James L. Williams

A comparative evaluation of a new generation jail

This study reports findings from an evaluation of a new generation jail in a large southwestern state. The jail is one component of a complex containing a traditional jail, an indirect supervision facility (barracks), and the new generation jail. Using survey and operational data, we compare the new generation jail to the other two facilities. The findings provide generally positive support for the effectiveness of the new generation jail. Inmates and staff were much more satisfied with the physical facilities. Staff perceived it as more secure, though they reported only limited advantages in safety and security. Violence and disciplinary problems were substantially lower. However, no savings in staffing levels were noted, nor were there differences in job satisfaction for staff in the new generation jail. We discuss the implications of the findings and suggest additional directions for jail evaluations.

Violent crime in Russia and the United States: 1990–1996

In spite of significant press attention to the dimensions of the crime problem in Russia during the 1990s, the scholarly literature on crime in Russia remains limited. In an attempt to address this limitation, this paper examines trends in violent crime in Russia during the period 1990–1996. To place the data in a comparative framework, we also examine data on reported violent crime in the United States during this period. Findings indicate the persistence of dramatically higher homicide rates in Russia, dramatic increases in reported robbery and aggravated assault rates, yet declines in rape rates. With the exception of homicide, violent crime rates remained below those in the U.S. We discuss implications of the findings and suggest additional research.

Punishing Juvenile Offenders in Russia

The current literature onjuvenilejustice in Russia is limited and tends to focus on the former Soviet Union. Using newly transled data we exunine the police and cowt dispositions ofjuveniles tested forseriousoffenses in Russiaduringthe period 1990-1999. Thetotal crime rate forjuveniles increased dramatically during this period, as did rests and convictions. Mostjuveniles were arested for theft. There was, however, a unexplained ptn of significantly lower rests and convictions for rape. About half of serious juvenile offenders arrested dwing this period were convicted of some offense. More than half ofthose who were convicted were sentenced to some form of incacton. The use of certain punishments, such as confnement to labor colonies, as well as the use of amnesties, declined during this period. We discuss implications of the findings and suggest additional research.

Teaching Sociology Graduate Students to Teach with Techology

In light of the increasing emphasis on the use of instructional technology in higher education, sociology graduate students need to become conversant with instructional technology and its pedagogical implications. Yet, the literature on graduate instructor training has almost completely neglected this issue. This paper directly addresses this important pedagogical issue. After a discussion of the benefits of instructional technology training, we describe how to integrate training in instructional technology into graduate training programs in sociology. Our discussion offers specific suggestions for incorporating instructional technology training throughout the instructor training process. Our recommendations focus on helping graduate students employ effectively instructional technology and to become conversant with its pedagogical implications.

Review of crime and the internet by David S. Wall. Routledge 2001

The title of this book is somewhat misleading. A reader might get the impression that the thrust of this collection of articles is social theory or philosophy, but this is not the case. Duncan Langford follows a trend that, in my opinion, began a decidedly pragmatic redirection of the discussion about computers. The heady discussions of the epistemological implications of artificial intelligence, for example, have been replaced by more concrete assessments about how to implement computer networks. Systems analysis has been substituted for philosophical debates about epistemological paradigms or appropriate models of language. Frankly, not much of the information that is provided in this text is consistent with my understanding of ethics. Topics such as privacy, security, maintaining the integrity of data, and legal questions are examined. With one exception, no serious philosophical analysis is undertaken. This book begins with a somewhat detailed portrayal of how the Internet was initially conceived and developed. This chapter is interesting and informative. Following this presentation, the reader is offered a series of chapters on standard issues related to protecting the information that is stored in or transmitted by a computer system. These themes constitute the traditional moral side of computerization and relate to topics such as the confidentiality or misuse of patient records or other databases. Of course, because a lot of personal data now are available on the Internet, this issue has become very important to most people. After all, who wants their VISA number in the hands of thieves! The only chapter that tries to deal in a sophisticated manner with ethics is the one by Jeroen van den Hoven. He identifies various technical and procedural problems linked to the Internet and attempts to relate them to philosophical principles and theories. He cites philosophers and their works, and he places the ethical problems posed by computers in a proper philosophical context. Throughout the remainder of this book, however, philosophers and their writings are mentioned only in passing. Ethics is thus treated as more of a technical issue than one pertaining to philosophy. But in the so-called Age of Technology, what more can be expected? At least since the writing of Jacques Ellul, persons should understand how technological thinking is able to dominate other modes of thought. In fact, notes Ellul, philosophy is especially disruptive to technology. Therefore, a significant amount of distance must be kept between these two approaches to conceptualizing behavior and events. This differentiation between philosophy and technology is maintained throughout almost all of this book. In philosophical circles, nonetheless, crucial issues have been posed that should have been given serious attention. For example, the impact of computers on the design of work is important, particularly in relation to workplace cooperation. What about the importance of hypertext for generating alternative strategies for reading? With respect to globalization, how will widespread computerization alter Third World societies? There is a chapter in this

