinas and Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse

SUMMARY An increase in incarceration rates and incidence of drug-related incarcerations for women has shown particularly high rates for ethnic women. Profiles of incarcerated women in general show a number of factors that create psychosocial obstacles. Recent statistics indicate that Latino women are twice as likely to be in prison in comparison to white female prisoners. The literature on Latinas and alcoholism and other drug abuse is reviewed, clinical observations of incarcerated Latinas are discussed and recommendations are presented for service delivery needs.

The Racial Components of “Race‐Neutral” Crime Policy Attitudes

Past studies have found evidence of a connection between race and crime in the minds of many white Americans, but several gaps remain in our knowledge of this association. Here, a multimethod approach was used to examine more closely the racial component of whites’ support for ostensibly race‐neutral crime policies. Conventional correlational analysis showed that negative stereotypes of African Americans—specifically, the belief that blacks are violent and lazy—are an important source of support for punitive policies such as the death penalty and longer prison terms. A survey experiment further showed that negative evaluations of black prisoners are much more strongly tied to support for punitive policies than are negative evaluations of white prisoners. These findings suggest that when many whites think of punitive crime policies to deal with violent offenders, they are thinking of black offenders.

The Shawnee Prophet, Tecumseh, and Tippecanoe: A Case Study of Historical Myth-Making

History has not been kind to Shawnee Prophet Tenskwatawa. Admiring and sentimental whites transformed his elder brother, warrior Tecumseh, into an icon within a few years after his death at Battle of Thames in 1813. By 1820, a writer in Indiana Sentinel could declare every school boy in Union now knows that Tecumseh was a great man. He was truly great-and his greatness was his own, unassisted by science or aid of education. As a statesman, a warrior, and a patriot, take him all in all, we shall not look on his like again. But whites generally also shared judgment of Benjamin Drake, whose 1841 biography of Tecumseh labeled Prophet a crafty imposter, shrewd, cunning, superstitious, fanatical, cowardly and cruel, utterly lacking in those qualities of courage, grace and magnanimity that elevated his warrior brother to greatness. As writers throughout nineteenth century and during much of twentieth elaborated and embellished Drake's portrayal of Shawnee brothers, there emerged full blown a study in opposites: Noble Tecumseh, Vicious Tenskwatawa, Good Indian and Bad. It is indicative of pervasiveness of Drake's stereotypes that a Canadian playwright sixty years after publication of Drake's biography presented spectacle of a sadistic scheming Prophet who in defiance of Tecumseh's orders burned white prisoners at stake and dreamed not only of extermination of all whites but of deposing Tecumseh himself.1 With few exceptions, historians and biographers found Prophet deficient not only in character but also in ability, repeating a story popular among whites in early nineteenth century that maintained that Tenskwatawa's teachings and revelations were not his own, but been dictated to him by his gifted older brother. In Alan Ekert's popular and highly unreliable 1992 biography of Tecumseh, Prophet is portrayed as an ineffectual and inept tool whose physical ugliness matched deformity of his character and soul. Eckert's Prophet is a vicious, one-eyed drunk of disturbingly malevolent appearance. One of his ears, novelist wrote, had a lobe twice as long as other, and when he smiled, his thin lips crooked up on right but down on left. Superstitious and cruel, he represented worst in Native-American culture.2 Anthropologist David Hurst Thomas notes that the twin imagery of Noble and Bloodthirsty Savage in past led to a near- universal failure to appreciate intricacies and textures of actual Native American life. With rise of discipline many have termed ethnohistory in second half of twentieth century, those categories have fallen into disrepute. Thus is not surprising that Eckert image of Prophet was both dated and discredited long before he published his quasi-biography. The first historian to sort fact from fabrication and restore Prophet to a central role in leadership of pan-Indian movement was Herbert C. Goltz in two theses written in 1966 and 1974. Unfortunately, neither were published. R. David Edmunds's The Shawnee Prophet (1983) was far more influential. Edmunds demonstrated that it was Tenskwatawa, not Tecumseh, who provided basis for Indian resistance through power of his preaching. Following Edmunds's lead, other revisionists, newly sensitive to spiritual roots of insurgency, have agreed that Prophet's vision and eloquence inspired and defined movement. The Prophet, they conclude, was its founder and first leader. His presumed subordination to Tecumseh reflected earlier writers' lack of understanding of nature of pan-Indian uprisings of early nineteenth century.3 Curiously, with a single exception, newer accounts of role of Shawnee Prophet have left one major part of old story untouched: Tenskwatawa's presumed disgrace at Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811. Both textbooks and specialized histories still generally maintain that Prophet's blundering and cowardice in that engagement cost him respect of his followers and leadership of movement, which was presumably then taken over by Tecumseh who transformed from a religious crusade into a pragmatic political alliance. …

