Pro Bono Chair: Stephen Morewitz Department of Nursing and Health Sciences California State University, East Bay morewitz@earthlink.net 2010-2012 Law and Society Division Officers Fall 2011 Vol. 17 No. 2 Notes from the Chair Greetings from the Division Chair! I hope that this newsletter finds you well and that you enjoyed the SSSP meeting in Las Vegas. This is the first Newsletter edited by our new Newsletter Editor, Kristen Desjarlais deKlerk, a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Calgary. Many thanks to Michael Smyth, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Susquehanna University, our outgoing Newsletter Editor, who did an excellent job editing our newsletter over the past several years. This issue of the Law and Society Division Newsletter highlights the accomplishments of our members and features a call for papers for next year’s meetings, and our calls for nominations for Division Chair and Vice Chair and the two Division Awards, the LINDESMITH GRADUATE STUDENT PAPER COMPETITION and the LAW AND SOCIETY: OUTSTANDING SCHOLAR COMPETITION. Please let us know if you have any news or announcements to share with other division members, such as the publication of books or articles, awards, new positions, tenure and promotions, publication and research opportunities, and new programs. I hope you will enjoy the Law and Society Division Newsletter. Best regards, Stephen J. Morewitz, Law and Society Division Chair Contents Vice Chair: Arthur J. Jipson Associate Professor; Director of Criminal Justice Studies Program University of Dayton arthur.jipson@notes.udayton.edu Newsletter Editor: Kristen Desjarlais deKlerk Department of Sociology The University of Calgary kdesjarl@ucalgary.ca CALL FOR NOMINATIONS FOR DIVISION CHAIR Nominations and an election for the position of Division Chair will be conducted during this academic year. Please consider nominating a colleague or yourself for this office. Nominations should include a brief description of the nominee’s involvement in the SSSP, the Division, and other relevant experience. Please send nominations to me at stephen.morewitz@csueastbay.edu by January 31, 2012. CALL FOR NOMINATIONS FOR DIVISION VICE CHAIR Nominations and an election for the position of Division Vice Chair will be conducted during this academic year. Please consider nominating a colleague or yourself for this office. Nominations should include a brief description of the nominee’s involvement in the SSSP, the Division, and other relevant experience. Please send nominations to me at stephen.morewitz@csueastbay.edu by January 31, 2012. The Society of the Study of Social Problems 62nd Annual Meeting August 16-18, 2012 The Grand Hyatt Denver Hotel Denver, CO SSSP PRESIDENT Wendy Simonds, Georgia State University 2012 Program Committee Heather M. Dalmage, Co-Chair, Roosevelt University Tanya L. Saunders, Co-Chair, Lehigh University Ashley M. Currier, Texas A&M University Michael T. Maly, Roosevelt University Nancy Michaels, Roosevent University Chavella T. Pittman, Dominican University “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.” -- Elie Wiesel “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” -- Margaret Mead “A change is brought about because ordinary people do extraordinary things.” -- Barack Obama Michael L. Radelet is recipient of the 2011 William J. Chambliss Lifetime Achievement Award for Contributions to Law and Society. Dr. Radelet is Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. His research includes an examination of legal issues surrounding the death penalty. Kim Cook, Chair and Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice-University of North Carolina, Wilmington, nominated Dr. Radelet and is represented in one of the above photos. Congratulations to Michael Radelet for his prolific work in the study of law and society. LAW AND SOCIETY: LINDESMITH GRADUATE STUDENT PAPER COMPETITION
Deadline: 3/15/12 The Law and Society Division announces its 2012 Lindesmith Graduate Student Paper Competition.  Papers may be empirical or theoretical, and they may be on any aspect of law and society.  To be eligible, a paper must have been written during 2011, and at the time of submission, it may not be published, accepted for publication, or under review for publication.  Papers which have been presented at a professional meeting or accepted for presentation at a professional meeting are eligible.  Papers must be student-authored; they can be single-authored or co-authored by students, but may not be co-authored by a faculty member or other non-student.  Please submit in MS Word 2007.  There is a 25-page limit, including all notes, references, and tables.  Submissions should use 12-size font, one inch margins, and double spacing throughout.  Send papers and a cover letter specifying that the paper is to be considered in the SSSP Law and Society Division Lindesmith Graduate Studen t Paper Competition to: Dr. Lloyd Klein.  Submissions should be submitted electronically to: lklein@stfranciscollege.edu .  The winner(s) will be announced in Spring 2012, will receive a $200 stipend, and is eligible to present the paper at the 2012 annual meeting in Denver. LAW AND SOCIETY: OUTSTANDING SCHOLAR COMPETITION