Crime and punishment in Russia and the United States: 1990–1998

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, dramatic sociopolitical changes have affected the ability of the Russian criminal justice system to effectively process violent crimes. This paper compares the police and court processing of selected violent crimes in Russia and the United States during the period 1990–1998. Using data from the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs and the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, we examine the disposition of homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault (i.e., serious bodily injury) cases in both countries during this period. Our findings indicate that while arrests and rates of homicide, robbery and aggravated assault decreased in the U.S. during this period, they increased in Russia. On the other hand, rape rates and arrests decreased in both countries during this period. Conviction rates as well as the percentage of defendants sentenced to prison in Russia were both higher than in the U.S. for each of the offenses studied during this period. We discuss implications of the findings and suggest additional research.

Book Review: Two Reviews of Times of the Technoculture: From the Information Society to the Virtual Life

Popular journals and media are filled with testimonials to the wonders of new technology. The commercial media, business leaders, and other opinion makers regularly extol the benefits of every new advance in technology. We are told that computers, the Internet, and information technology will help the American economy become more competitive, and that the parade of new inventions will open up endless new possibilities for recreation, communication, and new forms of community in the digital age. We are told that technology will help solve our most pressing problems, create new solutions to long-standing social ills, and that, indeed, all problems are fundamentally technical ones.Times of the Technoculture is a timely rejoinder to these assertions. The work is an important and challenging critical overview of a number of themes concerning technological change. Centrally, the authors are concerned with tracing the evolution of changes in technology and examining a number of themes related to the public and intellectual discourse about technology and technological change. They do this from a political, social, and historical standpoint. Their analysis is grounded in a critique of the political economy of technology and its ties to advanced monopoly capitalism. There are several pivotal points to their argument. The first concerns the notion of technological change itself. Robins and Webster argue that technological change is popularly presented as a natural and normal part of reality. Change, then, is to be expected as unstoppable, and has to be accommodated. People tend to confuse the notion of technological changewith that of progress and development itself. Critics of technological change are dismissed as at best pessimists and at worst enemies of the natural order of things. However, the authors argue that if we want to understand the nature and significance of technological change, we must situate it in a historical, social, and economic context. They argue that the social and economic origins of technology are often poorly understood, even obscured. They suggest that technology tends to be seen as divorced from its historical, cultural, and economic context. We learn not to see scientific and technological development as social but as asocial. Through this mystification of the nature and origins of technology, we fail to grasp the instances in which technology is shaped to serve the entrenched interests of the powerful. Second, the authors insist that we can better understand the social impact of technological changes if we situate them within the historical context of the mobilization and organization of labor and society by capitalism. Drawing on Gaudemar’s and Giddens’s analyses of capitalism and modernity, the authors insist that we must view technological change within the lengthy process of the mobilization of society and labor. In an enlightening discussion, Robins and Webster present a historical overview of technological change that traces the origins of the present “information revolution” to the use of scientific management in the early part of the 20th century. They argue that technology is being used to aid in the extension of this process beyond the factory into the very restructuring of society itself. Robins and Webster view technology as serving to help restructure the larger social world to increase the visibility of transactions and to aid in the information management needs of corporate capital

Crime and punishment in the soviet union and the united states: 1986–19901

A relatively recent development in the comparative criminology literature concerns cross‐national comparisons of criminal sentencing practices (e.g., Lynch, 1993). While there are now several studies comparing sentencing practices and lengths, there is a particular shortage of studies that examine the disposition of serious criminal cases through several stages of the criminal justice process. Specifically, there is a shortage of information concerning this issue in Russia and the former Soviet Union. To address this limitation, we present data on the police and court disposition of violent criminal cases in the former Soviet Union during the period of 1986 to 1990. For comparative purposes, comparable data from recent studies of criminal case dispositions in the United States are presented. Implications of the findings are discussed.