Deliberate self‐harm in sentenced male prisoners in England and Wales: some ethnic factors

AbstractBackgroundThe identification of risk factors for deliberate self‐harm (DSH) in prison populations and the study of individual psychopathology in prisoners who harm themselves are both legitimate approaches to a difficult problem. This paper examines the life‐time prevalence of DSH in male sentenced prisoners.MethodInmates were selected at random from 25 male prison establishments; 1741 of a possible 1864 agreed to be studied. All subjects chose their own ethnic group. Prison files and medical records were examined. Each man was interviewed by a psychiatrist.Results17% of men reported DSH on a least one occasion during their life (more white than non‐white prisoners). More white men in the medium and long‐term sentence group than in the short‐term sentence group gave a history of DSH. White prisoners seem more likely to have cut themselves than black prisoners. DSH was associated with alcohol dependence but not with drug addiction. Neurotic and personality disorders were more commonly diagnosed in the DSH group. There was a weak association between criminal violence and DSH, over the prisoners' lifetime.DiscussionThe associations with DSH suggest that this phenomenon is a symptom of long‐term personality problems and cannot be simply attributed to short‐term environmental stress. Such problems are perhaps commoner in white prisoners than black ones. Does this provide a partial confirmation of the lower rates of personality disorder reported about black prisoners? Copyright © 2000 Whurr Publishers Ltd.

Modernity Within Tradition: The Social History of Orthodox Jewry in Imperial Germany (review)

102 SHOFAR Summer 1994 Vol. 12, No.4 Final Solution it was white prisoners and white executioners; when a massacre took place in the camp of the enemies of Man, one could not ask the other camp-that is, those in charge of humanity's progress-to sink into eternal mourning." Alain Finkielkraut, in his outrage at the manipulation of Third-World rhetoric to defend a Nazi and at the associated charge of crimes·against humanity adapted by the French court, has written an extended essay of real value and vision. Spawned by the fusion of Jewish intellectual ambition with French literary tradition, Remembering in Vain represents a "postjournalist's" victory over "news" and a triumph of belles lettres over more immediate methodologies. Aware of the many ironies and paradoxes of his subject, Finkielkraut weaves them into a subtle and productive analysis without being paralyzed himself by their moral and legal peculiarities. I am able, then, to recommend this fine book not only to students of the Holocaust and international law, but to any and all students of "humanity" and "human progress." Louis Rene Beres Political Science Department Purdue University Modernity Within Tradition: The Social History of OrthodoxJewry in Imperial Germany, by Mordechai Breuer, translated by Elizabeth Petuchowski. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. 514 pp. $47.50. When, way back during the 1970s, young scholars like David Ellenson, Steven Lowenstein, and myself-to mention just a few-decided to write about Orthodox Judaism in Germany, we were motivated by a number of factors, one of which was the lack of attention then being given to Orthodoxy in the scholarly literature of Jewish Studies, in contrast, for example, to the focus on the history of Reform Judaism. The picture of German Jewry even in the scholarly literature focused on urbanized Jews with an emphasis on assimilation, and sorely neglected the considerable percentage of rural and small-town Jews, as well as traditional Jews whether in small settlements or in the largest urban areas. The scholarly situation-though not the popular conception-has since changed rather emphatically. On the whole, Orthodox Judaism in a spectrum of different geographic settings, including both Western and Eastern Europe of the Book Reviews 103 nineteenth century and American and Israel of the twentieth, is now very much in academic vogue. Mordechai Breuer's social memoir ofOrthodoxJewish life in Germany is a truly significant contribution to the growing literature on Orthodox Judaism in general and in Germany specifically. Breuer has harnessed not only his training as a professional historian, but what is more important in this case, he has brought to bear his virtually unsurpassable first-hand knowledge of the people, events, and literature that make up the story he has told with great empathy. Scion of the renowned Samson Raphael Hirsch and the Breuer family that succeeded Hirsch in Frankfurt, he has provided us with a wealth of information, strengthened by a broad conceptual framework. For several reasons, the book does not until its final chapters have a strong chronological framework. Although defined as a history of the Imperial period, Breuer freely goes backward in time especially to under~core the significance of Hirsch's contributions. (Hirsch lived from 1808 to 1888 and came to Frankfurt in 1851; his major written works except for most of his commentaries date from before 1870.) The bulk of the work is organized by themes such as "Orthodoxy and German Culture," "Education and Training," "Literature, Art, and Science," and "Economy and Society." In these chapters, Breuer rightfully brings relevant materials regardless of date that contribute to a broad picture of Orthodox attitudes toward several of the major issues it faced in its confrontation with modernity. Breuer raises a number of difficult questions in this book and deals with them adeptly. His discussions on different Orthodox attitudes toward critical scholarship is encompassing and conclusive. His observations on Neo-Orthodoxy as cut off from both the Jewish majority and the surrounding German culture and on the changes in Orthodox attitudes that coincided with the first World War and the end of the Reich are both moving and insightful. His questions about Orthodoxy and German culture are fresh and revealing. Also, despite...

