Law & Society Division Fall 2021 Newsletter Amani M. Awwad, Chair (2020-2022) Michael Branch, Vice-Chair (2021-2023) Table of Contents Fall 2021 Law and Society Division News Page # Sutherland Outstanding Scholarship Book and Graduate Student Paper Awards 2 2022 Annual Meeting Panels 3 Member Publications 4 Announcements 5 PhD Students on the Market 7 Call for Proposals 8 ALL PAPERS MUST BE SUBMITTED BY 11:59P PM EST ON JANUARY 15, 2022 Voting Rights, Restrictions, and Emerging Issues Organized by Amani M. Awwad (awwada@canton.edu) Law and In/Justice Organized by Michael Branch (mbranch@syr.edu) PAPERS IN THE ROUND: Law, Culture, and Media Organized by Michael Branch (mbranch@syr.edu) If you are interested in serving as the organizer for this session, please contact Michael Branch Reimagining Schools Without Police and other Punitive Practices Co-sponsored by Crime and Juvenile Delinquency Organized by Charles Bell (cabell6@ilstu.edu) and Linda M. Waldron (lwaldron@cnu.edu) CRITICAL DIALOGUE: Rural Crime, Drug Use, and Justice Co-sponsored by Community Research and Development, Drinking and Drugs Organized by Michael Branch (mbranch@syr.edu) PAPERS IN THE ROUND: COVID and the Carceral State Co-sponsored by Crime and Juvenile Delinquency, Law and Society, Racial and Ethnic Minorities, Youth, Aging, and the Life Course Organized by Leslie L. Wood (lwood10@kent.edu) CRITICAL DIALOGUE: Academic Freedom and Teaching CRT Co-sponsored by Crime and Juvenile Delinquency, Teaching and Social Problems Organized by Sarah Jane Brubaker (sbrubaker@vcu.edu) Diversion of Prescription/Psychoactive Medications Co-sponsored by Drinking and Drugs Organized by Mark Pawson (mpawson@purdue.edu) CRITICAL DIALOGUE: 50th Anniversary of the Racist War on Drugs Co-sponsored by Drinking and Drugs, Racial and Ethnic Minorities Organized by Stephen Lankenau (sel59@drexel.edu) and Avelardo Valdez (avelardv@usc.edu) Gender, Sexuality, and the Law Co-sponsored by Sexual Behavior, Politics, and Communities Organized by Lloyd Klein (lklein@lagcc.cuny.edu) Law and Society Panels for 2022 SSSP 72nd Annual Meeting August 5 - 7, 2022 Los Angeles, California Sutherland Outstanding Scholarship Book Award The Law & Society Division is pleased to announce that the 2021 Sutherland Outstanding Scholarship Book Award winner is Dr. Matthew Clair, for Privilege and Punishment: How Race and Class Matter in Criminal Court. The award is given periodically for best contribution to the law and society literature. Dr. Clair is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Stanford University. Runner-Up: Global Borderlands: Fantasy, Violence, and Empire in Subic Bay, Philippines, Victoria Reyes, Stanford University Press 2019. Honorable Mention: In Someone Else’s Country: Anti-Haitian Racism and Citizenship in the Dominican Republic, Trenita Brookshire Childers, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2020 Graduate Student Paper Award We are excited to announce the winner of our graduate student paper award, Tony Cheng, for his paper “Police-community Relations as an Alternative System of Neighborhood representation.” Tony received his Ph.D. in Sociology from Yale University in 2021 and is now an Assistant Professor of Criminology, Law and Society and Sociology at UC Irvine. And of course, thank you to the judges for their hard work in determining a winner. Recent Membership Publications Milne, Emma. 2021. Criminal Justice Responses to Maternal Filicide. Emerald Publishing Limited. A link to the YouTube video featuring Dr. Milne discussing the book: https://youtu.be/3eRETo3bMW8 Information and registration for the book launch event on December 2, 2021 is available here. Analysis of criminal cases reveals that women suspected of killing their newborn children are some of the most vulnerable in our society and that infanticide is not just a historical issue but one that has modern implications. While women are less likely to commit violent crime, maternal infant homicide is an enduring form of offending that needs to be understood in a wider social context. In Criminal Justice Responses to Maternal Filicide, Milne provides a comprehensive analysis of conviction outcomes through court transcripts of 15 criminal cases in England and Wales during 2010 to 2019. Drawing on feminist theories of responsibilisation and ‘gendered harm’, she critically reflects on the gendered nature of criminal law and justice responses to suspected infanticide. This contemporary study makes a novel contribution to the fields of law, criminology and gender studies, arguing that through its inability to recognise the vulnerable position of accused women, and respond accordingly, the application of law reflects wider social judgments of pregnant women and mothers who challenge or fail to fulfil ideals of motherhood. Dr. Emma Milne is Assistant Professor