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Report and Comprehensive Evaluation of the Previously incarcerated Peoples Forum (DCPI Research Link)Association of Previously Incarcerated PeoplesThis report serves as a first step in recognizing successful (PIP) citizens as assets and individuals that accorded the opportunity, support and necessary resources are adequately capable of addressing the issues related to incarceration, reentry, transition and corresponding challenges from their own unique perspective. Unlike the typical forums, summits and conferences focused on incarceration and reentry, where non (PIP) individuals plan, coordinate, facilitate and evaluate the processes minimizing the essential and unique perspective from (PIP) members; this historically unique forum in the District of Columbia established a timely paradigm shift reflective of greatly needed inclusiveness of members from (PIP).
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| Published by: Court Service and Offender Supervision Agency (CSOSA) |
| Publication Year: 2005 | Availability: HTML |
Measuring Local Institutions and Organizations: The Role of Community Institutional Capacity in Social Capital (DCPI Research Link)Caterina Gouvis Roman, Gretchen E. MooreThe intent of the Urban Institute's study is to articulate and measure how local organizations are linked to neighborhood well-being and social capital. Researchers in various disciplines studying poverty and social exclusion have been increasingly interested in articulating and measuring the positive features of communities associated with reductions in adverse outcomes. Social capital has been the term used to capture these positive or pro-social features of communities. There are varying definitions of social capital provided by theorists (Coleman 1990; Bourdieu, 1986; Putnam, 1993), but generally, social capital refers to the activation of actual or potential resources embodied in communities stemming from a durable network of relationships or structures of social organization.
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| Published by: The Urban Institute |
| Publication Year: 2004 | Availability: HTML |
From One Generation to the Next: How Criminal Sanctions are Reshaping Family Life in Urban America (DCPI Research Link)Donald Braman, Jenifer WoodThis examination of the problems families face when a young father is incarcerated shows that the material and social lives of families are significantly changed. Family income and social support for children diminishes, and the family must develop mechanisms for coping with their changed economic and social status. The stories of families with an incarcerated father demonstrate how their material welfare, structure, and mental health have been detrimentally affected by the incarceration, with particularly significant consequences for the children. These problems are not immediately or even necessarily remedied when the incarcerated father returns home after release. Family members, the structure of the family, and the returning father have been changed significantly by the incarceration, so the reunion is a period of adjustment whose outcome depends on many factors. Following reentry, many ex-inmates are not prepared to assume the role of a financial provider, caregiver, and relationship partner. They must not only find a place in the community through employment and law-abiding behavior, they must also adjust to changes in the attitudes and behaviors of family members, notably their children. Generally, the mass incarceration of young fathers is distorting family life and undermining the welfare of children in many minority and low-income communities. As family life is undermined in inner cities, poor and minority families increasingly reflect the stereotypes that have informed the criminal justice policies that have imprisoned so many young men and women. Criminogenic conditions fostered in families and communities by massive incarcerations perpetuate the very conditions that spawn young criminals. When incarceration is a necessary response to crimes committed, prison regimes should provide drug treatment, parenting classes, job training, and prerelease programs that prepare inmates for positive adjustment in the community. Until the time when corrections policie
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| Published by: From Prisoners Once Removed: The Impact of Incarceration and Reentry on Children, Families, and Communities (2003) Jeremy Travis and Michelle Waul, eds. Urban Institute Press |
| Publication Year: 2003 | Availability: HTML |
Families and Incarceration (DCPI Research Link)Donald BramanNearly 1 out of every 10 adult Black men in the District of Columbia is in prison. This dissertation asserts that the effects of incarceration have a profoundly negative effect on the families of offenders. Following a discussion of the ways in which incarceration, poverty, and crime affect individuals in the District of Columbia and throughout the Nation, the paper summarizes several case studies of families of incarcerated individuals, indicating that incarceration has expanded to affect a sizeable majority of families in the District, including many middle class and suburban families. Addressing the social economies and the social costs of incarceration, the author indicates that incarceration has rippling effects on the economy of a household and on the reciprocal exchange networks of a family. Specifically, incarceration leads to a loss of income and childcare, increased legal costs, and increased telephone expenses. In terms of kinship issues, the author suggests that incarceration exacerbates the already chaotic nature of life for families in the inner city because of the extreme social stigmas of criminality associated with incarceration. Additionally, the restructuring of households necessitated by incarceration affects gender ratios through the absence of the male father figure. The author indicates that in many ways the use of incarceration has missed its mark, instead injuring the families of the incarcerated as much, if not more, than the incarcerated individual himself. Furthermore, the author suggests that a vast social silence surrounds families of incarcerated individuals adding additional injury to incarcerated individuals and their families. An appendix presenting the methodology and data sources used in this study completes this dissertation.
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| Published by: Yale University |
| Publication Year: 2002 | Availability: HTML |
Perceptions of Crime Seriousness in Eight African-American Communities: The Influence of Individual, Environmental, and Crime-based Factors (DCPI Research Link)Brenda L. Vogel, James W. MeekerThe neighborhoods were stratified by crime rate and income level. The research used the literature exploring perception formation and attitudes toward crime seriousness to develop the hypothesis that individual-level variables, community-level variables, experiential variables, and the motive for the crime will influence participants’ perceptions of crime seriousness. The study reanalyzed data from a 1981 research project focusing on race and crime. That study asked participants to rate the seriousness of six hypothetical crime scenarios. These involved embezzlement, arson, armed robbery, purchasing stolen goods, prostitution, and a black male’s killing of a police officer who used racial slurs and threatened to kill the black male. Results of six multiple regression models suggested that gender, age, community crime rate, city of residence, religiosity, and fear of crime significantly influenced participants attitudes toward crime. Young men living in high-crime communities who were not religious and did not fear crime were most likely to justify the actions of the offenders depicted in the scenarios by regarding their crimes as less serious, regardless of the type of crime or the motive. Findings suggested that tolerance or justification of criminal activity depends partly on the degree to which an individual can identify with the perpetrator. Findings challenged the assumption that considerable consensus exists regarding perceptions of crime seriousness. Tables, footnotes, and 64 references.
