William G. Staples

Law and Social Control in Juvenile Justice Dispositions

Taking its cue from Blacks The Behavior of Law, this article tests a number of hypotheses concerning the relationship between legal and nonlegal social control in the juvenile justice system. Data collected on a cohort of youth, randomly sampled from eight California counties, is analyzed using a multivariate modeling technique. The results indicate that the quantity of law afforded to offenders at three juvenile justice processing points is dependent, in part, on the amount of nonlegal social control they are already subject to.

Technology, Control, and the Social Organization of Work at a British Hardware Firm, 1791-1891

This paper examines the social relations of production at a British metal-trades firm throughout the 19th century. The case study reveals the existence of two distinct political apparatuses, or regimes, identified in provious literature, that govern production relations. The first regime, between 1791 and 1867, is described as patriarchal because production is organized around adult, male, internal subcontactors and their families. In the second period, roughly 1868-91, the regime is characterized as paternalistic since it attempts to align the interests of capital and worker through family, work, and community life. The analysis uncovers social and economic forces that undermined the system of internal subcontracting and patriarchy and fostered paternalism. Emerging paternalism shaped the struggles over the introduction of new technologies that formed the basis for the real subordination of labor to capital.

Seen but unseen: part-time faculty and institutional surveillance and control

This article examines surveillance techniques utilized by several metropolitan community colleges to manage part-time faculty. We find that with the increased use of part-time faculty, administrators at these organizations are relying less on direct, personal supervision of these instructors and are instead using more “remote” surveillance practices to certify that “acceptable educational standards” are being maintained. The use of these practices not only signals a decline in the professional status of college instructors, but also points to differences in social control techniques used in “productive” institutions versus those used in “disciplinary” institutions. We find that while surveillance techniques employed at these community colleges make the education process visible and controllable, they simultaneously render part-time faculty invisible but controlled.

Dual-careerism and the conjoint-career couple

This article introduces and defines the concept of conjoint-career couples, marital partners that work in the same field or profession. Drawing on the narratives of three couples with structurally varied experiences (older man/younger woman, older woman/younger man, peers), we describe and analyze some of the problems and issues confronting a growing number of academics in the current labor pool. We conclude by discussing some of the overarching patterns common to this situation and the advantages and disadvantages associated with it. Finally, we propose a variety of social policies which academic institutions may want to consider to help meet the challenge of these changing market demographics.

Technologies of the body, technologies of the self: House arrest as neo-liberal governance

In this chapter, we argue that the practice of electronically monitored “house arrest” is consistent with Foucaults insights into both the workings of “disciplinary power” and “governmentality” and with the self-governing notions of a conservative, neo-liberal ideology, and mentality. Our interpretive analysis of a set of offender narratives identifies a theme we call “transforming the self” that illustrates the ways in which house arrest is experienced by some clients as a set of discourses and practices that encourages them to govern themselves by regulating their own bodies and conduct. These self-governing capabilities include “enterprise,” “autonomy,” and an ethical stance towards their lives.

Fieldwork in Forbidden Terrain: The State, Privatization and Human Subjects Regulations

In this paper we explore the intersection of the modern-state and fieldwork practices within the social sciences. Our contention is that during the past decade or so there has been an expansion in forbidden or restricted research terrain that threatens the present and future conduct of social research. We argue that this restriction has been engendered by two related developments: privatization and human subjects regulations. The social and political implications of these trends are considered.

Restitution as a Sanction in Juvenile Court

Over the past decade, restitution has assumed increasing significance as a sanction both in the juvenile and in the criminal justice system. The purpose of this article is to examine the current trend toward utilizing restitution from a critical and historical perspective. Current restitution policies and practices are placed within the context of three major trends in justice: (1) the individualization of the juvenile court; (2) the growing concern with the victims of crime, and (3) the blurring of traditional distinctions between criminal and tort law. Restitution as a sanction is evaluated in the context of these three developments, and the contemporary form of restitution is compared with its historical predecessors.

Toward a Structural Perspective on Gender Bias in the Juvenile Court

A number of hypotheses about the effect of gender on the likelihood of incarceration in the juvenile court are tested. A purposive sample of 3911 delinquent (nonstatus) offending youths from 19 juristictions throughout the United States is analyzed employing the log-linear technique to control for the legal variables of severity of offense and prior record. The results indicate that females were less likely to be incarcerated than were males throughout the jurisdictions sampled. These and other findings lend support for a structural theory of gender bias in the juvenile court.

“A Strike of Girls”: Gender and Class in the British Metal Trades, 1913

Our intent is to investigate the nature of capitalist patriarchy by writing women workers back into the story of the Black Country Strike. Conventional accounts of this important conflict in the British midlands have depicted the outcome as a “victory for the workpeople,” but such claims have failed to capture how gender hierarchies and cross-class allegiances produced this “victory.” Specifically, we argue that unquestioned assumptions about the subordinate status of women provided the point of agreement around which working-class men, their union, and their employers worked out their (class) differences, resulting in both the preservation of capitalism and the reassertion of male superiority and authority.

“Humane” Immigration Enforcement and Latina Immigrants in the Detention Complex

We explore the criminalization of Latina immigrants through the interwoven network of social control created by law, the justice system, and private corporations—the immigration industrial complex. Considerable scholarly research has focused on understanding the overtly coercive practices of deportation and the consequences for families and communities; less attention has been devoted to the social control mechanisms of detention facilities and “Alternative to Detention Programs” (ATD programs) operating in the United States. We know relatively little about the consequences for immigrant populations, especially of the purported “humane” practices in the enforcement apparatus. Based on existing documents produced by governmental offices, including Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Border Patrol, Government Accountability Office, nonprofit organizations, advocacy groups, and private correctional facilities, we conducted semistructured interviews with 11 immigration lawyers who have access to women who are and/or have been detained, are in supervised ATD programs, are/were in deportation proceedings, or attempt(ed) to claim asylum. An examination of immigration confinement, especially the laws and policy decisions behind the exponential increase in these detentions, reveals important gender dynamics in these practices. The subtle and benevolence-signaling discourse evoking “family,” “motherhood,” and the care of children masks the harsh “business as usual” tactics that treat women and their children in ways indistinguishable from those used in the criminal justice system. We contend that this feminized and infantilized language functions to conceal widespread civil and human rights violations, physical and sexual violence, and mistreatment reproduced by the immigration detention system today.