in Criminal Law and Criminal Justice at Durham University. Her PhD in Sociology from the University of Essex was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Emma’s research is interdisciplinary, focusing on criminal law and criminal justice responses to newborn child killing and foetal harm. The wider context of Emma’s work is social controls and regulations of all women, notably in relation to pregnancy, sex and motherhood. Emma’s monograph Criminal Justice Responses to Maternal Filicide: Judging the Failed Mother was published in 2021 (Emerald Publishing Limited). She co-authored Sex and Crime (SAGE, 2020), and co-edited Women and the Criminal Justice System: Failing Victims and Offenders? (Palgrave, 2018). Solórzano, Lizette G. 2021. 'We are not the people they think we are’: First-Generation Undocumented Immigrant Belonging and Legal Consciousness in the Wake of Deferred Action for Parents of Americans. Ethnicities. doi: 10.1177/14687968211041805 Durán, Robert J. and Charlene Shroulote-Durán. 2021. “The Racialized Patterns of Police Violence: The Critical Importance of Research as Praxis.” Sociology Compass 15(8): 1-15.  doi: 10.1111/soc4.12912 Durán, Robert J. and Jason A. Campos. 2021. “The War on Gangs and Gangsters: Settler Colonialism and the Criminalization of Latinos/as.” Pp. 271-283 in Routledge International Handbook of Critical Gang Studies, edited by David Brotherton and Rafael Gude. New York, Routledge. Positions Hiring The College of Liberal Arts at Texas A&M University invites applications for the Accountability, Climate, Equity, and Scholarship (ACES) Faculty Fellows Program, a faculty pipeline initiative that connects those advancing outstanding scholarship with relevant disciplinary units on campus. ACES Faculty Fellows are hired as Visiting Assistant Professors with the expectation of transitioning to tenure track (pending departmental review) at the end of the fellowship period. For 2021 (with Fellows to begin August 2022), the ACES Faculty Fellows Program is funded by the Office of the Provost, and administered by the Office for Diversity at Texas A&M in partnership with the College of Liberal Arts. In recognition of Texas A&M University's Diversity Plan, the ACES Faculty Fellows Program promotes the research, teaching, and scholarship of early career scholars who embrace the belief that diversity is an indispensable component of academic excellence. From this experience at Texas A&M, faculty fellows should develop an understanding of the value of diversity and inclusion and the power that it holds for students, faculty, and staff to enrich their lives. As a Tier 1 research and land-grant institution, Texas A&M upholds its responsibility to accountability, campus climate, equity, and scholarship by maintaining a campus that affirms equity and fosters inclusion and belonging. Significantly, Texas A&M holds itself accountable to improved campus climate and equity goals through clear, accessible measures.  ACES Faculty Fellows are afforded access to invaluable academic and professional development experiences to advance their careers as scholars. The objective is for ACES Faculty Fellows to transition to tenure-track faculty at the conclusion of the fellowship. ACES Faculty Fellows will benefit from: prescriptive mentoring, access to instructional best practices, a vast array of world-class research and productivity resources, and a robust network of renowned Texas A&M scholars from across disciplines Applications are welcome from scholars with a strength in, and evidence of, a respect for diversity and inclusion. Applications are invited from scholars whose work aligns with a field or department(s) in the College of Liberal Arts. Applicants should have earned their PhD between January 1, 2018 and July 1, 2022. Be sure to check out the official job announcement for more information. Applications are due by 11:59 pm Eastern on November 15, 2021. Law and Society Division Announcements The Division is soliciting nominations for Chair to be elected in early 2022 and to begin a 2-year term of service starting at our meeting in Los Angeles next August. The newly elected Chair will replace Amani M. Awwad and serve from 2022-2024. If you would like to nominate a colleague to serve, or if you would like to nominate yourself, please send nominations to Amani M. Awwad at awwada@canton.edu or Michael Branch at mbranch@syr.edu. Please note that all nominees must be a current SSSP member. Graduate students are encouraged to apply! Leadership positions are open to all SSSP members. All nominations should be submitted by 11:59 pm Eastern on Tuesday, November 30, 2021. Looking to build your C.V.? The SSSP Law & Society Division is seeking a newsletter editor. The new editor will receive a stipend of $125 upon completion and dissemination of 2 newsletters. Please contact Michael