The ecology of race and punishment across cities

In an era of mass incarceration in the United States, neighborhood context plays a significant role in demographic patterns of imprisonment. This paper examines the preprison neighborhood environment of racial and ethnic groups within the Massachusetts prison admission population. The data include over 12,000 prison records of individuals sentenced to state prison for a criminal offense between 2009 and 2014. Findings indicate significant spatial variation across racial groups: The most disadvantaged preprison neighborhoods exist in small cities outside of Boston. Whites and Hispanics who enter prison from small cities, suburbs, and rural towns in Massachusetts lived in significantly more concentrated disadvantage than their counterparts in Boston. However, black men and women coming from Boston and small cities lived in the greatest concentrated disadvantage among the black admission population. Black‐ and Hispanic‐incarcerated people lived in significantly higher levels of concentrated disadvantage as compared to the average neighborhood of white‐incarcerated people. Results indicate that the prison population is drawn from a diverse set of communities, and suggest that an understanding of the full picture of differences in neighborhood context may play an important role in understanding community‐level conditions of mass incarceration and inform interventions aimed at ameliorating the community‐level impacts of imprisonment.Accepted manuscrip

Place after prison: neighborhood attachment and attainment during reentry

Over 600,000 people leave prison and become residents of neighborhoods across the United States annually. Using a longitudinal survey of people returning to Greater Boston, this study examines disparities in neighborhood attainment after prison. Accounting for levels of pre-prison neighborhood disadvantage, Black and Hispanic respondents moved into significantly more disadvantaged areas than whites. Forty percent of respondents initially moved to only one of two Boston community areas. Housing is an important neighborhood sorting mechanism: living in concentrated disadvantage was more likely for those residing in household arrangements with family or friends, or in emergency or transitional housing. Significantly, neighborhood residence was not attained by all: a quarter of respondents left prison and entered formal institutional settings or lived in extreme social marginality throughout Boston. Housing insecurity, re-incarceration, and profound racial disparities in neighborhood context explain the ecological structure of social inequality in urban neighborhoods in an era of mass incarceration.Accepted manuscrip

Solitary confinement and the U.S. prison boom

Solitary confinement is a harsh form custody involving isolation from the general prison population and highly restricted access to visitation and programs. Using detailed prison records covering 30 years of practices in Kansas (1985–2014), we find solitary confinement is a normal event during imprisonment: 38 percent of whites and 46 percent of blacks experienced solitary confinement during their prison term. Long stays in solitary confinement were rare in the late 1980s with no detectable racial disparities, but a sharp increase in capacity after a new prison opening began an era of long-term isolation that most heavily impacted black young adults. A decomposition analysis indicates the increase in the length of stay in solitary confinement almost entirely explains the growth in the proportion of people held in solitary confinement. Our results provide new evidence of increasingly punitive prison conditions and previously unmeasured forms of inequality during the prison boom.Accepted manuscrip

Drug use in the year after prison

With poor health and widespread drug problems in the U.S. prison population, post-prison drug use provides an important measure of both public health and social integration following incarceration. We study the correlates of drug use with data from the Boston Reentry Study (BRS), a survey of men and women interviewed four times over the year after prison release. The BRS data allow an analysis of legal and illegal drug use, and the correlation between them. We find that illegal drug use is associated with histories of drug problems and childhood trauma. Use of medications is associated with poor physical health and a history of mental illness. Legal and illegal drug use are not strongly correlated. Results suggest that in a Medicaid expansion state where health coverage is widely provided to people leaving prison, formerly-incarcerated men and women use medications, not illegal drugs, to address their health needs.Accepted manuscrip

BOHMs AWAY! Lessons from a Collection Survey

VCU James Branch Cabell Library underwent a major renovation and expansion from 2014 to 2016, necessitating a move of all special collections and archives materials. After the move we surveyed our collections to help us regain intellectual and physical control. In addition, the survey allowed us to assess whether collections were in need of additional processing or reprocessing to make them more accessible physically and intellectually, identify special formats, and address conservation issues. To conduct the survey, we created a form and used this in conjunction with the assessment tool in Archivists’ Toolkit. The form included checklists to note information such as material formats other than paper, specific condition and preservation issues, as well as a general notes field. For brevity and consistency, we created a list of abbreviations to use. Collections were ranked using an agreed upon set of criteria in multiple categories. The rankings have helped determine which collections are in most need of attention. During the course of the survey we discovered that not all collections were processed equally, meaning that they didn’t always conform to best practices and standards. This poster will expand upon what we learned and what we’re doing with the information we obtained

National Nanomanufacturing Network Events 2011

Nanoinformatics 2011 brought together informatics experts, nanotechnology researchers, and other stakeholders and potential contributors to advance Nanoinformatics 2020 Roadmap goals. The workshop will set a clear path for Nanoinformatics participants through the presentation of projects and research, open discussions, and strategic planning sessions. The Nanomanufacturing Summit 2011 – showcased emerging areas of nanomanufacturing and commercialization of nanotechnology-enabled products by leaders in the field of nanomanufacturing

Fatally Injured Pedestrians and Bicyclists in the United States with High Blood Alcohol Concentrations

More than one-third of pedestrians and one-fifth of bicyclists killed in crashes in 2014 were impaired by alcohol, but scant attention has been paid to the problem. This omission contrasts starkly with the many successful policies that have reduced impaired driving, a new Institute study notes.The study looked at fatalities of passenger vehicle drivers, pedestrians and bicyclists 16 and older from 1982 to 2014. Using a federal database, IIHS researchers looked at the characteristics of those crashes and trends over time. They found that the percentage of fatally injured pedestrians and bicyclists 16 and older who were impaired has fallen over the decades, but not as dramatically as the percentage of impaired drivers

Bioconversion of Napier Grass Mixed with Soybean Curd Residue Producing Bioethanol through Simultaneous Saccharification and Fermentation in a Solid State Culture

Napier grass is a promising lignocellulosic biomass for bioethanol production because of its high cellulose content and high annual productivity. Converting a lignocellulosic biomass into a bioethanol usually takes two steps which resulted in a long processing time and sometimes includes the utilization of hazardous chemicals. Simultaneous saccharification and fermentation in a solid-state culture using single bioconversion agent, Neurospora sitophila Shear, can reduce the overall processing time and also increase the yield of the products. The research is aimed to determine the optimum aerobic and micro-aerobic conditions that yields the highest enzyme activity and bioethanol concentration from the mixture of Napier grass and soybean curd residue. The saccharification and fermentation process was conducted in the laboratory using an incubator at 33oC. The cellulase enzyme activity was calculated as FPAse. The highest activity achieved was 0.538 filter paper unit with the optimum mass ratio of Napier grass to soybean curd residue was 1:1 on the second day of cultivation period. The fermentation process was conducted aerobically for two days and then followed by six days of micro-aerobic fermentation, resulting in the highest bioethanol yield of 2.12% (w/w) at the end of the culture period. The optimum mass ratio was found to be 9:1. This study shows that Napier grass and simultaneous saccharification and fermentation method has a great potential for cellulase and bioethanol production, but further improvement on the micro-aerobic system is needed to maximize the bioethanol yield