A survey of pre‐arrest drug use in sentenced prisoners

The paper presents the results of a retrospective, self-report survey of pre-arrest drug use in a representative sample of 1751 men serving a prison sentence. Reported drugs used were cannabis (34%), opiates (9%), amphetamine (9%) and cocaine (5%), including 1% 'crack' users. Pre-arrest injecting was reported by 11% of inmates, including 68% of all opiate users and 57% of amphetamine users. Drug dependence was reported by 11%, including 7% dependent on opiates, 2% on amphetamines and 1% on cocaine. Relative to other drugs, the figure for cocaine is higher than is suggested by a previous clinic survey. Pre-arrest cannabis use was reported by 54% of black prisoners and 34% of white. White prisoners are more likely to report use of 'hard' drugs, drug dependence and injecting, but this masks a higher rate of cocaine use by black prisoners. Opiate use varied between health regions, from 3% of prisoners in the West Midlands to 25% of those from the Mersey region. These findings have implications for service provision and for an understanding of cultural influences on illicit drug use.

Delay of gratification in psychopathic and nonpsychopathic offenders.

Delay of gratification is a prototypical measure of self-control that merits systematic investigation in psychopaths. White male prisoners were provided with repeated opportunities to select an immediate response with uncertain reward or a delayed response with a higher rate of reward under one of three incentive conditions. Psychopaths' performance depended on their level of trait anxiety and incentive condition: Whereas low-anxious psychopaths were relatively unwilling to delay when omission of expected rewards also incurred monetary punishments, they displayed relatively superior performance when the task involved rewards only. Findings complement those for passive avoidance learning in psychopaths and suggest that inhibitory self-control in low-anxious psychopaths is somewhat impaired under conditions involving a combination of monetary rewards and punishments.