Branch at mbranch@syr.edu if interested. Graduate students are encouraged to apply! Doctoral Members on the Job Market Miriam Gleckman-Krut (she/her) is a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of Michigan. Broadly, her work analyzes institutions’ efforts to erase evidence of gender-based and sexual violence. Her contention is that efforts to erase this evidence maintains institutional integrity and power. This phenomenon is widespread. She has published on mainstream U.S. Sociology’s neglect of sexual violence in the Annual Review of Sociology (2018) and Social Stratification 5th ed. (forthcoming); on U.S. higher education’s obfuscation of campus sexual assault in Contexts (forthcoming) and the New York Times Opinion (2017); and on German efforts to evade responsibility for the Namibian genocide in the New York Times Opinion (2021). Her dissertation analyzes South Africa’s obfuscation of evidence of gender-based and sexual violence through the decoupling of its refugee law. Unlike most other major refugee recipient countries, South Africa explicitly provides for refugee status based on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI). At the same time, it denies refugee status to 96% of people who apply – including almost all SOGI applicants. Put simply: South Africa at once leads the world in its liberal refugee provisions and also in its rate of denial of refugee protections. Based on extensive participant ethnography, legal and media archival data collection, and interviews, she argues that South Africa’s gay-rights laws garner it global praise, and that this praise masks the country’s human-rights violations against African SOGI refugees. This project has implications for sociological work on legal decoupling, migration, and state categorization processes, as well as queer theory’s concept of homonationalism. She furthermore calls policy-maker attention to this multiply marginalized population. Alongside leading South African lawyers and gender scholars, Gleckman-Krut analyzed a subset of the dissertation data to produce the first systematic study of legal barriers facing LGBTI+ asylum seekers in South Africa.  Contact: Miriam Gleckman-Krut, Dept. of Sociology, University of Michigan (mgleck@umitch.edu) Link: https://lsa.umich.edu/soc/people/current-graduate-students/mgleck.html Call for Proposals MORAL PANICS IN THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC Co-edited by Morena Tartari, Cosimo Marco Scarcelli, and Cirus Rinaldi Deadline to submit a 500 to 750-word abstract: November 5, 2021 Submit via email to: morenatartari@gmail.com, cosimomarco.scarcelli@unipd.it, cirusrinaldi@gmail.com Background The concept of moral panic emerged thanks to the seminal work of Stanley Cohen and other scholars in the field of radical criminology about five decades ago. Over such decades, the notion of moral panic and its sociological models have known periods of alternating fortune, have been applied in a range of empirical cases, and entered the popular and journalistic discourse. Then, in recent years, the notion has received renovated theoretical and empirical attention and has been linked to different theories and approaches like, among others, risk, moral regulation, discourse analysis, figurational sociology, sociology of emotions, social problems sociology. These recent contributions have confirmed that the notion and its models are well suited to analyze crises, changes, and transformations in our contemporary societies. However, academic attention to moral panics related to a specific topic or situation or social category has often consisted of disconnected or isolated contributions, with little or no conversation between scholars. An opportunity to analyze a social situation of rapid social transformations and the moral panics related to them is constituted by the Covid-19 pandemic. This will allow moral panic scholars to write contributions connected among them by a defined theme and to engage in a conversation about the strengths and weaknesses of the concept using empirical cases related to the same topic. Call for abstracts for an edited volume With these aims and this theoretical background in mind, we are calling for chapter proposals, which will explore the relevance of the notion of moral panic in analyzing societal reactions related to the Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic has raised collective reactions toward specific social situations, social categories, and groups, which can be read through the lenses of the moral panic concept and models. Moral panics emerged not only during the first months of the Covid-19 outbreak (e.g., the so-called “runner hunt”) but also later up to now (e.g., the spasmodic media attention toward the emergence of new virus variants or the moral condemnation against the “careless holiday-makers”). How