Journals A-Z
All Subjects
Free Journals
sciepub.com
World Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities
ISSN (Print): 2474-1426 ISSN (Online): 2474-1434 Website: http://www.sciepub.com/journal/wjssh Editor-in-chief: Apply for this position
Open Access
Journal Browser
Go
Issue 3, Volume 7
Article Metrics
  • 768
    Views
  • 1324
    Saves
  • 0
    Citations
  • 0
    Likes
Export Article
World Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities. 2021, 7(3), 106-116
DOI: 10.12691/wjssh-7-3-3
Open AccessArticle

A Proposal for Studying Social Media Sentiments about Corrections in the United States

Kimberley Garth-James1,

1Center for Public Affairs-Sacramento, Azusa Pacific University, California, USA

Pub. Date: August 27, 2021
View Full Text Full Text PDF Full Text ePUB

Cite this paper:
Kimberley Garth-James. A Proposal for Studying Social Media Sentiments about Corrections in the United States. World Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities. 2021; 7(3):106-116. doi: 10.12691/wjssh-7-3-3

Abstract

A qualitative study of 85,000 engagements on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Reddit about corrections reform using the Pulsar social media listening software. Assessing the alignment of social media expressions in forums, and the evidence in the literature materials about re-design thinking of successful reforms to U.S. corrections, reveal a resurgence of discontent that “nothing works” (1970s thinking). There is a disturbing disconnection between the sciences about what does work in rehabilitation—i.e., assessments, treatment, education, and employment—and the understandings in social media discourse. Accordingly, corrections professionals, policymakers, and students need to express informed opinions on social media platforms so that future corrections approaches trade “nothing works” for what has proved to work.

Keywords:
prisons civic engagement social media

Creative CommonsThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

References:

[1]  Mihalek, D. J., & Frankel, R. M. (2019). The dangers of social media for law enforcement take center stage amid series of scandals: Analysis. https://abcnews.go.com/US/dangers-social-media-law-enforcement-center-stage amid/story?id=64252037.
 
[2]  Marrow, S. (2019). Social and news media’s effects on law enforcement. https://irispublishers.com/gjfsm/fulltext/social-news-medias-effects-on-law-enforcement.ID.000516.php.
 
[3]  Statista. (2020). Share of U.S. population that currently uses social media. https://www.statista.com/statistics/273476/percentage-of-us-population-with-a-social-network-profile/.
 
[4]  Shapiro, A., Sullivan, B., & Fuller, J. (2020, June). As the nation chants her name, Breonna Taylor's family grieves a life “robbed”. https://www.npr.org/2020/06/04/869930040/as-the-nation-chants-her-name-breonna-taylors-family-grieves-a-life-robbed
 
[5]  Martinson, R. (1974). “What works?” Questions and answers about prison reform. The Public Interest, 35(1), 22-54.
 
[6]  Andrews, D. A. (2012). The risk-need-responsivity (RNR) model of correctional assessment and treatment. In J. A. Dvoskin, J. L. Skeem, R. W. Novaco, & K. S. Douglas (Eds.), Using social science to reduce violent offending (pp. 127-156). Oxford University Press.
 
[7]  Cullen, F. T., & Gilbert, K. (1982, 2012). Reaffirming rehabilitation. Anderson Publishing.
 
[8]  Cullen, F. T., & Gendreau, P. (1989). The effectiveness of correctional rehabilitation. In L. Goodstein & D. L. MacKenzie (Eds.), The American prison Law, society and policy (pp. 23-27). Springer.
 
[9]  U.S. Department of Justice Archives. (2020). Prison reform: Reducing recidivism by strengthening the federal bureau of prisons. https://www.justice.gov/archives/prison-reform.
 
[10]  Urban Institute. (2016). Reforming sentencing and corrections policy. https://www.urban.org/research/publication/reforming-sentencing-and-corrections-policy/view/full_report.
 
[11]  Bowers, W. J., & Pierce, G. L. (1980). Deterrence or brutalization. Crime & Delinquency, 26(4), 453-484.
 
