James B. Jacobs

Street Gangs Behind Bars

This paper reports on a participant observation study carried out at Stateville Penitentiary, a maximum security prison, during the summer of 1972. The social organization of the prison has been a topic of frequent sociological attention. Efforts have been made to explain “inmate culture” and the often referred to “inmate code.” Contrary to the traditional structural-functional explanation for inmate organization which focuses upon situational variables, this analysis supports the Irwin-Cressey (1964) position that much of what has been termed inmate culture is actually imported from outside the prison. The most significant reality behind Statevilles walls is the existence of four lower class Chicago street gangs which have brought into the prison their street activities, hierarchies, rivalries, and ideologies. The purpose here is to describe the social organization which has emerged as a result of this phenomenon and to relate this development to the traditional literature.

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.

Visions of Corruption Control and the Evolution of American Public Administration

Changing Visions of Corruption and Corruption Control The anticorruption project has been an integral part of the intellectual and political reform movements that have shaped American federal, state, and local governments throughout the 20th century. The anticorruption project includes the ideology, laws, regulations, and administrative strategies and inter- and intra-organizational checks, balances, and institutions aimed at defining, identifying, preventing, and punishing official corruption. This project has been cumulative. Each new stage of the anticorruption project ratchets-up the quantity and intensity of corruption prevention in government and increases the projects impact on public administration. The absence of scandals is attributed to anticorruption strategies already in place; the occurrence of scandals is cited as proof that additional anticorruption laws, administrative strategies, and organizational prophylactics are needed. In this article, we describe the evolution of the anticorruption project, especially its assumptions, ideologies, and goals. From 19th century civil service reformers to contemporary inspectors general, prosecutors, comptrollers, and loss-prevention specialists, pursuit of the public good has included an image of governmental operations free from corruption. Despite the expansion of the definition of corruption, multiplication of anticorruption strategies, and intensification of control techniques, more intervention always seems to be required. We argue that a new, panoptic vision of corruption control now influences and shapes public administration; while it can be traced to earlier anticorruption reforms, it has a distinct agenda and has a distinct impact on the operation of American government. Our observations are drawn from the large scholarly literature on corruption and from our own on-going empirical research in New York City. Because of New York Citys gargantuan government, tradition of machine politics, visibility in the media, and corps of good government reformers, it has always been a laboratory for corruption-control experiments (Anechiarico and Jacobs, 1992, pp. 580-603). However, our observations about New York City should be relevant to public administration more generally, particularly large state and local governments. Perhaps surprisingly, while municipal corruption has received a good deal of attention from political scientists and urban specialists, the connection between anticorruption reform and public administration has not been systematically examined. Empirical studies of urban public administration hardly point to, much less emphasize, the extent to which government is organized to prevent public officials from engaging in bribery, embezzlement, nepotism, favoritism, conflicts of interest, and even the appearance of these species of dishonesty. To a significant extent, the organization, rules, and energy of urban government are focused on surveilling and controlling officials rather than on the production of government outputs. We identify four visions of corruption control: antipatronage, progressive, scientific management, and panoptic.(1) We also consider a revisionist critique of die policies implementing these visions. Revisionism, although first appearing in the Progressive era, has been forcefully articulated in reaction to the emergence of the modern panoptic vision. Although these four visions of corruption control significantly overlap, they correspond roughly to parallel stages of American public administration. Thus, this article reconstructs the discourse that has taken place in public administration and in the larger society over the problem of governmental corruption, the possibility of solving it, and the most efficacious remedial strategies. A vision, as we are using it, is a paradigm or weltanschauung worldview) that includes assumptions about the nature and control of human behavior and the role and potential of government institutions. …

Stratification and Conflict among Prison Inmates

Prison studies have most often emphasized the inmate code, inmate distributive systems and the colorful argot roles which are said to be functional for the emergence and persistence of both normative and distributive systems. Little systematic attention has been paid to the significance of racial, political, and religious stratification or to formal inmate organizations. Yet, systems of stratification and formal organizations are the background against which primary groups, attitudes, and individual and group conflict develop. Inmate behavior cannot be understood without reference to these allegiances and commit-

Drop Outs and Rejects: An Analysis of the Prison Guard's Revolving Door

High turnover among prison guards has long been noted as a problem plaguing corrections. This study indicates that turnover among rank and file employees results from organizational and cultural strains within the formal organization. A sample survey of 55 former prison guards indicates that the most significant variable in explaining the termination of their prison work is race. Young urban black guards tend to find themselves in conflict with the top echelon in the custodial force while the white recruits have difficulty normalizing relations with the minority inmates.