Deadline: 3/15/12 The Law and Society Division announces its 2012 Outstanding Book Scholar Competition.  Books may be empirical or theoretical, and they may be on any aspect of law and society.  To be eligible, the book must have been written between 2010 and 2011.  Submissions should be sent to: Paul Steele, Morehead State University pd.steele@moreheadstate.edu The winner will be announced in Spring 2012.  The winner will receive a $100 award. Member Book Publications Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys By Victor M. Rios, NYU Press, July 2011 Victor Rios grew up in the ghetto of Oakland, California in the 1908s and 90s. A former gang member and juvenile delinquent, Rios managed to escape the bleak outcome of many of his friends and earned a PhD at Berkeley and returned to his hometown to study how inner city young Latino and African American boys develop their sense of self in the midst of crime and intense policing. Punished examines the difficult lives of these young men, who now face punitive policies in their schools, communities, and a world where they are constantly policed and stigmatized. Rios followed a group of forty delinquent Black and Latino boys for three years. These boys found themselves in a vicious cycle, caught in a spiral of punishment and incarceration as they were harassed, profiled, watched, and disciplined at young ages, even before they had committed any crimes, eventually leading many of them to fulfill the destiny expected of them. But beyond a fatalistic account of these marginalized yo ung men, Rios finds that the very system that criminalizes them and limits their opportunities, sparks resistance and a raised consciousness that motivates some to transform their lives and become productive citizens. Ultimately, he argues that by understanding the lives of the young men who are criminalized and pipelined through the criminal justice system, we can begin to develop empathic solutions which support these young men in their development and to eliminate the culture of punishment that has become an overbearing part of their everyday lives. Benchmarking Muslim Wellbeing in Europe: Reducing Disparities and Polarizations Pamela Irving Jackson and Peter Doerschler The debate about Muslim integration throughout Europe has been increased by the recent shocking events in Norway. This highly topical book aims to undermine unsubstantiated myths by examining Muslim integration in Germany, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, states which dominate the debate on minority integration and the practice of Muslim religious traditions. These nations have a range of alternative relationships between religion and the state, as well as strategies for coordinating individuals’ ethnic and state identities. Using the European Parliament’s benchmarking guidelines, surveys and other non-official data, the authors find that in some areas Muslims are in fact more integrated than popularly assumed and suggest that, instead of failing to integrate, Muslims find their access to integration blocked in ways that reduce their life chances in the societies in which they are now permanent residents. The book will have an impact on research and policy especially with the commencement of the EU-wide integration benchmarking effort and will be an excellent resource for researchers, academics and policy makers. American Memories: Atrocities and the Law By Joachim J. Savelsberg and Ryan D. King, 2011 New York: Russell Sage Foundation The book investigates how legal proceedings color collective memories of atrocities. It focuses on American responses to grave human rights violations, characterized by the promotion of criminal justice proceedings against high ranking officials in other countries. Simultaneously the United States seeks to protect its own citizens from prosecution by international and foreign courts while sanctioning only few front line agents in domestic courts. It protects high-level military and political leaders as well as the organization of the military. As a consequence, some of the benefits of criminal justice intervention, mediated by the cultivation of collective memory of evil, are not achieved. American memories skillfully exempt American institutions from scrutiny, instead glorifying the nation and its military, increasing the risk of future military engagement and crimes committed in the context of war. Member Article Publications Adorjan, M. Fall 2011. “The Lens of Victim Contests and Youth Crime Stat Wars,” Symbolic Interaction, 34(4):550-571. Adorjan, M. October 2011. “Emotions Contests and Reflexivity in the News: Examining Discourse on Youth Crime in Canada,” chapter in Reading Sociology (2nd Ed.), Oxford, Oxford University Press. Joachim J. Savelsberg. 