[12]  Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program. (2017). Fourth-quarter prison industry enhancement certification program certification & cost accounting center listing. https://nationalcia.org/wp-content/uploads/Fourth-Quarter-2017-Certification-Listing-1.pdf.
 
[13]  Koenig, L. A. (2007). Financial literacy curriculum: The effect on offender money management skills. Journal of Correctional Education, 58(1), 43-54.
 
[14]  Frederickson, H. G. (1990). Public administration and social equity. Public Administration Review, 50(2), 228-238.
 
[15]  Rawls, J. (1971). A theory of justice. Belknap Press.
 
[16]  Kingdon, J. W. (1997). Agendas, alternatives, and public policies. Longman Publishing Group.
 
[17]  Christenson, D. P., Kreps, S. E., & Kriner, D. L. (2020). Contemporary presidency : Going public in an era of social media: Tweets, corrections, and public opinion. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 51(1), 151-165.
 
[18]  Marrow, S. (2019). Social and news media’s effects on law enforcement. https://irispublishers.com/gjfsm/fulltext/social-news-medias-effects-on-law-enforcement.ID.000516.php.
 
[19]  Garland, B. E., Spohn, C., & Wodahl, E. J. (2008). Racial disproportionality in the American prison population: Using the Blumstein method to address the critical race and justice issue of the 21st century. Justice Policy Journal, 5(2), 1-42.
 
[20]  Upcounsel. (2020). Excuse, justification and exculpation in criminal law. https://www.upcounsel.com/lectl-excuse-justification-and-exculpation-in-criminal-law-criminal-defense.
 
[21]  Hannah-Moffat, K. (2005). Criminogenic needs and the transformative risk subject. Punishment & Society, 7(1), 29-51.
 
[22]  Futschek, G., Kalinyaprak, H., & Kargl, H. (2005). Rehabilitation of prisoners via e-learning. [Conferece Session]. 8 th IFIP World Conference on Computers in Education, Cape Town, Africa. ISBN: 1-920-01711-9; 7 pages.
 
[23]  Quigley, W. P. (2004). Prison work, wages, and Catholic social thought: Justice demands decent work for decent wages even for prisoners. Santa Clara Law Review, 44(4), 1159-1178.
 
[24]  Visher, C. A., Winterfield, L., & Coggeshall, M. B. (2005). Ex-offender employment programs and recidivism: A meta-analysis. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 1(3), 295-316.
 
[25]  Whitehouse.gov. (2008). Council of economic advisers report: Return on investment in recidivism reducing programs. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Returns-on-Investments-in-Recidivism-Reducing-Programs.pdf
 
[26]  Zoukis, C. (2019). Prison work programs: “Cost-effective labor pool” or “slave labor of yesterday”? https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2019/jan/8/prison-work-programs-cost-effective-labor-pool-or-slave-labor-yesterday/
 
[27]  Marshall Project. (2019, December). The hidden cost of incarceration. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2019/12/17/the-hidden-cost-of-incarceration
 
[28]  Orland, L. (1975). Houses of darkness. Free Press.
 
[29]  Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline & punish: The birth of the prison. Vintage Books.
 
[30]  Alewine, H. S. (2010). Andragogical methods and readiness for the correctional ged classroom. Journal of Correctional Education, 61(1), 9-22.
 
[31]  Brennan Center for Justice. (2019). Police: Social media surveillance. https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/protect-liberty-security/social-media/police-social-media-surveillance
 
[32]  DeMaeyer, E. (2001). Education in prison. Convergence, 34, 117-128.
 
[33]  Gee, J. (2006). Education in rural county jails: Need versus opportunity. Journal of Correctional Education, 4, 312-326.
 
[34]  National Center for Education Statistics. (2003). National assessment of adult literacy (NAALs) prison literacy component. https://nces.ed.gov/naal/pdf/PrisonFactSheet.pdf.
 
[35]  Petersilia, J. (2013). Voices from the field: How California stakeholders view public safety realignment. Stanford, CA: Stanford Law School/Stanford Criminal Justice Center.
 
[36]  Stephen, C. (2012). Understanding how adult educators apply andragogy in a correctional educational setting: A case study. https://scholarworks.uark.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1342&context=etd.
 