can the concept of moral panic and its models explain these societal reactions? This question will guide our analyses, which will take account of the different social, national, political, economic, organizational, and cultural contexts in which such moral panics emerged. The book aims to hold in view both theoretical and methodological debates and empirical studies by focusing on pandemic moral panics. We aim to solicit writing that, analyzing the societal reactions that emerged during the Covid-19 pandemic, could utilize not only classical approaches to moral panic analysis but also more recent trends which consider risk (Critcher 2008), fear (Furedi 2011), anxiety (Hier 2011), moral regulation (Critcher 2009; Hunt 2011), social problems (Best 2011) as analytic categories. We are seeking contributions with empirical and theoretical rigor and originality from scholars who belong to different fields: sociology, media studies, criminology, cultural studies, journalism studies, politics, and history. Topics may include: Sociological or interdisciplinary analysis of Covid-19 moral panics Socio-historical and/or comparative analysis of moral panics related to the Covid-19 pandemic and other pandemics Examination of contemporary moral panics related to the lockdown and/or other preventive measures Analysis of the role of different organizations in pandemic-related moral panics Moral panics related to the medical and pharmaceutical industrial complex in pandemic times Media panics concerning the Covid-19 pandemic Theoretical contributions on moral panics and pandemics Analysis of grassroots panics in pandemic times Groups of interest, groups of pressure and Covid-19 pandemic’s moral panics Global and local panics in the Covid-19 pandemic and relations with the political-economic assets. Good panics and pandemic social transformation Moral panics concerning gender and sexuality issues in the Covid-19 pandemic Family, children, Covid-19 and moral panics … The proposal will be submitted for consideration to Routledge's The COVID-19 Pandemic Series as the series editor has already expressed an interest in the volume. Timeline September 1, 2021: Circulate CFP November 5, 2021: Submission of abstracts (500-750 words) deadline. Email abstracts to morenatartari@gmail.com, cosimomarco.scarcelli@unipd.it, cirusrinaldi@gmail.com November 20, 2021: Decision for acceptance of abstract after editorial review. November 30, 2021: Submission of edited volume proposal to the publisher for external review. January 15, 2022: Edits and feedback on the proposal returned to authors March 30, 2022: Authors submit full chapters to the editors for internal review April 30, 2022: Editors send comments to the authors for revisions. May 30, 2022: Authors send revised chapters to the editors. July 1, 2022: Editors review chapter submissions, revise the full manuscript, send it back to the authors for another round of revisions July 15, 2022: Authors send revised chapters to the editors. July 30, 2022: Editors review chapter submissions, revise the full manuscript, send it back to the authors for another round of revisions. August 15, 2022: Authors send final revised chapters to the editors. September 1, 2022: Complete final draft of the book goes to the publisher. Completed manuscript in press: October-November, 2022 About the editors Cirus Rinaldi, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Sociology of deviance at the Department of Culture and Society, University of Palermo, where he lectures on genders, sexualities, violence and masculinities, and crime and criminal justice. His main research topics are masculinity and violence, homophobia, deviance theory, and the sociology of sexualities. He is one among the few Italian scholars who has widely researched sociological aspects of sexuality, the sociology of LGBT people, and masculinity in male sex work. He is currently coordinating the activities of the Research group on bodies, rights, and conflict at Palermo University. Among his latest publications are the first Italian academic research on male sex work, Uomini che si fanno pagare. Genere, identità e sessualità nel sex work maschile tra devianza e nuove forme di normalizzazione (DeriveApprodi, Rome, 2020) and the chapter “Sex and Sexuality” (in W. Brekhus, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Symbolic Interaction, forthcoming). Cosimo Marco Scarcelli (Ph.D. in Social Sciences, 2013) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education, and Applied Psychology at the University of Padua where he teaches Sociology of Digital Media and Digital Culture and Society. His research interests deal with digital media with a focus on gender, sexuality, intimacy, young people, and media education. Since 2018, he has chaired the Gender, Sexuality and Communication section of ECREA (European Communication Research and Education Association). He is member of the editorial board of Journal of Gender Studies and recently he has been editor of the book ‘Gender and sexuality in the European media’ (Routledge, With Chronaki, De Vuyst and Baselga) and associate editor of The International Encyclopedia of Gender, Media and Communication. Morena Tartari is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research Fellow at the University of Antwerp and Researcher Associate at the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships at the University of Edinburgh. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology (University of Padua, 2012). She taught courses in sociology of communication and cultural processes from 2014 to 2019. Her research lies at the intersections of gender, family, social movements and organizations. She is author of many publications on moral panics, family and childhood issues. Former 2020-21 Chair of the Adhoc-Transnational Virtual Initiatives Committee, she is a member of the Transnational Initiatives Committee and Outreach and Membership Committee in SSSP (the Society for the Study of Social Problems). Furthermore, she is a member of the Board of the Working Group on Institutional Ethnography (WG06) in ISA (International Sociological Association) and co-organizer of the Institutional Ethnography Research Stream for the ESA (European Sociological Association. From November 2021, as a research fellow she will join the Department of Sociology, Social Policy & Criminology (SSPC) of the University of Southampton (UK). SSSP Announcements SEARCH FOR THE NEXT SSSP EXECUTIVE OFFICER The Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP) seeks applications for the position of Executive Officer, to begin at the conclusion of the Society’s August 2022 Annual Meeting in Los Angeles. The SSSP is an interdisciplinary and international community of scholars, activists, practitioners, and students committed to social justice through social research. Applicants must be a current member of the Society. In coordination and consultation with the Board of Directors and the Administrative Officer and Meeting Manager, the Executive Officer ensures that the vision and mission of the Society is clear and guides the actions of the organization; oversees the day-to-day operations of the organization; serves as the organization’s chief ambassador and organizational leader; assesses the personnel needs of the organization; ensures that the Society’s flagship journal, Social Problems, receives the support required to remain one of the top journals in the discipline; cultivates relationships with other organizations engaged in social justice work; and performs other duties and responsibilities, as outlined in the detailed description of the Executive Officer’s position posted on the SSSP website https://www.sssp1.org/. Candidates for the position must familiarize themselves with these duties and responsibilities and be committed to the SSSP’s purposes and policies, including an expressed commitment to diversity and the creation of a safe, welcoming, and supportive space for all members and staff of the organization, and the staff of the venues at which the Society’s meetings are held, as outlined in the Society’s Anti-harassment Policy (click here to access policy). The position is a part-time position (20%), but the time required varies throughout the year and is most demanding in the months leading up to and at the Annual Meeting in August. The Executive Officer is compensated with a salary; fringe benefits; and a course release, if they are teaching and if it is approved by their employer -- and provided with a budget for job-related travel. Interested SSSP members in good standing may apply by submitting a letter of interest, CV, and a letter of support from the applicant’s Department Chair and/or corresponding Dean of the prospective host institution, or appropriate official with budgetary authority in the prospective nonacademic host institution. The names and complete contact information of three other references must also be provided. The letter of interest should include the support the host institution is willing to provide for the prospective Executive Officer. Institutional support must be corroborated by the letters from the Dean and/or Department Chair, or the appropriate official with budgetary authority in nonacademic institutions. Applications must be sent to the SSSP’s Administrative Officer and Meeting Manager, Michele Koontz, at mkoontz3@utk.edu. Applications received by December 15, 2021 will receive full consideration. Finalists for the position will be notified no later than May 15. As a social justice organization, the SSSP seeks a diverse applicant pool for the position. Click here to review the Job Description Click here to review the Selection Process