Mindy S. Bradley

Girlfriends, Wives, and Strippers: Managing Stigma in Exotic Dancer Romantic Relationships

When romantically involved, exotic dancers must not only manage the negative image of their occupations, but also negotiate conventional relationship norms, including exclusive sexual access. This study investigates the process of partnering among exotic dancers. Interviews with 37 female dancers and 19 male partners reveal that these couples face particular challenges as dancers attempt to balance the expectations of their partners with the demands of their profession. Some of this stress is related to differences in role-taking behaviors, or the inability of male partners to take the perspective of workers. Furthermore, this study explores how women manage the “deviant” label of dancing. Specifically, although dancers often defend their occupation, many ultimately succumb to stigmatization, accepting shame and ridicule. Others manage relationship and job expectations by altering their selection of partners to avoid stigmatization.

Organizational climate, work stress, and depressive symptoms among probation and parole officers

While work environment and stress are important factors for mental health, no studies have assessed whether these factors contribute independently to the psychological well-being of probation and parole officers (PPOs). Using statewide survey data from 825 PPOs, we examine the association between depressive symptoms, work stress, and work environment (using the organizational climate measures of role ambiguity, role conflict, role overload and emotional exhaustion/burnout). Findings indicate that organizational climate and work stress are important predictors of emotional exhaustion/burnout, and that these factors have both indirect and independent associations with depressive symptomotology. Together, models including organizational climate and work stress account for two-thirds of the variability in burnout. Moreover, models incorporating exhaustion/burnout, work stress, and organizational climate account for nearly half of the variability in depressive symptoms. Organization climate measures and work stress contribute to depressive symptoms through their effect on emotional exhaustion/burnout. In addition, emotional exhaustion/burnout, role conflict, and work stress are all directly linked to levels of depressive symptoms. This study demonstrates that organizational climate and work stress contribute substantially to the well-being of PPOs and reveals the potential mental health consequences of working in community corrections.

Race discourse and the US Confederate Flag

Research reveals that racial hierarchies and ‘color‐blind’ racism is maintained through discourse. The current study utilizes exploratory data from focus groups in a predominantly white southern university in the United States to examine race talk, the Confederate Flag, and the construction of southern white identity. Drawing from critical discourse analysis, we answer the following questions: first, to what extent do discursive strategies surrounding the Confederate Flag reflect more subtle forms of racism? Second, what does discourse surrounding use of the Confederate Flag reveal about the construction of southern white identity? Findings reveal that whiteness remains largely an ‘unmarked’ category as demonstrated via discursive strategies (downplaying and defensive diversions versus race competence). Educators, especially in the American south, may benefit from examinations of controversies over the US Confederate Flag in order to challenge racism in the classroom.

Leaving Prison A Multilevel Investigation of Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Disproportionality in Correctional Release

Although the vast majority of people sent to prisons will eventually be released, we know relatively little about factors affecting correctional release. This study considers the roles of race, ethnicity, and gender in correctional release. Incorporating state-level predictors, including violent crime rates and sentencing policies, we examine variation in length of time served and the proportion of sentence incarcerated across demographics. Using National Corrections Reporting Program (NCRP) data, we determine the extent to which differences in time and proportion of sentence served is attributable to demographic and offending differences, as well as difference in sentencing and conditional release. Identifying race, ethnic, and gender disparities subsequent to court-ordered sentencing decisions has important implications for our understanding of justice and the salience of legal and extralegal factors across multiple phases of punishment.

Deviance and Social Control in an Alternative Community: The Unique Case of the Rainbow Family of Living Light

This article employs ethnographic fieldwork and interviews to examine social control and redefined deviance in a utopian countercultural group, The Rainbow Family of Living Light, to answer the question of how socially marginalized groups create and maintain collective identity. Working within a symbolic interactionist paradigm, and drawing on theoretical perspectives on reintegrative shaming, the authors examine the experiences of Rainbow Gatherers during a national gathering in the summer of 2010. Through interviews and observations, we illustrate how Rainbow Gatherers redefine deviance, use covert informal social control, create new definitions of proscribed behavior, and construct an internal hierarchical structure. We note a key paradox, in that although the very existence of a hierarchy and rules runs counter to their stated ideology, participants nonetheless acknowledge, observe, and culturally transmit rules and social norms. To navigate this paradox, Gatherers frame control within a familial reintegrative shaming paradigm, exerting covert informal social control within a milieu of family, peace, and cooperation. By drawing on members’ sense of collective harmony, belonging, and family (including often using sibling references), Gatherers can both foster integrations and reaffirm power-symmetry, and thus foster “appropriate” behavior in non-authoritarian ways. This framework allows them to simultaneously control the behaviors of their participants while maintaining their collective anti-control ideology. Findings show that the use of covert informal social control fosters collective identity in the group.

