Ban the Box Now Law in Minnesota

You might have heard that Minnesota Governor Dayton just signed Freedom to Marry legislation, but he also made Ban the Box the law-of-the-land-of-10,000-lakes.  Megan Boldt describes it succinctly at twincities.com:

Gov. Mark Dayton this week signed a bill that would ban employers from considering a job applicant’s criminal history until the applicant has an interview or is offered a job. Supporters of the bill, dubbed “ban the box,” have argued the change allows people who have made mistakes to be considered for a job on their merits and skills, instead of having their application immediately discarded. Since 2009, Minnesota has required all public employers to wait until a job candidate has been selected for an interview before inquiring about criminal history.

I can claim no credit (or blame, I suppose) for this development, but I can brag a bit about amazing Minnesota graduate students like Sarah Walker and Rob Stewart, community leaders like Mark Haase at the Council on Crime and Justice, and many formerly incarcerated men and women who came forward to tell their stories and build support for this legislation.

Yes, employers can and will still discriminate on the basis of a criminal record, but the research literature suggests that ban the box is a tremendously important step. In my Minnesota audit study on low-level records, for example, 25% of the hiring authorities we interviewed told us they wouldn't consider any (hypothetical) applicant with a record, but they were much less likely to discriminate on that basis when confronted with a real human being applying for a job. And in Devah Pager's important audit studies (and my own as well), personal contact with a hiring authority is a powerful, powerful predictor of "callbacks" from employers. So, I'm optimistic that Ban the Box won't simply waste applicants' time -- or that of employers. 

For a national perspective on these laws, check the recent EEOC guidance on the topic and a useful page from the National Employment Law Project. And, yes, I'm already scheming to evaluate implementation and outcomes...

Sociological Science

Well, our TSP offices are buzzing about the announcement of Sociological Science, an exciting new open-access research publication. There's a very accomplished editorial team in place, with a clear commitment to "speed, access, debate - and a light touch" -- fine attributes for journal editors, as well as guitar players. To keep everything free and open-access, the project will be supported by submission and publication fees charged to authors, rather than subscription fees or association dues.

Sociological Science is distinctive in positioning itself as a rigorous peer-reviewed outlet for primary research. Our friends Jenn Lena, Brayden King, Mike3550, and many others have already offered thoughtful posts and comments. I too have loads of advice for the editors, but I suspect they're getting enough advice already (and the really useful stuff is best conveyed off-line). Instead, I'll just offer a few words for the new journal's prospective authors and readers.

Try to remember that editing any sort of publication is a labor of love, since the ratio of effort to reward (however defined) is usually pretty high. I can see that the team has already invested a lot of thought and hard work in the venture already. This is especially the case with a DIY effort, so let's cut the new editors a little slack as they get off the ground. It is always easy to find fault with something in a publication (you call that kerning? how could the first issue completely *ignore* the Freedonian situation?), but initiatives like this are almost always undertaken with a civic-minded/public-goods orientation. I guess I do have one suggestion to pass along to the editors: celebrate each milestone, well and often!

Weaver & Uggen Event TUESDAY 4/30

UPDATE: Doh! This event is on Tuesday, rather than Thursday.

Join me and the incomparable Vesla Weaver this TUESDAY Thursday, for a spirited conversation on crime, punishment, and democracy at the Hubert H. Humphrey Forum.  As moderator, I'll either be channeling Charlie Rose or Axl Rose, depending on the crowd. All are welcome and admission is free, but advance registration is appreciated.

How America's Public Safety System Hurts Our Democracy 

Is justice blind? Vesla Weaver reveals racial disparities in the American criminal justice system and their implications for undermining full democratic citizenship. Professor Christopher Uggen will moderate the discussion.  Find more information here: http://justiceanddemocracy-rss.eventbrite.com/

April 30, 12 p.m. | Humphrey Forum
Humphrey School of Public Affairs, 301 19th Ave S Minneapolis, MN 55455

social sciences as STEM disciplines

Sally Hillsman of the American Sociological Association makes a strong and timely case for sociology as a "STEM" discipline in the February issue of Footnotes. Though STEM is an acronym for "Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics," the social sciences have struggled to find a place at the STEM table.