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| Published by: Justice Quarterly 18.2:301-321 |
| Publication Year: 2001 | Availability: HTML |
Summary of Focus Group with Ex-Prisoners in the District: Ingredients for Successful Reintegration (DCPI Research Link)Amy L. Solomon, Caterina Gouvis Roman, Michelle WaulIn October 2001, the Urban Institute and the Alliance of Concerned Men conducted a focus group with individuals who had successfully made the transition from prison to the community. The goal of the focus group was to explore "ingredients for success" as perceived by the focus group participants, and to seek their advice as to ways that the District of Columbia government and non-profit agencies could better support reentry and reintegration for prisoners returning to the District.
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| Published by: Urban Institute |
| Publication Year: 2001 | Availability: HTML |
Fear of Crime among an Immigrant Population in the Washington, DC Metropolitan Area (DCPI Research Link)Yaw AckahThe present study is timely given that, like other parts of the country, the immigrant population in the District and its environs (Maryland and Virginia) is rapidly increasing (Bigman, 1990). In addition to the more than 250 robberies committed against immi- grant cab drivers, several other immigrants were slain on thejob in a 5-week period in 1992 (Escobar, 1992; OCJPA, 1992). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now regard murder as an epi- demic. There is little doubt that today's most dangerous and fear- invoking places are urban centers, and DC is a quintessential exam- ple (Lee, 1985; Perry, Hsieh, & Pugh, 1994; Taylor & Hale, 1986; Yin, 1985).The key questions to ask, then, are twofold: Do immigrants in DC fear crime as do the other residents, and can the variables that explain fear in nonimmigrant samples also explain fear in immi- grant populations? These questions are poignant given that the sample's race is disproportionately represented in the statistics on crime victims and those who have fear of crime in the United States (Belyea & Zingraff, 1988; Coston, 1994; Gorden & Riger, 1989; Lewis, 1989).
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| Published by: Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 30, No. 4 (Mar., 2000), pp. 553-573 |
| Publication Year: 2000 | Availability: HTML |
White, black, or blue cops? Race and citizen assessments of police officers (DCPI Research Link)Ronald WeitzerContemporary public policy presupposes that police officers should be racially representative of the areas in which they work in order to foster good police-community relations. This article examines citizen assessments of Black and White officers and preferences regarding the kind of officers they want assigned to their neighborhoods. In-depth interviews were conducted with 169 residents of three neighborhoods in Washington, DC. The findings suggest that neighborhood context influences residents' views on the behavior of White and Black officers; that African Americans' evaluations of White and Black officers often challenge the conventional wisdom; and that there is considerable support for a policy of deploying racially integrated teams of officers in Black neighborhoods.
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| Published by: Journal of Criminal Justice, Volume 28, Issue 4, July-August 2000, Pages 313-324 |
| Publication Year: 2000 | Availability: HTML |
Violence in the District of Columbia Patterns from 1999 (DCPI Research Link)Caterina Gouvis Roman, Calvin Johnson, Amy L. SolomonViolent crime continues to be a major concern in the District of Columbia. In 1999, the District recorded 14,871 violent incidents against 16,372 victims. Nearly 12,000 individuals were assaulted and almost 4,000 robbed. To inform efforts to reduce violence in the city, the Mayor’s Office and the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council (CJCC) convened a small “data team” in mid-July, 2000. Composed of representatives from the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia (MPDC), the Urban Institute, the Mayor’s Office, and the CJCC, the team was charged with analyzing violent incidents in the city by identifying trends and patterns that characterize violent incidents, victims, and offenders. The team focused on a small number of straightforward yet important questions:
- What types of violent incidents occur most frequently? Who is impacted most by the violence? Who is most at-risk for being victimized, and who is
committing the offenses?
- Where is the violence occurring? Which neighborhoods and Police Service Areas are disproportionately affected by violence?
- When do the violent incidents occur? At what time of day? On what days of the week?
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| Published by: The Urban Institute |
| Publication Year: 2000 | Availability: HTML |
Comparing the Impact of Standard and Abbreviated Treatment in a Therapeutic Community, Findings from the District of Columbia Treatment Initiative Experiment (DCPI Research Link)S Nemes, ED Wish, N MessinaThis study examines the efficacy of providing Enhanced Abbreviated or Standard Inpatient treatment and Outpatient treatment to drug-abusing clients. The experiment randomly assigned 412 clients to two therapeutic community programs, which differed primarily in planned duration. This study addressed limitations of prior research, as it used random assignment of clients to treatment programs, achieved high follow-up rates and used objective measures of drug use and criminal history. Self-reports and objective measures of criminal activity and substance abuse were collected at pre- and posttreatment interviews. Completing the entire 12-month program (inpatient and outpatient) was more important than duration of inpatient program attended. Regardless of program, completers had substantial reductions in posttreatment drug abuse and arrests. A 12-month course of treatment including at least 6 months in a therapeutic community followed by outpatient treatment can produce marked reductions in drug abuse and crime among persons who complete both phases.
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| Published by: Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, Volume 17, Issue 4, Pages 339-347 |
| Publication Year: 1999 | Availability: HTML |
