Ex-Offenders and the Labor Market

We use Bureau of Justice Statistics data to estimate that, in 2008, the United States had between 12 and 14 million ex-offenders of working age. Because a prison record or felony conviction greatly lowers ex-offenders' prospects in the labor market, we estimate that this large population lowered the total male employment rate that year by 1.5 to 1.7 percentage points. In GDP terms, these reductions in employment cost the U.S. economy between $57 and$65 billion in lost output

Towards the ‘Big Society’: What role for neighbourhood working? Evidence from a comparative European study

Under the New Labour government, the neighbourhood emerged prominently as a site for policy interventions and as a space for civic activity, resulting in the widespread establishment of neighbourhood-level structures for decision-making and service delivery. The future existence and utility of these arrangements is now unclear under the Coalition government's Big Society proposals and fiscal austerity measures. On the one hand, sub-local governance structures might be seen as promoting central-to-local and local-to-community devolution of decision-making. On the other, they might be seen as layers of expensive bureaucracy standing in the way of bottom-up community action. Arguably the current value and future role of these structures in facilitating the Big Society will depend on how they are constituted and with what purpose. There are many local variations. In this paper we look at three case studies, in England, France and the Netherlands, to learn how different approaches to neighbourhood working have facilitated and constrained civic participation and action. Drawing on the work of Lowndes and Sullivan (2008) we show how the achievement of civic objectives can be hampered in structures set up primarily to achieve social, economic and political goals, partly because of (remediable) flaws in civic engagement but partly because of the inherent tensions between these objectives in relation to issues of spatial scale and the constitution and function of neighbourhood structures. The purpose of neighbourhood structures needs to be clearly thought through. We also note a distinction between 'invited' and 'popular' spaces for citizen involvement, the latter being created by citizens themselves. 'Invited' spaces have tended to dominate to date, and the Coalition's agenda suggests a fundamental shift to 'popular' spaces. However we conclude that the Big Society will require neighbourhood working to be both invited and popular. Citizen participation cannot always replace local government - sometimes it requires its support and stimulation. The challenge for local authorities is to reconstitute 'invited' spaces (not to abolish them) and at the same time to facilitate 'popular' spaces for neighbourhood working.Big Society, local government, neighbourhood, neighbourhood management, community

The Price We Pay: Economic Costs of Barriers to Employment for Former Prisoners and People Convicted of Felonies

Despite modest declines in recent years, the large and decades-long blossoming of the prison population ensure that it will take many years before the United States sees a corresponding decrease in the number of former prisoners. Using data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), this report estimates that there were between 14 and 15.8 million working-age people with felony convictions in 2014, of whom between 6.1 and 6.9 million were former prisoners

The Relationship Between Demographic Characteristics, Types of Contact with Police, and Perceptions of Police

Police officers play a very important role in their communities, considering they need to interact with the public in order to carry out their duties. For that reason, the relationship between the public and police officers has been the focus of many studies. The current study analyzed data from the 2011 Police-Public Contact Survey (n= 49,246). The study was conducted in three separate parts - the relationship between individual demographic characteristics and type of contact with the police, individual demographic characteristics and perceptions of police, and type of contact with the police and perceptions of the police. The results from this study were consistent with previous findings from studies that used smaller populations, as it was found that women were more likely to have voluntary contact with police than men, non-Hispanics had more voluntary contact with police than those of Hispanic Origin, women reported more positive perceptions of police, there was a positive relationship between age and perception of the police, and those who had voluntary contact had a more positive perception of police officers than those who had involuntary contact

Control of grain size in sublimation-grown CdTe, and the improvement in performance of devices with systematically increased grain size

A method to control the grain size of CdTe thin films deposited by close space sublimation using chamber pressure is demonstrated. Grain diameter is shown to increase in the pressure range 2–200 Torr, following the linear relationship D (?m)=0.027×P (Torr)+0.90. A mechanism is proposed to explain the dominance of the 111 preferred orientation in the small-grained, but not the large-grained films. For a series of CdTe/CdS solar cells in which the only variable was grain size, the performance parameters were seen to increase from 0.54% (0.94 ?m grains) up to a plateau of 11.3% (?3.6 ?m grains). This corresponds to the point at which the series resistance is no longer dominated by grain boundaries, but by the contacts

The High Budgetary Cost of Incarceration

We use Bureau of Justice Statistics data to estimate that, in 2008, the United States had between 12 and 14 million ex-offenders of working age. Because a prison record or felony conviction greatly lowers ex-offenders’ prospects in the labor market, we estimate that this large population lowered the total male employment rate that year by 1.5 to 1.7 percentage points. In GDP terms, these reductions in employment cost the U.S. economy between $57 and$65 billion in lost output.incarceration, ex-offenders, ex-felons, employment, labor, economics, prisoners

Expanded View of Recidivism in Alaska

This article also appeared on pp. 6–8 of the Winter 2018 print edition.This article describes findings on recidivism over an eight-year period for individuals released from Alaska Department of Corrections facilities in 2007. These findings emerged from the Alaska Results First (RF) analysis released by Alaska Justice Information Center (AJiC) in October 2017. In general, the RF findings corroborate previous analyses which examined recidivism patterns one to three years after release, but by following offenders for eight years, AJiC is expanding our understanding of recidivism patterns in Alaska for a large group of offenders, beyond any prior study.Differences among offense-based cohorts / Least likely to recidivate: Sex offenders / Most likely to recidivate: DV [domestic violence] / DUI offenders [driving under the influence] / Felons versus misdemeanants / Conclusion / Reference

The Big Society and the Conjunction of Crises: Justifying Welfare Reform and Undermining Social Housing

The idea of the “Big Society” can be seen as culmination of a long-standing debate about the regulation of welfare. Situating the concept within governance theory, the article considers how the UK coalition government has justified a radical restructuring of welfare provision, and considers its implications for housing provision. Although drawing on earlier modernization processes, the article contends that the genesis for welfare reform was based on an analysis that the government was forced to respond to a unique conjunction of crises: in morality, the state, ideology and economics. The government has therefore embarked upon a programme, which has served to undermine the legitimacy of the social housing sector (most notably in England), with detrimental consequences for residents and raising significant dilemmas for those working in the housing sector

Nanowire and core-shell-structures on flexible Mo Foil for CdTe solar cell applications

CdTe films, nanowires, film-nanowire combinations and CdS-CdTe core-shell structures have been fabricated in a preliminary survey of growth methods that will generate structures for PV applications. Selectivity between film, nanowire and film plus nanowire growth was achieved by varying the pressure of N2 gas present during Au-catalysed VLS growth of CdTe, on either Mo or Si substrates. Metamorphic growth of CdTe nanowires on sputtered CdTe films, deposited on glass substrates, was demonstrated. Coating of CdTe nanowires with CBD CdS gave conformal coverage whereas coating with MOCVD (Cd,Zn)S yielded highly crystallographic dendritic growth on the wires