In response, Professor Hillsman offers three compelling points:

1. Sociology is part of the national science community.
2. Sociology is a core part of applied science.
3. Sociology is a gateway to science for undergraduates.

Not every sociologist self-identifies as a scientist, though it is difficult for me to conceive of my research and teaching as anything but social science. Yet even friendly colleagues in the natural sciences seem surprised to learn that a sociologist like me spends time specifying and testing hypotheses, writing and reviewing National Science Foundation grants, attending the American Academy for the Advancement of Science meetings, and thinking about how my work might contribute to the systematic understanding of the (social) world. By spreading the word about the great diversity of good work being done by our colleagues, I'd also like to think that our Society Pages project can play some role in raising the profile of the social sciences.

The most recent wave of social science legitimacy issues are likely a product of internal conflicts as well as external attacks, but it isn't all doom and gloom. In our view, sociology offers a near-ideal setting for teaching and learning scientific thinking -- the phenomena we study are immediately engaging and accessible, yet their complexity demands critical analysis and sophistication in conceptualization and method. What better setting for educating our students and publics about science?

Restoring Gun Rights to Felons?

When I discuss voting rights for people convicted of felonies, I'm often asked whether I'd favor restoring gun rights as well. Hostile talk show hosts sometimes take this tack, perhaps anticipating a knee-jerk liberal response that will lay bare the contradictions in my position. But I always respond that I haven't done enough research on restoration of firearms privileges to offer any sort of expert opinion on the issue.

Fortunately, others are doing such research. For example, Brandon Stahl of the Star-Tribune examined the 114 people whose gun rights were restored by Minnesota judges over the past 8 years. He found only one new gun crime, a 2011 conviction for carrying-under-the-influence and fifth-degree assault. Of the 114, Mr.  Stahl also uncovered 3 new drunk driving cases and a conviction for violating a protective order by sending a hostile text message. I can't vouch for the rigor or comprehensiveness of the analysis, but it does not appear that judges are routinely giving guns to people at high risk of reoffense. Getting such basic facts is timely and important, as Minnesota State Senator Barb Goodwin of Columbia Heights has introduced a bill that would make it more difficult for former felons  to regain gun rights.

Researching Locked Out, I got a glimpse of the issue when I asked Minnesota prisoners about firearms rights. Losing gun rights seemed especially important to the hunters I interviewed, some of whom relied heavily on firearms to put food on the table. Here's an excerpt from my conversation with Daniel, a young American Indian man from northern Minnesota who was incarcerated for burglary. His story didn't necessarily change my mind on the issue, but it helped me see the stakes involved.

Daniel: I believe if you’re a violent felon with gun charges or anything else, you should not be allowed to own or use a firearm. But for those of us that aren’t into that kind of thing, I believe you should be allowed to hunt because it is a means to support your family.You know?

CU: Yeah. So loss of that right is especially important to you, the hunt-, or the firearms?

Daniel: Yeah. Because it’s hurting my family. I mean they look at it, “Well, he’s a felon, he doesn’t get to use a gun. The community will be safer.” Yet they don’t look at it like, “Okay. We won’t let him hunt. We’re taking food out of his kids’ mouths.”

CU: Yeah. So when you say that- So you’re someone who would go out and get a deer or get something-

Daniel: I was born and raised like that. And, you know, it’s not the sport of it. I was never raised like that. It’s not a sport to me, it’s a way of life. Means, you know, to feed my kids.

CU: Yeah. Yeah. So you hunt year-round?

Daniel:  I can’t hunt. I can’t hunt ‘til I don’t know when I get my rights back....

CU:  See ‘cause to me, I think of hunting as like something, you know, one week of deer, and you go and do that. And I don’t think of it in terms of the food. But for you, that’s a big part of it.

Daniel: Right.

CU: And that ha- And since a gun- Let me just make sure I’m tracking. So since a gun had nothing to do with your crime,

Daniel: I should be allowed to own one. ‘Cause you know, even, even if it’s I gotta go in and get a permit once a year, say, to use a firearm, a rifle. Fine. You know, I’ll go in, I’ll pay the extra money for a permit. Plus you know, it’s income the state could be collecting, for whatever.

