Cindy Brooks Dollar

Observations of Reintegrative Shaming in a Mental Health Court

This study compares the use of stigmatizing and reintegrative shame - as specified in Braithwaites Crime, shame and reintegration (1989) - across traditional criminal court and mental health court settings. Items from the Global Observational Ratings Instrument were used to gather data on 87 traditional court cases and 91 mental health court cases, presided over by five different judges. The observational items capture three constructs: respect, disapproval, and forgiveness, as they apply to Braithwaites theory. We present means tests to examine differences in shaming between court types and judges. Findings show that the mental health court is more likely to use reintegrative shaming and show respect and forgiveness for offenders, and less likely to show disapproval. Similarly, judges who preside in both court types are significantly more likely to practice reintegrative shaming in the mental health court context. We further explore these findings using field notes and illustrate those components of a mental health court that are conducive to reintegrative shaming.

Racial Threat Theory: Assessing the Evidence, Requesting Redesign

Racial threat theory was developed as a way to explain how population composition influences discriminatory social control practices and has become one of the most acknowledged frameworks for explaining racial disparity in criminal justice outcomes. This paper provides a thorough review of racial threat theory and empirical assessments of the theory and demonstrates that while scholars often cite inconsistent support for the theory, empirical discrepancies may be due to insufficient attention to the conceptual complexity of racial threat. I organize and present the following review around 4 forms of state-sanctioned control mechanisms: police expenditures, arrests, sentencing, and capital punishment. Arguing that the pervasiveness of racialization in state controls warrants continued inquiry, I provide suggestions for future scholarship that will help us develop enhanced understanding of how racial threat may be operating.

Adult Nonmedical Prescription Drug Use: An Examination of Bond Theory

Using data from the 2010 National Survey of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), this research examines the extent to which social bonds predict nonmedical prescription drug use among adults. Logistic regression analyses reveal that marital bonds are consistently and negatively related to various types of nonmedical drug use net other social and medical factors; however, employment bonds are only significant and negative in models predicting nonmedical pain reliever use. Analyses of interaction terms between gender and social bonds are examined but are found non-predictive. Issues concerning a lack of data availability for adult nonmedical drug use and the quality of adult bonds are discussed.

The Practice of Reintegrative Shaming in Mental Health Court

Scholars and practitioners have renewed their interest in recognizing and designing restorative justice programs. Although these programs often provide successful outcomes, we know relatively little about why they work. Reintegrative shaming theory provides a lens by which to explain successful outcomes. This study uses over three years of direct observations to examine the practice of reintegrative shaming in a mental health court (MHC). We organize our findings around four primary components of reintegrative shaming outlined by Makkai and Braithwaite: respectful disapproval, disapproving the behavior rather than the individual, rejecting deviance as a master status, and ceremonial decertifications of deviance. Our data demonstrate that reintegrative shaming in MHC is largely accomplished through interactions with the judge, although the unique organization of the MHC, including their small caseloads, use of separate dockets, and pre-court team meetings, advance the court’s use of reintegrative shaming.

The Importance of Romantic and Work Relations on Nonmedical Prescription Drug Use Among Adults

Drawing from Sampson and Laubs age-graded theory, we examine whether the presence and quality of social bonds influences nonmedical usage of prescription drugs (opioids, tranquilizers, sedatives, and stimulants). We analyze data from a large and nationally representative sample of adults from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Results from a series of logistic regression models indicate that married individuals are significantly less likely to use prescription drugs nonmedically than non-married persons. However, romantic relational satisfaction is also salient; cohabiters who are highly satisfied with their romantic unions are less likely to report misuse than cohabiters who are less satisfied in their relationships. Additionally, being highly satisfied at work predicts a lower likelihood of misuse, but only among cohabiters. Overall, age-graded theory is useful for understanding nonmedical prescription drug use, although romantic relationship bonds are generally more consistently influential than employment bonds. These results add to a growing knowledge base regarding patterns of nonmedical prescription drug use.

American slaughterhouses and the need for speed: An examination of the meatpacking-methamphetamine hypothesis

In Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser argues that slaughterhouse workers use methamphetamines to manage the harsh physical and emotional demands of the meatpacking industry. Similar ideas have been raised elsewhere; however, empirical tests of this hypothesis are in short supply. In this article, we elaborate on theoretical mechanisms that may explain why the meatpacking industry encourages methamphetamine use and provide a macro-level test of the meatpacking–methamphetamine hypothesis using 11 years (2001-2012) of hospital admission data and information from annual livestock slaughter reports. Decomposition modeling is used to examine variations across states and within states over time. Results show only modest support for the hypothesis. Specifically, a combined measure of meat is positively and statistically significantly associated with methamphetamine use both within and across states. However, the relationships are not consistently positive or statistically significant across all types of meat. In other words, the meatpacking–methamphetamine relationship is varying and complex.

“I’m not a traditional woman”: Tranquilizer misuse as self-medication among adult women

Research consistently finds that men use all types of drugs more frequently and extensively than women. However, the misuse of prescription tranquilizers provides an exception. Recent research has found that women are more likely to misuse tranquilizers than men, yet few efforts have been made to systematically understand why this is the case and whether there are gendered factors that might help explain their misuse. Building on general strain theory and other scholarship concerning the links between psychological strain, mental–emotional health, and illicit drug use, we employed a mixed-methods design to investigate the interrelationships between gender, mental health, and tranquilizer misuse. Using data from the 2010 National Survey of Drug Use and Health, we examined tranquilizer misuse among women using various social, demographic, and health-related characteristics. Following this, we drew on nine in-depth interviews with adult women aged 21 to 69 years who reported a history of misusing tranquilizers. The quantitative data reveal that the odds of tranquilizer misuse are nearly two times higher for each unit increase on the poor mental health scale. Whereas being married increases the risk of misuse, having young children is associated with a decreased risk. Our analysis of the interview data reveals three main themes, related to tranquilizer access, reasons for misuse, and shame related to misuse. The interviews clearly uncover tranquilizer misuse as an attempt by women to manage competing demands between their work and home lives, and more specifically as a means of promoting success in both devotions. We conclude by arguing that women’s misuse of tranquilizers is a gendered behavior in response to gender-specific strains, which in turn reproduces gendering as an institution as well as in individual lives. The implications of these findings for general strain theory are also discussed.

Age Structure and Neighborhood Homicide: Testing and Extending the Differential Institutional Engagement Hypothesis

We examine the empirical applicability of differential institutional engagement in explaining the youth age structure effect on neighborhood homicide. Using the National Neighborhood Crime Study and Census data, we conduct a multilevel spatial analysis of homicides in 8,307 census tracts. We find support for three indicators of differential institutional engagement (disengaged youth, educational engagement, employment engagement). An additional dimension of institutional engagement (familial engagement) operates in the expected direction but is not statistically significant. We argue that previous cross-sectional studies reporting a null or negative relationship between percentage of young and homicide are due to omitting measures of institutional youth (dis)engagement.