Pilot prison programs

Intellectually disabled clients pose serious problems both for the criminal justice system, and for corrective services. Case workers in the community are aware that many of their clients are committing criminal offences. Sometimes these offences are not brought to the attention of the police, because professionals are only too aware of the vagaries of the criminal justice system, and the possibility of prison for their client. On occasion, the offences are too numerous or too serious to be overlooked or dealt with informally. Once the client becomes involved with the criminal justice system, unfortunately prison is often the only alternative, because the judiciary feel that they have no alternative, owing to issues of public policy, or the protection of the community, or lack of secure units or other therapeutic programs in the community, but to consign the intellectually disabled defendant to prisons (Hayes & Hayes, 1984). A recent study of the prevalence of intellectual disability in the New South Wales prison population found 12-13 per cent of a sample of prisoners from five New South Wales gaols to be suffering from an intellectual disability, that is, significantly sub-average functioning which is characterized by inadequacy in adaptive functioning. The study found that approximately two percent of the prison population had an IQ of less than 70 and the remaining ten percent had IQs which placed them in the borderline range between 70 and 80, but their severe deficits in social and adaptive skills affected their level of disability and their ability to survive independently in the community. Female prisoners were doubly disadvantaged, and almost all of them had a dual diagnosis of intellectual disability and psychiatric, behavioural or emotional disorder. There were higher proportions of intellectual disability amongst the Aboriginal population, and Aboriginal inmates in comparison with the white prisoner population had marked deficits in communication skills. (It could be argued that more culture-fair assessments would reduce the numbers of Aborigines in the intellectually disabled group, but the counter argument to this is that if Aborigines are handicapped by their level of communication skills in written and verbal expression and receptive language areas, then they will be disadvantaged both in the criminal justice system, and in the prison system.) A number of the intellectually disabled prisoners had other disabilities and other physical health risk factors, most notably hearing impairment, and drug and alcohol addiction. The range of offences committed by the intellectually disabled prisoners indicates that this group is involved in serious crimes as well as nuisance crimes, although less likely to commit crimes requiring detailed advanced planning. The fact that intellectually disabled offenders have sometimes committed serious and violent offences has important implications for the availability of

Marking Time: Does Race Make a Difference? A Study of Disparate Sentencing in South Dakota

Abstract This paper is an empirical examination of suspected racial disparity in sentencing between white and Native American prison inmates. The analysis focused on male inmates in a northern plains state prison during 1985. The study is based on a sample of 602 inmates, 455 whites (75.6 percent) and 147 Native Americans (24.4 percent). According to our data, there was no significant difference in sentence length between whites and Native Americans. However, when the operationalized punishment severity variable was examined, a statistically significant difference did appear between the races. The article also examines some of the factors which may contribute to the differences in punishment severity.

Self-Help in Dartmoor: Black and White Prisoners in the War of 1812

During the War of 1812 there were thousands of American sailors imprisoned in Britain. Most of them, in the final two years of the conflict, were housed in the massive jail at Dartmoor in Devon. Its meticulously kept entry books reveal that 6,553 American prisoners were admitted to the depot, of whom 955, just over 14.5 percent, were not white, members of a minority group that clearly made a significant and generally underrated contribution to the conduct of the American war at sea.'

Screening for psychopathology in groups of black and white prison inmates by means of the MMPI.

Of 225 male offenders who were administered both the MMPI and a structured diagnostic interview, the Psychiatric Diagnostic Interview (PDI), 51 (25 blacks, 26 whites) earned highly elevated MMPI profiles (at least one clinical scale greater than or equal to T score of 90) and 46 (26 blacks, 20 whites) achieved profiles that were essentially within normal limits (all clinical scales less than T score of 70). It was noted that the concordance between the MMPI and the total number of PDI syndromes reported by inmates was significantly greater in the white group (classification accuracy = 96%) relative to the black group (classification accuracy = 71%). However, both the black and white hit rates were found to significantly improved upon chance.

Integrating the Keepers: A Comparison of Black and White Prison Guards in Illinois

This article attempts to verify empirically the popularly held assumption that replacing veteran white rural prison guards with young black urban guards will significantly ameliorate tension, strain and conflict in the prison community. At issue sociologically is whether the attitudes of prison guards can be better accounted for by the exigencies of the role or by such a crucial background variable as race. The authors administered a questionnaire to 231 in-service Illinois guards. While black and white guards show some differences in their attitude toward prisoners, correctional goals, administrators and the guard role, these differences are not consistent and do not permit us to conclude that black guards will perform differently than whites.

Integrating the Keepers: A Comparison of Black and White Prison Guards in Illinois

Integrating the Keepers: A Comparison of Black and White Prison Guards in Illinois

Race Factors in Responses to Interpersonal Stress Among Young Adult Offenders

Previous research has shown that young adult prison inmates display an anxious, acquiescent, depressive-like reaction pattern under conditions of interpersonal stress. The present study evaluated racial factors in this area and found that, relative to white prisoners, black inmates manifest more frequent acquiescence, fewer reports of anger, and generally higher autonomic reactivity. The results are discussed in terms of offender rehabilitation and special problems faced by black prisoners.