Race Relations and the Prisoner Subculture

The extensive scholarly literature on prisoner subculture has, until quite recently, virtually ignored race relations. The oversight is significant; prisons have a long history of segregation and racial discrimination. Descriptions and theories of prisoner subculture which do not take racial cleavages into account are incomplete and need to be reconsidered. Since the late 1950s race relations have precipitated enormous changes in prisoner subcultures and in prison organization. The Black Muslims challenged the hegemony of white officials and prisoners and their legal activism led to the intervention of the federal courts in prison administration. Present-day prisoner subcultures are characterized by racial polarization and conflict, and by the dominance of blacks and other minorities who now constitute the majority of the national prisoner population. The next generation of research should link the prison society, including its patterns of race relations, to both the unique characteristics of prisons and the culture and social structure of the larger society.

Are criminal convictions a public matter? The USA and Spain

A criminal conviction, if widely known, constitutes a life-long stigma that limits the convicted person’s employment and other opportunities. European countries, including Spain, recognizing an ind...A criminal conviction, if widely known, constitutes a life-long stigma that limits the convicted person’s employment and other opportunities. European countries, including Spain, recognizing an individual right of informational privacy and a societal interest in limiting recidivism, sharply restrict the dissemination of individual criminal history information. By contrast, the USA, in accordance with its commitments to judicial transparency, free speech and the individual’s right of self protection, allows (and even promotes) extensive dissemination of individual criminal history information. This article compares the profoundly different policies on providing public access to individual criminal history information in Spain and the USA, illuminating the cultural and legal values behind each country’s policies and the tensions both countries encounter in attempting to reconcile these policies with other socio-political values and goals.

Cosa Nostra: The Final Chapter?

An unprecedented law enforcement attack, coupled with new civil and regulatory organized crime control strategies, leaves the survival of the Italian organized crime families in doubt. Although the families in different cities operate, for the most part, independently, their internal composition is consistent. They are characterized by a rigid hierarchical structure and an extreme emphasis on secrecy. Cosa Nostra can be distinguished from other organized crime groups, including recently developing Asian and Russian gangs in the United States and most domestic youth gangs, by its focus on infiltration of businesses and domination of such legitimate enterprises over sustained periods, in addition to its involvement in various illicit activities and markets. However, in some countries, including Russia and parts of Eastern Europe, where organized crime participates in both legal and criminal markets, the U. S. experience with Cosa Nostra may offer clues to promising control techniques. First, it is imperative to act quickly in response to developing organized crime syndicates. Second, electronic surveillance, both wiretaps and bugs, is a necessary and serious impediment to the operation of organized crime groups. Third, a successful attack on organized crime cannot be a short-term campaign.

Prison Overcrowding and the Law

This article traces and analyzes the history of prison- and jail-crowding litigation in the federal courts since the 1960s. While prisoners and pretrial detainees have won many victories, the doctrinal basis for a constitutional right to uncrowded incarceration facilities remains unclear and is still evolving. Despite several recent Supreme Court decisions unfavorable to inmates, there has been no rejection of the principles (1) that the totality of conditions in prison—including crowding—must not amount to cruel and unusual punishment and (2) that jail crowding cannot be permitted to impose genuine privations over an extended period of time. In order to enforce the decrees outlawing overcrowding, judges have had to search for creative enforcement techniques. Many of these techniques are controversial and their effectiveness is disputed. The courts have forced the other branches of government to face up to crowded prisons and jails, and they have helped to ameliorate the suffering and deprivations that the overcrowding crisis has caused.

Ex-Offender Employment, Recidivism, and Manpower Policy: CETA, TJTC, and Future Initiatives

Over the past several decades, there have been many programs to reduce the continuing high level of ex-offender unemployment. These policies were often part of broader federal efforts to improve the labor market position of the disadvantaged. However, these traditional labor market policies have had disappointing outcomes, leading to dissatisfaction and skepticism about programs to alleviate ex-offender unemployment. This article reviews federal ex-offender employment initiatives with particular attention to the Targeted Jobs Tax Credit (TJTC), a program providing employers with tax deductions for hiring ex-offenders. Our analysis indicates that this credit (like other employment programs for ex-offenders) has had marginal impact at best. We suggest reasons why this is so, focusing on the specific problems of employing ex-offenders, and the general weaknesses of targeted employment strategies that rely on tax incentives. We conclude with some speculations about possible new directions for ex-offender employment programs.