Matthew DeMichele

Studying the community corrections field: Applying neo-institutional theories to a hidden element of mass social control

The growth in US incarcerated populations has produced unintended negative consequences for other justice system agencies. The community corrections field is faced with two related problems stemming from prison growth: (1) significant growth in populations under supervision and (2) populations with higher needs for service. I apply a theoretical framework adapted from organizational sociological research to address change and stasis as isomorphic processes. Criminologists rarely situate the community corrections field within broader theoretical perspectives. Instead, correctional researchers have studied the emergence, adjustment, and use of prisons in modern society, with community supervision considered a part of institutional corrections. I argue that contemporary explanations for correction policies need to be refined to account for specific trends within the community corrections field.

Addicted to hate: Identity residual among former white supremacists

The process of leaving deeply meaningful and embodied identities can be experienced as a struggle against addiction, with continuing cognitive, emotional, and physiological responses that are involuntary, unwanted, and triggered by environmental factors. Using data derived from a unique set of in-depth life history interviews with 89 former U.S. white supremacists, as well as theories derived from recent advances in cognitive sociology, we examine how a rejected identity can persist despite a desire to change. Disengagement from white supremacy is characterized by substantial lingering effects that subjects describe as addiction. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of identity residual for understanding how people leave and for theories of the self.

Taking officer time seriously: A study of the daily activities of probation officers

We use a time and motion study to understand how probation officers spend their time. What officers spend their time doing and whom they spend their time with demonstrates a deeper symbolic meaning of how the convicted should be treated, what is believed effective to change behavior, and informs the community about definitions of public safety. Explicitly studying officer time is a neglected area of research. We model a count variable of minutes per task as a function of offender, offense, and task characteristics using zero-truncated negative binomial regressions. Results show that officers spend significantly more time with higher-risk offenders, mixed results regarding domestic violence and sex offenders, and significantly less time with older and black probationers. Our intentions are to delve deeper into how officers spend their time to contribute to the development of an evidence-based model of corrections.

How Emotional Dynamics Maintain and Destroy White Supremacist Groups

In this article, we explore emotions as a relational mechanism that affects the stability of political movement groups by activating or weakening identities, social ties, and movement boundaries. Our goal is to specify the dynamics by which personal emotional experiences are linked to wider group processes. In this way, emotion serves as an analytic bridge, connecting the micro levels to larger social structures. We draw on data from former violent white supremacists to understand the personal/interpersonal (micro) and group (meso) level emotional dynamics in this extremist movement, especially how emotional experiences affect social movement dynamics. We draw on our evidence to build models of how emotional dynamics create trajectories of development and decline in white supremacist group membership. To demonstrate the analytic leverage provided by a focus on emotional dynamics, we then examine three findings from our study that are difficult to explain through more common frameworks of individual cognitive processes or group structure.