[37]  Burger, W. E. (1985). Prison industries: Turning warehouses into factories with fences. Public Administration Review, 45, 754-757.
 
[38]  Nellis, A. (2016). The color of justice: Racial and ethnic disparity in state prisons. https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/color-of-justice-racial-and-ethnic-disparity-in-state-prisons/.
 
[39]  Anderson, A., Nava, N., & Cortez, P. (2018). The conduits and barriers to reentry for formerly incarcerated individuals in San Bernardino. Journal of Prison Education and Reentry, 5(1), 1-17.
 
[40]  Etzioni, A. (2014). Communitarianism revisited. Journal of Political Ideologies, 19(3), 241-260.
 
[41]  U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons. (2020). Education programs. https://www.bop.gov/inmates/custody_and_care/education.jsp.
 
[42]  Hughs, E. (2016). Education in prison. Routledge.
 
[43]  Moses, M. C., & Smith, C. J. (2007). Factories behind fences: Do prison “real work” programs work? NIJ Journal, 257. https://www.nij.gov/journals/257/pages/real-work-programs.aspx.
 
[44]  Smith, A. (2018). Momentum for prison education. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/11/06/colleges-push-more-resources-support-prison-education-programs
 
[45]  Waintrup, M. G., & Unruh, D. K. (2008). Career development programming strategies for transitioning incarcerated adolescents to the world of work. Journal of Correctional Education, 59(2), 127-144.
 
[46]  Western, B., Kling, J. R., & Weiman, D. F. (2001). The labor market consequences of incarceration. Crime & Delinquency, 47(3), 410-427.
 
[47]  Wright, B. J., Zhang, S. X., Farabee, D., & Braatz, R. (2014). Prisoner reentry research from 2000-2010: Results of a narrative review. Criminal Justice Review, 39(1), 37-57.
 
[48]  Sexton, G. (1992). Work in American prisons. https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/workampr.pdf.
 
[49]  U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance. (2018). Prison industry enhancement certification program guidelines. https://www.bja.gov/Publications/PIECP-Program-Brief_2018.pdf.
 
[50]  Gagliardi, P. (1996). Exploring the aesthetic side of organizational life. In S. Clegg, C. Hardy, & W. Nord (Eds.), The handbook of organization studies (pp. 701-724). Sage.
 
[51]  Shafritz, J. M., & Hyde, A. C. (2017). Classics of public administration. Cengage.
 
[52]  Swiss, J. E. (1990). Public management systems: Monitoring and managing government performance. Pearson.
 
[53]  Russo, J., Drake, G., Shaffer, J., & Jackson, B. (2017). Envisioning an alternative future for the corrections sector within the U.S. criminal justice system. https://nij.ojp.gov/library/publications/envisioning-alternative-future-corrections-sector-within-us-criminal-justice.
 
[54]  Marion, N. E., & Oliver, W. M. (2012). Public policy of crime and criminal justice. Prentice Hall.
 
[55]  Walker, S., Spohn, C., & DeLone, M. (2018). The color of justice: Race, ethnicity, and crime in America. Wadsworth Publishing.
 
[56]  Szifirs, K., Fox, C., & Bradbury, A. (2018). A realist model of prison education, growth, and desistance: A new theory. Journal of Prison Education and Reentry, 5(1), 41-62.
 
[57]  Cullen, F. T., & Gendreau, P. (1989). The effectiveness of correctional rehabilitation. In L. Goodstein & D. L. MacKenzie (Eds.), The American prison Law, society and policy (pp. 23-27). Springer
 
[58]  Gehring, T. (2000). Recidivism as a measure of correctional education program success. Journal of Correctional Education, 57, 197-205.
 
[59]  Gendreau, P. (2000). Generating rational correctional policies. Corrections Management Quarterly, 4, 52-60.
 
[60]  Gendreau, P., & Cullen, F. (1989). The effectiveness of correctional rehabilitation: Reconsidering the “nothing works” debate. The American Prison, 2, 23-32.
 
