How Big Data can save America's out of control criminal justice policies

Criminal justice policy in the US is out of control and needs fixing, argues Daniel P. Mears. He writes that many policies designed to tackle crime lack an evidence base, and combine with punishment-based responses to create what he terms a 'cycle of dysfunction.' In the current era of Big Data, he calls for a move away from 'correctional quackery' towards a criminal justice and correctional policy that is informed by data and analytics

Children’s life chances are hurt when their parents are sent to prison

When criminals go to prison, society hopefully benefits. These individuals, for example, ideally are less likely to commit new crimes. What, though, if incarceration harms the children of those who we send to prison? Daniel P. Mears and Sonja E. Siennick set out to answer that question and found that the concern is far from hypothetical. Children of incarcerated parents are more likely to go on to engage in criminal behavior, have mental health problems, use illegal drugs, and fare worse in their educational achievement, earnings, and intimate relationships

Will Churches Respond to the Call? Religion, Civic Responsibility, and Social Service

Despite national calls for churches to become more involved in social service, many churches may not be willing or able to respond. Drawing on sociological theory, previous research, and interviews with pastors and parish social ministers from Catholic congregations in a large, urban city in Texas, we examine key factors linked to church-based social service efforts. Particulara ttention is given to church leadership,r ace/ethnicity,o rganizational characteristics, social and political networks, and the intersection of these factors in affecting service provision and advocacy. We then discuss the likely impacts of policies calling for religious organizations to increase their social service activities

Population-level linkages between urban greenspace and health inequality : the case for using multiple indicators of neighbourhood greenspace

Exposure to greenspace in urban environments is associated with a range of improved health and well-being outcomes. There is a need to understand which aspects of greenspace influence which components of health. We investigate the relationship of indicators of greenspace quantity (total and specific types of greenspace), accessibility and quality with poor general health, depression, and severe mental illness, in the city of Sheffield, UK. We find complex relationships with multiple greenspace indicators that are different for each health measure, highlighting a need for future studies to include multiple, nuanced indicators of neighbourhood greenspace in order to produce results that can inform planning and policy guidance

We are still largely in the dark as to whether incarceration reduces recidivism

One of the aims of prison is to reduce recidivism. Daniel P. Mears, Joshua C. Cochran, and Francis T. Cullen find, however, that research tells us little about the effects of prison on offending. They argue that if we want more effective punishment policy, we need better research on the conditions under which incarceration reduces recidivism or achieves other goals

Modeling the power flow in normal conductor-insulator-superconductor junctions

Normal conductor-insulator-superconductor (NIS) junctions promise to be interesting for x-ray and phonon sensing applications, in particular due to the expected self-cooling of the N electrode by the tunneling current. Such cooling would enable the operation of the active element of the sensor below the cryostat temperature and at a correspondingly higher sensitivity. It would also allow the use of MS junctions as microcoolers. At present, this cooling has not been realized in large area junctions (suitable for a number of detector applications). In this article, we discuss a detailed modeling of the heat flow in such junctions; we show how the heat flow into the normal electrode by quasiparticle back-tunneling and phonon absorption from quasiparticle pair recombination can overcompensate the cooling power. This provides a microscopic explanation of the self-heating effects we observe in our large area NIS junctions. The model suggests a number of possible solutions

Measuring urban greenspace distribution equity : the importance of appropriate methodological approaches

Urban greenspace can provide physical and mental health benefits to residents, potentially reducing health inequalities associated with socioeconomic deprivation. The distribution of urban greenspace is an important social justice issue, and consequently is increasingly studied. However, there is little consistency between studies in terms of methods and definitions. There is no consensus on what comprises the most appropriate geographic units of analysis or how to capture residents’ experience of their neighbourhood, leading to the possibility of bias. Several complementary aspects of distribution equity have been defined, yet few studies investigate more than one of these. There are also alternative methods for measuring each aspect of distribution. All of these can lead to conflicting conclusions, which we demonstrate by calculating three aspects of equity for two units of aggregation and three neighbourhood sizes for a single study area. We make several methodological recommendations, including taking steps to capture the relevant neighbourhood as experienced by residents accurately as possible, and suggest that using small-area aggregations may not result in unacceptable levels of information loss. However, a consideration of the local context is critical both in interpreting individual studies and understanding differing results

Recidivism and Time Served in Prison

A justification for lengthier stays in prison stems from the belief that spending more time in prison reduces recidivism. Extant studies, however, have provided limited evidence for that belief and, indeed, suggest the effect of time served may be minimal. Few studies have employed rigorous methodological approaches, examined time spans of more than one to two years, or investigated the potential for the relationship between recidivism and time served to be curvilinear. Drawing on prior scholarship, this paper identifies three sets of hypotheses about the functional form of the time served and recidivism relationship. Using generalized propensity score analysis to examine data on 90,423 inmates released from Florida prisons, we find three patterns: greater time served initially increases recidivism but then, after approximately one year, decreases it, and, after approximately two years, exerts no effect; estimation of the effects associated with durations of more than five years are uncertain. The results point to potential criminogenic and beneficial effects of time served and underscore the need to identify how varying durations of incarceration affect recidivism