So hunting and guns were a much bigger deal to Daniel than they were to me -- for reasons that had nothing to do with criminal activity. But it isn't just men. Here's how Mary, a White woman from greater Minnesota who was incarcerated for a drug-related offense, described the importance of hunting in her family:

I can’t hunt. I can’t carry a firearm. And in my family, I have two young boys so, you know, we take [them] out hunting. My husband and I hunt, I hunt with my father, and so on and so forth. We go deer-hunting every year. Well, now all I can do is walk in the bush. I can’t carry a gun. And it makes it difficult. [We’ve been going] ever since I was twelve years old, and I’m forty. That’s an awful long time. 

Diana, another female hunter, offered a similar account. I love deer hunting. I love goose, I love bear. I’m a country girl- that’s the way I was raised. And I am a member of the NR-, well I was a member of the NRA. My father was, I mean, my brother, the whole bit. 

I haven’t done much research on this issue outside Minnesota, but I found that gun rights were also important to former felons in a random sample of Florida clemency applications I examined a decade ago. There, White ex-felons were especially likely to seek restoration of firearms privileges (while African Americans were especially likely to be seeking restoration of voting rights).

Given the potential risk to public safety, I'd likely oppose any sort of blanket restoration of firearms rights -- despite the salience of the issue to those I interviewed and the reassuring absence of gun crimes among those who've had their rights restored. That said, I'd likely oppose the bill presented by Senator Goodwin, which create further barriers for people like Daniel, Mary, and Diana to regain these rights.

Two Ways to Reduce Crime

We all want lower crime rates, but "how we get there" matters. Rick Rosenfeld and Steve Messner see two basic approaches: (1) we can lock down criminal opportunities through surveillance and control; or, (2) we can reduce criminal motivations by building up the social safety net. Their new Social Welfare Critique of Contemporary Crime Control makes a strong case for the latter approach.

The argument is based less on the relative efficacy or efficiency of these approaches than on our collective vision of the society we'd like to inhabit. Further reducing criminal opportunities will place increasingly onerous restrictions on freedom of movement, association, and other liberties -- and further extend the disciplinary practices of the prison to public life.

Consistent with their institutional arguments in Crime and the American Dream and elsewhere, Professors Rosenfeld and Messner argue that a more robust welfare state can help compensate for the weaknesses of a market economy in promoting and sustaining a viable moral order. They recognize that any (reality-based) crime policy must limit criminal opportunities, but the challenge is to enhance public safety without sacrificing individual liberties and democratic values.  On this count, "welfare state" policies to reduce criminal motivations have much to recommend them over "security state"  policies to lock down opportunities.

Charis Kubrin on California Prison Downsizing

Criminologist Charis Kubrin of UC-Irvine went head to head with former Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley yesterday on the issue of prison downsizing in California. In my view, Professor Kubrin's presentation here is as sharp, clear, and thoughtful as her academic writing. I've always found the long-form live interview to be a terrific forum for public criminology, since it leaves a bit more space for academics to introduce social scientific evidence to explain how they arrived at their opinions -- and to question those who arrived at opinions based on anecdotal evidence or other means. This one comes from SoCal Insider, a PBS program hosted by Rick Reiff, but similar issues are being debated in many communities. Dr. Kubrin is appropriately cautious about whether crime rates will rise with realignment, but she nicely counters the premature conclusion that California's experiment in prison downsizing has been a disaster -- and she makes an excellent case for conducting a more systematic scientific evaluation.

TSPieces on crime drop and visualizing punishment

I've been doing more editing than writing lately, as we wrap up our new WW Norton crime volume for TheSocietyPages.org. I name-dropped a few of the features at pubcrim, but here I'll just mention a couple in-house additions. Both fall under the heading of papers I'd hoped *somebody* would write so that I could  assign them in class. Eventually, we rolled up our sleeves and got to it ourselves.

Visualizing Punishment (with Sarah Shannon) tells the story of racialized mass incarceration with maps and pictures. Sarah did some very cool coding and cartography on this one, embedding "slider" charts showing changes in state punishment rates from 1980 to 2010. We're hoping folks might use them when lecturing on the big increase in punishment.