[61]  Batiuk, M. E., Lahm, K. F., McKeever, M., Wilcox, N., & Wilcox, P. (2005). Disentangling the effects of correctional education: Are current policies misguided? An event history analysis. Criminology and Criminal Justice, 5(1), 55-74.
 
[62]  Echiner, M. (2017). Prison education: Observing Pell Grants through the lens of two presidential administrations. https://commons.trincoll.edu/edreform/2017/05/prison-education-observing-pell-grants-through-the-lens-of-two-presidential-administrations/.
 
[63]  Gathright, J. (2020, January). Tablets offer educational opportunities in prison, but quality varies. https://www.npr.org/2020/01/02/793134372/tablets-offer-educational-opportunities-in-prison-but-quality-varies.
 
[64]  Gendreau, P., & Ross, R. R. (1987). Revivification of rehabilitation: Evidence from the 1980s. Justice Quarterly, 4(3), 349-407.
 
[65]  U.S. Department of Education. (2019). Correctional education. https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ovae/pi/AdultEd/correctional-education.html.
 
[66]  RAND Corporation. (2016). The case for correctional education in U.S. prisons. https://www.rand.org/blog/rand-review/2016/01/course-correction-the-case-for-correctional-education.html.
 
[67]  U.S. Department of Education. (2003). Excellence in economic education act. http://www.ed.gov/policy.
 
[68]  U.S. Federal Reserve Education Resources. (2019). 2006 and beyond: Financial crisis and response. https://www.federalreserveeducation.org/about-the-fed/history/2006andbeyond.
 
[69]  Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2018). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Sage.
 
[70]  RAND Corporation. (2018). Using social media and social network analysis in law enforcement. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2301.html
 
[71]  PEW Research Center. (2020, June). BlackLivesMatter surges on Twitter after George Floyd’s death. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/10/blacklivesmatter-surges-on-twitter-after-george-floyds-death/.
 
[72]  Champion, N., & Noble, J. (2016). What is prison education for? A theory of change exploring the value of learning in prisons. Prison Education Trust’s Prison Learning Alliance. https://www.prisonerseducation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Theory-of-Change-Report.pdf.
 
[73]  Coates, S. (2016). Unlocking potential: A review of education in prison. U.K. Ministry of Justice. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/524013/education-re-view-report.pdf.
 
[74]  Kemp, J., & Johnson, M. (2003). The effect of educating prisoners. https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=jlasc.
 
[75]  PEW Research Center. (2012, March). Religion in prisons: A 50-state survey of prison chaplains. https://www.pewforum.org/2012/03/22/prison-chaplains-exec/.
 
[76]  Intellectus Statistics. (2021). Intelligent business solutions. http://www.intellectus.com/
 
[77]  Razali, N. M., & Wah, Y. B. (2011). Power comparisons of Shapiro-Wilk, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Lilliefors and Anderson-Darling tests. Journal of Statistical Modeling and Analytics, 2(1), 21-33.
 
[78]  von Hirsch, A. (1996). The “dessert” model for sentencing: Its influence, prospects, and alternatives. Social Research, 74(2), 413-434.
 
[79]  Hall, R. (2008). Technology education and the felon: Teaching high school behind prison walls. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED372230.
 
[80]  Stevens, A. (2019). The returning citizen: A public justice perspective on reintegrating the formerly incarcerated. https://cpjustice.org/uploads/PJR_9.4_Article_4-The_Returning_Citizen_Turning_to_the_Community_for_Reentry_Housing-FINAL1.pdf.
 
[81]  Travis, J., Solomon, A., & Waul, M. (2001). From prison to home. Urban Institute Report. https://www.academia.edu/33673568/From_Prison_to_Home.
 
[82]  Westfall, P., & Henning, K. S. S. (2013). Texts in statistical science: Understanding advanced statistical methods. Taylor & Francis.
 
[83]  Sentencing Project. (2019). Trends in U.S. corrections 1925-2018. https://www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Trends-in-US-Corrections.pdf.
 
[84]  U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. (2020). Prisoners in 2019. Retrieved from https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p19_sum.pdf
 
[85]  Congress. Gov. (2020). H.R. 3355: The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcment Act. (2020). https://www.congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/house-bill/3355/text.
 
Manuscript template