Page 74 - NCJA Journal_volume1_issue1-final
P. 74
Papers on corrections examined issues including probation, prison gerrymandering,
capital punishment, religion and prison, recruitment and retention of public safety staff, changing
inmate behavior, ethical issues of doing research with inmates, sex offender treatment, drug
abuse treatment, funding for rehabilitation, collateral consequences of incarceration, re-entry, the
impact of incarceration on subsequent employment, drug overdoses after release, mental illness
in prison, mental health task forces, an assessment on a program in the state, and the impact on
corrections of particular laws in the state. Absent from the conference was any paper dealing
with the huge financial burdens of the state’s prison system, descriptions of life under
correctional supervision, or racial and ethnic disparities in the North Carolina corrections system.
The papers on juvenile justice were few and only dealt with the theory of rehabilitation,
gender-responsive programming, mental health treatment in juvenile justice, the effects of
restraining juveniles, and the impact of law on juvenile justice practice. At least two more critical
issues were examined by scholars during these conferences, including racial threat and
disproportionate minority confinement (DMC) and the impact of the transfer on adolescent
development.
Criminological theory papers only focused on a handful of theories of crime, including
different aspects of social disorganization theory, social learning theory, social bonding theory,
anomie and strain theory, low self-control, labeling theory, feminist theory, and bio-social
approaches to understanding behavior. Other papers focused on mental disorders and antisocial
attitudes, moral decision-making, predicting violence in juveniles, the impact of bullying on
school shootings, the impact of PTSD on criminal behavior among veterans, the relationship
between alcohol laws and campus crime, how sociological factors impact promiscuous sexual
behaviors among college students, psychosocial factors and child sex offenders, protective
67