Six Social Sources of the Crime Drop (with Suzy McElrath) was written as a last-ditch effort to convince future students not to begin their papers with the sentence, "Crime is increasing at an alarming rate." Suzy did a lot of legwork and interviewing on this one, writing up the social sources of the crime drop but also reaching out to some of the authors we cite.

mental health and second chances

Today's post is coauthored with Jason Schnittker for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Human Capital blog. 

More than 650,000 inmates are released from prison every year.[i]  Although their debt to society may be paid, their struggles have just begun.  Reentry is not easy.  Former inmates need to find a place to live.  They need to find a job.  And many need to support families.  All told, 4 million people in the U.S. are dealing with the “mark” of a prison record and its consequences for their work and personal lives.[ii]  Most will struggle for years following their release.

Given all these difficulties, it’s hard to imagine health being a major part of their struggle.  After all, many former inmates are still quite young and, for that reason, unlikely to suffer from major health problems.  Mental health is part of the picture, but usually considered through a different lens:  policy-makers ask how mental illness affects criminal offending—that is, what leads to prison in the first place—but rarely consider the pivotal role of mental health in making a successful return to the community.

Yet the role of mental illness is just as relevant after release as before.[iii]

Many former inmates suffer from poor mental health.  And these problems often get worse following release, given the many disadvantages they face.  Former inmates suffer from many of the same disorders as other people, including depression and anxiety, albeit at higher rates. We know that substance disorders and psychosis are related to criminal offending, but former inmates suffer from mood and anxiety disorders too, and these conditions have received far less attention.  Our own research suggests that depression plays an especially powerful role in shaping the reentry prospects of former inmates.[iv]

Insofar as we demand that former inmates become productive and responsible members of society, we may need to provide them with a little more help.  Reintegration requires persistence, motivation, and a strong social network, all of which are undermined by mental health problems.  Mood and anxiety disorders, in particular, can rob individuals of motivation and initiative and undermine their relationships.  Psychosis and substance abuse are, of course, important as well, especially in preventing new offending.  But good health is more than the absence of these particular conditions, just as reintegration is more than the absence of particular criminal behaviors. Reintegration also implies successful adjustment to challenging work and family situations -- and good overall health fortifies us all in meeting such challenges.

To date, enthusiasm for better mental health treatment among former inmates has been limited.  From a cost-benefit perspective, the role of treatment in reducing crime is inconclusive.[v]  But evidence on the effectiveness of mental health treatment for other outcomes, including employment, is more favorable.[vi]  The Affordable Care Act will help.[vii]  A robust safety net of low cost service providers will help too.  But true reform requires something more ambitious:  the recognition that good health is a precondition to getting back on your feet.

i. http://www.justice.gov/archive/fbci/progmenu_reentry.html
ii. http://www.soc.umn.edu/~uggen/Uggen_Manza_Thompson_ANNALS_06.pdf
iii. http://www.urban.org/publications/411617.html
iv. http://hsb.sagepub.com/content/53/4/448.full
v. http://www.nber.org/papers/w15858
vi. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3768328?seq=1
vii. http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/31/5/931

Jason Schnittker, PhD, and Chris Uggen, PhD, both recipients of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research, recently published a study in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior on incarceration and psychiatric disorders. They found that incarceration increases the risk of mood disorders after release and that these disorders increase disability. Schnittker is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. Uggen is the Distinguished McKnight Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Minnesota.

somewhere between jedi and jackhole

People have varying reactions to my research presentations, only some of which involve projectiles hurtling toward the lectern. The most memorable positive response came more than a decade ago. As soon as I finished speaking, a woman stepped quickly to the podium and looked me right in the eye, saying, “You’re like a Jedi!” Now, maybe her reaction had something to do with my tunic and belt pouch (I kid, I kid…), but it just so happens that I was feeling clear and good and true about the work I was presenting. If only for this one presentation of a single research study, I felt like I was firing on all cylinders as a social scientist, taking apart a problem and putting it back together in a smart and useful way.