2011. "Globalization and States of Punishment." Pp. 69-86 in Comparative Criminal Justice and Globalization, edited by David Nelken. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Mallett, C. (2011). “Homicide: Life on the street” and sentenced to life behind bars: Juveniles without the possibility of parole. Criminal Law Bulletin, 47(6), Mallett, C. & Boitel, C. (2011). From juvenile offender institutions to residential treatment centers. Journal of Evidence-Based Social Work. Stoddard-Dare, P., Mallett, C., & Boitel, C. (2011). Association between mental health disorders and juveniles’ detention for a personal crime. Child & Adolescent Mental Health,16(4), 208-213. Mykhalovskiy, Eric. 2011. The problem of ‘significant risk’: Exploring the public health impact of criminalizing HIV non-disclosure. Social Science & Medicine. 73: 670-77. Robbins, B. & Pettinicchio. 2011. Social Capital, Economic Development, and Homicide: A Cross-National Investigation. Social Indicators Research. (DOI:10.1007/s11205-011-9785-x) Nicole Martorano Van Cleve, Ph.D Assistant Professor, Department of Criminal Justice, Temple University with courtesy appointments in the Department of Sociology and The Beasley School of Law. Previous studies have noted racial disparities in the criminal justice system, but statistically capturing where those biases lie and how they operate have eluded scholars. Despite the disproportionate racial divides in our criminal courts, few works address: 1) the social organization and structures of racialized justice, 2) the rituals, norms and legal processes that define it, 3) the narratives and logics that legitimize it, and 4) the bureaucratic processes that mask and reproduce the arrangements as rational and uniform. Specifically, I ask: How do our criminal courts reproduce racial politics- a particular social order divided along racial lines? How does this arrangement reproduce itself through bureaucratic practices and appear “color-blind” to the professionals in charge of governing it? Using interviews, traditional ethnography, and a large-scale qualitative effort, I demonstrate how race matters in our criminal courts on a meso-level – entrenched in domin ant interpretive schemata or frames applied to defendants (by court professionals) during the course of their criminal case. In a color-blind world, symbolic distinctions applied to defendants rest on a moral rather than a racial criterion. They are used to legitimize social boundaries that divide the disproportionately minority offender pool from the white professionals who process them. By assigning a moral rubric to what is tantamount to Jim Crow arrangements, race is all but invisible to court professionals and racist narratives about black men become integrated into one’s criminal defense with impunity. To resist, defense attorneys use oppositional narratives that diminish the discussion of race and instead, emphasize attributes of their clients’ biography as “middle-class,” “respectable” and “moral” in standing. This dissertation shows how the criminal justice system (administered by white prosecutors) efficiently categorizes and governs black and Latino men. In an era of mass incarceration and color-blind racism, this work demonstrates how racial frames become hidden in the contours of justice, how class distinctions are used to “resist” these categories, and how institutional processes hide the reproduction of race. As a result, the criminal courts are a product of and mechanism for reproducing the marginalization of minorities, reinforcing racial stigma and constructing racial hierarchies. Other Member Achievements Victor Rios earned tenure in July 2011 For the second straight year, James McRitchie was named to National Association of Corporate Directors as 2011 NACD Directorship 100: People to Watch. More info at: http://www.nacdonline.org/ Directorship100/honorees.cfm Stephen J. Morewitz, California State University, East Bay, will present two research posters, “Racial and Ethnic Differences among Endangered Runaways,” and “Initial Criminal History among Endangered Runaways,” at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences in New York City, on March 16, 2012. Stephen J. Morewitz's book, DEATH THREATS AND VIOLENCE (New York: Springer, 2008),reached #1 on the Amazon.com Books Bestsellers List in Death Threats and Violence,Psychology of. Stephen J. Morewitz's book, DEATH THREATS AND VIOLENCE (New York: Springer, 2008), reached #1 on the Amazon.com Books Bestsellers List in Death Threats and Violence, Psychology of. Pro Bono Vol. 17, No. 2 Page 10 Family Law Legislation Dr. Margo Kushner, alumni of the University of Calgary and Professor at Salisbury University, Maryland has had some impact on family law legislation in Maryland. In particular legislation