Laurie A. Gould

Risk and revocation in community corrections: The role of gender:

Actuarial risk assessment instruments have become integral to the functioning of the correctional systems in North America, the United Kingdom, and many other parts of the world. While research on the classification of female offenders has been ongoing since the 1980s, there is still more work to be done. Adding to the growing body of literature, the present study analyses agency records from a Community Supervision Department located in a Southwestern state in the United States. Findings reveal the Wisconsin Risk/Needs Assessment instrument has predictive validity for both male and female probationers. Further, successful completion rates for males and females are found to be similar.

Penality, Power, and Polity: Exploring the Relationship Between Political Repression and Corporal Punishment

Worldwide, the punishment of law violators takes many forms, with some countries relying heavily on incarceration and others favoring a mix of punishments including incarceration, corporal punishment, and the death penalty. Determining why a nation chooses to implement one sanction over another requires an examination of political factors. While some notable research has examined the correlations between incarceration rates, death penalty retention, and various measures of political power and repression, the influence of political factors on punishment needs a fuller explication. Specifically, the use of corporal punishment as a criminal sanction has not been fully examined within the political repression and punishment literature. To address this gap, authors employ a cross-national comparative approach to examine how repressive governments and failing regimes influence the use of corporal punishment by the formal justice system. Findings reveal that more repressive and failing regimes are more likely to use corporal punishment, compared to freer and more sustainable nations.

Exploring the Relationship Between Gender Violence and State Failure A Cross-National Comparison

The concept of state failure has only recently emerged in the political science and legal literature. Although state failure has been used to predict violent conflicts, and all citizens are affected by violence in failed/fragile states, women are especially at risk. Using data from the WomanStats project, this study’s findings reveal that the physical security of women is lower in failed/fragile states compared with more sustainable nations. The characteristics of failed states that increase the likelihood of various forms of violence against women are identified, including high levels of militarization, countries with neighboring states at war, and massive movement of refugees.

The Discipline of Difference: Ethnolinguistic Heterogeneity and Corporal Punishment

The minority threat hypothesis contends that growth in the size of a given minority population along with the ensuing competition for social and political resources will threaten existing social power arrangements. Regarding punishment specifically, the hypothesis states that dominant groups will support coercive measures to keep minority populations sufficiently oppressed. Using the minority threat hypothesis as our theoretical foundation, we posit that the more heterogeneous a population, the more social control will be necessary to maintain societal equilibrium for those in power. In effect a more personal, physical, and visceral response to criminal behavior will be deemed necessary in countries with high levels of fractionalization. This more focused form of social discipline will manifest as corporal punishment. Comparing modalities of punishment against varying population characteristics, we find that countries with higher levels of ethnic, linguistic, and religious fractionalization are more likely to employ corporal punishment against criminal offenders.

Exploring Gender-Based Disparities in Legal Protection, Education, Health, Political Empowerment, and Employment in Failing and Fragile States

Gender inequalities in legal protection, education, health, employment, and political empowerment have been of special interest to researchers for many years. Hausmann, Tyson, and Zahidi (2010, p. 3) noted, “Although gender-based inequalities exist in the majority of the worlds cultures, religions, nations, and income groups, there are differences in the way these disparities manifest themselves and how they evolve over time.” The degree of governmental stability is a salient aspect of the process through which gender-based disparities manifest. Although all citizens are doubtlessly affected when states fail, women are especially marginalized and experience governmental failure in a fundamentally different way compared to their male counterparts. Thus, the goal of the current study is to analyze the relationship between state failure and gender-based disparities. Findings reveal significant relationships between gender disparities in most areas, however the relationship between legal protections and state failure produces the most robust results.

Cheating around the World: A Cross-National Analysis of Principal Reported Cheating

An increasing problem of great concern for academic institutions around the world is the pervasiveness of academic cheating among students. However, there is a dearth of prior research on cheating in cross-national contexts. The present study examines the relationships between structural measures of strain and principals’ reports of problematic cheating in schools across 35 nations, derived from the 2007 Trends in International Math and Science Studies survey. The study employs multilevel logistic regression analysis to evaluate whether indicators of economic disadvantage, educational achievement, and educational inequalities influence the level of problematic cheating reported by school principals cross-nationally. Additionally, we identify which socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of nation-states are most related to perceptions of problematic academic cheating as reported by school principals. The findings indicate that schools with resource shortages, greater levels of economic disadvantage, and those with larger national average grade sizes experience higher levels of problematic cheating.