No one has called me a Jedi since (or, if you prefer, “called me a Jedi since, no one has, hmm?”). Though I did not realize it at the time, that sort of clarity and focus does not come along every day – at least not in my career. As we start a brand new year and a fresh semester down at the brain mill, I’d like to challenge myself to do more of this kind of teaching and research and less of the other kind of teaching and research. The trick is that good and true science (and art) simultaneously demands both the self-confidence to think differently and the selflessness to set aside one’s personal interests and prejudices, however temporarily, in pursuit of some higher ideal. I say “temporarily” because eventually the world outside our labs, offices, or studios always creeps back in -- and with it, our vanity and insecurity.

Undue praise, for example, seems to upend the delicate balance of confidence and selflessness, such that being called a Jedi is likely to turn one into a complete Jackhole instead – arrogant, self-serving, and unmoored from all manner of higher ideals. I witnessed a few Jackholes while hanging backstage as a music writer and, truth be told, hanging at professional meetings as an academic. Left unchecked, or perhaps stoked by undue criticism, the Jackhole can quickly degenerate into the more destructive narcissism of the Common Bully, whose envy or resentment is manifest in cruelty. A fourth possibility is the absence of both confidence and selfishness, which I’d characterize (and recognize) as the sad state of Weeniedom. The weenie is neither beating up on anybody nor making any of the sorts of waves one must make to do good work. 

I know that the world is much more complicated than a two-by-two table would suggest, much less a graphic that is loaded with such loaded terms. But sometimes such images can be helpful in personal mojo reclamation projects and some of us have indeed visited all four of its quadrants. Just as Jamey Johnson wants to be filed somewhere between Jennings and Jones, I'd happily reside somewhere between Jedi and Jackhole.

a broader-based response to shootings

I've been reluctant to write about the terrible events at Sandy Hook Elementary School because the wounds are still too fresh for any kind of dispassionate analysis. As a social scientist, however, I'm disappointed by the fear-mongering and selective presentations of the research evidence I've read in reports and op-eds about Friday's awful killing.

Such events could help move us toward constructive actions that will result in a safer and more just world -- or they could push us toward counter-productive and costly actions that simply respond to the particulars of the last horrific event. I will make the case that a narrow focus on stopping mass shootings is less likely to produce beneficial changes than a broader-based effort to reduce homicide and other violence. We can and should take steps to prevent mass shootings, of course, but these rare and terrible crimes are like rare and terrible diseases -- and a strategy to address them is best considered within the context of more common and deadlier threats to population health. Five points:

1. The focus on mass shootings obscures over 99 percent of homicide victims and offenders in the United States. The numbers should not matter to parents who must bury their children, but they are important if policy makers are truly committed to reducing violent deaths. There are typically about 25 mass shootings and 100 victims each year in the United States (and, despite headlines to the contrary, mass shootings have not increased over the past twenty years). These are high numbers by international standards, but they pale relative to the total number of killings – about 14,612 victims and 14,548 offenders in 2011. In recent years, the mass shooters have represented less than two-tenths of 1 percent of the total offenders, while the victims have represented less than one percent of the total homicide victims in any given year. We are understandably moved by the innocence of the Sandy Hook children, but we should also be moved by scores of other victims who are no less innocent. There were 646 murder victims aged 12 or younger  in the United States in 2011 alone -- far more than all the adults and children that died as a result of mass shootings.

2. The focus on mass shootings leads to unproductive arguments about whether imposing sensible gun controls would have deterred the undeterrable. As gun advocates are quick to point out, many of the perpetrators in mass shootings had no “disqualifying” history of crime or mental disorder that would have prevented them from obtaining weapons. And, the most highly motivated offenders are often able to secure weapons illegally. Even if such actions do little to stop mass shootings, however, implementing common-sense controls such as “turning off the faucet” on high capacity assault weapons, tightening up background checks, and closely monitoring sales at gun shows are prudent public policy. But the vast majority of firearms used in murders are simple handguns. I would expect the no-brainer controls mentioned above to have a modest but meaningful effect, but we will need to go farther to have anything more than an incremental effect on mass shootings and gun violence more generally.