pertaining to family law. Her appointment to the Maryland Judiciary Committee on Family Law originated when she presented an Institutional Ethnography study titled, “Child Custody Planning in a Textually Structured Court System” at an Association of Family and Conciliation Courts Conference in Washington, DC. The Honorable Chief Judge Bell, Maryland Court of Appeals was present as keynote speaker. He sanctioned Dr. Kushner to replicate her study by including Maryland judges as participants in a research study. As a result of this networking opportunity Dr. Kushner was asked to sit on the Judiciary Committee of Family Law. The following is just a sample of the social change opportunities this networking opportunity facilitated. House Bills HB 48 Domestic Law Violence Training HB 26 Child Custody Orders HB 386 Child Support Enforcement HB 336 Grounds for Divorce HB 331 Final Protective Order-Global Positioning Monitoring System HB 925 Child Custody Determination HB 1139 Child Custody Determination Works in Progress Standards for Child Custody Evaluators Parenting Coordinator Role Collaborative Training This valuable work is an attempt to prevent abusive ex- partners, post separation from engaging in control tactics which thwart the best interests of children etc. A bill before the legislation in Maryland concerned “automatic joint custody” at the point of separation. The committee was able to block this legislation. Dr. Kushner specializes clinically in her work with high conflict divorcing families. If you would like to learn more about Dr. Kushner’s work, her web-site is margokushnertherapist.com. She may also be reached at makushner@salisbury.edu. Pro Bono Vol. 17, No. 2 Page 11 Call for Submissions INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LAW, CRIME AND JUSTICE: Submissions are invited for a special issue of the IJLCJ dedicated to “pure sociology,” the groundbreaking theoretical paradigm developed by Donald Black. The tentative title of the special issue is “The Pure Sociology of Right and Wrong.” Papers can address crime, law, or related topics, and should use pure sociology as an explanatory strategy.  Direct inquiries to James Tucker, Department of Sociology, University of New Hampshire (jetucker@unh.edu), editor of the special issue.  The deadline for paper submissions is January 15, 2011.  Call for Papers: Special Issue of Policy and Society Issue title: Practice as Story: The Policy Stories that People Tell* Guest Editor: Laura Bisaillon, University of Ottawa, Canada Inviting contributions from critical social scientists for an issue devoted to exploring the social organisation of people’s day-to-day activities and practices as these are shaped by social and public policy. Articles must discuss results of empirical research. Interdisciplinary researchers working in/with critical policy studies, geography, health, institutional ethnography, interpretive policy analysis, narrative-centered and critical qualitative approaches, social policy, and socio-legal studies are encouraged to submit an article. Starting in people’s experience of living and engaging with the activities stemming from and regulated by public policy challenges conventional ways of understanding how social and public policy affects us. Often unaccounted for in official accounts of how public policy functions is a world of activities in which people must engage to come into line with policy. This approach holds the promise of offering contextualized understandings from the standpoint of people at whom policy is directed (and possibly those people whose labour makes, upholds, and enforces policy). It also can inform about mischaracterisations about how policy is said to function, and because of this, such an approach can be the basis for working to correct problems people experience in relation to policy. This sort of social inquiry focuses analytic attention on people’s effortful action; humanizing knowledge and ‘evidence’; filling out the picture about how things happen in the materialism of people’s lives as organized by public policy. All articles will be peer-reviewed. Authors should prepare articles in APA format. This Special Issue will be composed of six to eight articles. Questions can be directed to Laura Bisaillon at lbisa082@uOttawa.ca Deadlines: -Initial submission of abstracts between 300 to 500 words: Nov. 15, 2011 -Submission of articles between 6,000 and 8,000 words: Feb. 15, 2012 -Anticipated publication of Special Issue: Sept. 2012 Journal information: Policy and Society is an interdisciplinary journal exploring policy in broader political, economic and social contexts. The journal seeks to explore how policies shape and are shaped by their contexts. Details available at: http://www.policyandsociety.org/ http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/714836/description#description http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/14494035