Religion, Age, and Crime: Do Religious Traditions Differentially Impact Juvenile Versus Adult Violence?

A growing body of empirical research demonstrates that the relative presence of religious adherents at the community-level has important relationships with rates of crime and violence. Less understood is how adherence to specific religious traditions (e.g., evangelical Protestant, Catholic, mainline Protestant) is associated with rates of crime, especially across particular age groups toward which religious traditions devote varying degrees of structural and cultural resources. Using data from the Religious Congregations and Membership Survey and age-specific arrest data from the Uniform Crime Reporting program in 2010, the current study finds that the impact of religious adherence on crime varies by religious tradition and across juvenile versus adult crime. Specifically, evangelical Protestant adherence is negatively associated with juvenile but not adult violence, while Catholic adherence is associated with reduced adult but not juvenile violence, net of controls. Implications for research on religious contexts and crime, as well as policy, are discussed.

SYMBOLIZING HATE: THE EXTENT AND INFLUENCE OF ORGANIZED HATE GROUP INDICATORS

ABSTRACT How active and violent are organized hate groups? Recent media coverage and research address hate activity as a “rising tide” of epidemic violence; such depictions perpetuate the public image of highly active hate groups with violent agendas. The current study confronts the complexity of hate activity, specifically comparing the characteristics of bias-related incidents with organized hate group affiliation to those without such affiliation. Moreover, this study investigates potential variation in responsive action among types of hate victimizations. Results indicate that hate group involvement is negatively related to incident severity. Additionally, analyses find that the presence of hate group indicators plays a positive and situationally conditioned influence on initiation of police action. The implications of these findings, including their relation to public perceptions of hate activity, are discussed.

Perceptions of Harm, Criminality, and Law Enforcement Response: Comparing Violence by Men Against Women and Violence by Women Against Men

ABSTRACT The authors compare third-party evaluations of male violence against women and female violence against men with regard to perceived injury severity, criminal labeling, and recommending police contact. They determine if victim–offender gender directly influences third-party perceptions of injury, and test whether injury mediates victim–offender gender effects on assessments. Injury perception mediated but could not fully explain differences in labeling. Differences in police contact support remained significant after taking injury perceptions into account. Male and female respondents differed in injury evaluations in acts with male victims or female perpetrators, but not in injury rating of male perpetrator or female victim violence. Findings suggest gender stereotypes directly and indirectly influence third-party observers of violence, shaping assessments of injury and ability or willingness to criminalize violence.

Punishment in Indian Country: Ironies of Federal Punishment of Native Americans

Native Americans are US citizens, but they are also tribal nationals subject to complex and unique criminal jurisdiction arrangements over Indian lands. Tribal nations typically have tribal court jurisdiction over less serious crimes, but for serious crimes the federal justice system often supersedes tribal authority, exposing Native Americans to more severe punishments. In addition, recent federal programs have attempted to foster greater tribal/federal criminal justice coupling. Yet, examinations of criminal punishment of Native Americans are few, and most are outdated and/or of very limited generalizability. We examine the punishment of Native American defendants in federal court, focusing on 28 federal districts with substantial Indian presence. Using recent US Sentencing Commission data, as well as contextual data from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and tribal courts, we focus on differences in the federal sentencing of Native American defendants, and how these differences are conditioned by indicators of tribal-federal criminal justice coupling.

Sentencing, Trends, and Disparities: Crime

Many scholars have examined sentencing disparities in efforts to explain why and how these differences occur and untangle the legal and extralegal influences on punishment. This article provides an overview of the common criminological perspectives found in the sentencing literature. We then summarize trends in sentencing research over the last three decades, reviewing much of the empirical research on disparities in the areas of race and ethnicity, gender, and mode of conviction. We conclude with a discussion of some of the gaps and unexplored/underexplored areas in the literature, making suggestions for future research in this field.