3. The focus on mass shootings obscures the real progress made in reducing the high rates of violence in the United States. I heard one commentator suggest that America had finally "hit bottom" regarding violence. Well, this is true in a sense -- we actually hit bottom twenty years ago. The United States remains a violent nation, but we are far less violent today than we were in the early 1990s. Homicide rates have dropped by 60 percent and the percentage of children annually exposed to violence in their households has fallen by 69 percent since 1993. We can and should do better, of course, but these are not the worst of times.

4. The focus on mass shootings exaggerates the relatively modest correlation between mental illness and violence. Those who plan and execute mass shootings may indeed have severe mental health problems, though it is difficult to say much more with certainty or specificity because of the small number of cases in which a shooter survives to be examined. We do know, however, that the correlation between severe mental illness and more common forms of violence is much lower -- and that many types of mental health problems are not associated with violence at all.

5. The focus on mass shootings leads to high-security solutions of questionable efficacy. Any parent who has attempted to drop off a kid's backpack knows that security measures are well in place in many schools. Rates of school crime continue to fall, such that schools are today among the safest places for children to spend so many of their waking hours. In 2008-2009, for example, only 17 of the 1,579 homicides of youth ages 5-18 occurred when students were at school, on the way to school, or at school-associated events. Of course we want to eliminate any possibility of children being hurt or killed at school, but even a 2 percent reduction in child homicide victimization outside of schools would save more lives than a 90 percent reduction in school-associated child homicide victimization. While every school must plan for terrible disasters in hopes that such plans will never be implemented, outsized investments in security personnel and technology are unlikely to serve our schools or our kids.

In the aftermath of so many deaths I am neither so cynical as to suggest that nothing will change nor so idealistic as to suggest that radical reform is imminent. I'm just hoping that the policy moves we make will address our all-too-common horrors as well as the rare and terrible events of the past week.

demolition derby and the social construction of injury

When people ask why I pursued or persist in sociology, I sometimes say that the world just makes no sense without it. With a few basic concepts, some systematic observation, and a little analysis, however, we can at least begin to fathom the unfathomable. Today's new TSP feature on genocide by Hollie Nyseth Brehm offers a grim example, but my favorite physical therapist offered another illustration this weekend. She had just attended a conference on understanding pain and injury -- a big part of any PT's job -- and came across some cool studies on the social construction of these phenomena.

My favorite new example is Neck Pain in Demolition Derby Drivers by Alexander Simotas and Timothy Shen in Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. In the general population, about 10 percent of people who have a car collision will develop chronic severe neck pain. Doctors Simotas and Shen surveyed 40 demolition derby drivers, who had undergone a median of 1,632 lifetime collisions at an average estimated speed of 26 miles per hour, 55 percent of which were rear-end, with no special safety equipment. Yet only 3 of the derby participants (7.5 percent of the sample) reported even mild chronic neck pain and none reported moderate or severe chronic pain.

 In short, the "accidents" experienced on the street appear to exact a much greater toll than those at the county fairground, even though the events involve the same biomechanics: an "acceleration-deceleration mechanism of energy transfer to the cervical spine." The sampling strategy and response rate are not ideal in this study, but I suspect that the basic pattern of results is likely to hold up to a more rigorous analysis.

 In my view, the question is less about whether these injuries are socially constructed than about the relative contribution of various social determinants. From a sociolegal or economic perspective, one might look to financial incentives (e.g., it appears that chronic neck pain after car accidents is far less prevalent in nations (such as Greece) where victims receive little financial remuneration). From a sociology of sport perspective, one might explain the denial of injury among participants in terms of the culture of risk surrounding contact sports. Finally, the fact that offending drivers (the "hitters") experience far fewer symptoms than the targets (or "hittees") suggests that playing social roles as aggressors or victims might also be important. The emotions of the events are obviously quite different as well, with derby likely invoking fun or thrilling feelings, while car accidents tend to invoke fear or worry.

 Of course, the fact that whiplash injuries are socially constructed doesn't mean that myriad other physiological and  psychological mechanisms are not also in play. In fact, my personal explanation for these results is a biopsychosocial theory developed to account for my immoderate pie-eating behavior:  anything this wonderful has just got to do a body good.
     

crime, community, and clostridium difficile

When you take a course of antibiotics to zap a bacterial infection, you can also lay waste to a lot of healthy bacteria that your body really needs. And once you’ve wiped out the healthy flora in your gut, you’re vulnerable to nasty bacteria such as Clostridium Difficile, which brings symptoms ranging from severe diarrhea to life-threatening colon problems. Though I’m skeptical-bordering-on-terrified of organicist arguments in sociology, hearing a talk by Minnversity colleague Mike Sadowsky on “C. diff.” brought some parallels in social research to mind. Before proceeding, I should acknowledge the obvious “ick factor” in this post, but bear with me a moment.

As Dr. Sadowsky explained, one successful treatment for recurrent C. diff infections involves fecal transplantation – essentially implanting a donor’s stool sample in a recipient to repopulate the healthy colonic flora and restore bacterial balance. Within a very short time, the donor’s gut flora is typically brought back to healthy equilibrium. Now that might sound icky (even when said sample is freeze-dried), but it is way less icky than surgical treatments like colectomy. What really got me thinking was my colleague’s big-picture conclusion that much of the past century of U.S. research in this area had been devoted to isolating and zapping the bacterial delinquents, while much of the next century seems devoted to restoring the whole to healthy balance. And, if I understand things correctly, it turns out that the latter approach is actually a lot simpler than specifying, modeling, and manipulating the complex interactions among myriad bacteria that may be “good” or “bad” depending on the particular combination and circumstance.

Of course, certain Ghosts of Sociology Past, Present, and Future think about societies in quite similar ways. No, people aren’t bacteria and communities aren’t intestines, but you don’t have to be a functionalist or an organicist to draw some basic analogies. For example, as William Julius Wilson points out, it is the social isolation of the urban poor that exacerbates the challenge of redressing imbalances and (re)building the institutions needed for basic community functioning. More generally, social interventions, like medical interventions, sometimes bring their own pathologies or iatrogenic effects. Like the overprescription of antibiotics behind the apparent C. diff epidemic, the grand American experiment with racialized mass incarceration, has had untold effects on individuals, families, and communities that are only now coming into focus.

I won’t speculate here about how to restore social systems to healthy balance, but some of us try to at least consider such questions in our research. In some cases, this involves calling out the problems associated with attempts to isolate and zap our more delinquent members. In others, it involves identifying and assessing viable alternative approaches to reducing harm -- regardless of any potential "ick factors" that might be associated with our research.

ass over teakettle

I can't really explain it, but Minnesotans get all cozy and romantic when the temperature drops. Blame it on the sweaters and hot chocolate, I guess. As for outdoor activities, I'm a big proponent of winter running. I tell newbies two things: (1) it is pretty unlikely they'll freeze to death; and, (2) they might actually survive a slip on the ice -- if they'd just learn to fall correctly. I was going to write a quick post on the latter point, but my new cranberry joy diffuser inspired some weapons-grade bad poetry. Time of the season, I suppose.

Ass over Teakettle

When the sun drops at 4:40,
And the roads start freezing up,
Winter runners all fall down,
Eventually.

The ice will flirt and tease,
Until you stretch your stride too far,
Or look where you’re not going,
And then you’re going down.

But in that slide-whistle moment,
With feet so strangely suspended,
Don’t waste your cartoon star turn,
Feeling ridiculous.

And never stiff-arm a frozen street,
With bony fingers and soft palms,
Force equals mass times acceleration,
And hands equal twigs plus crepe paper.

Just loosen up and tuck it in,
Trust your butt and shoulders,
And the ground might catch you gently,
Like a rec-room beanbag chair.

No skin off your nose,
(Well, maybe just a little),
But it beats those indoor treadmills,
High-tech hamster wheels.

Yes! Winter runners all fall down,
Breathing sweet cool air,
In the silver-blue light,
Between stars and snow.

design time

In social science, as elsewhere, an elegant design makes all the difference. When I hear a great talk or read a first-rate article, I'm geeked up both by the new discovery and by precisely how the discovery was made.  And while I try to stay on top of the latest and greatest methodological techniques,  I most appreciate social scientists who can responsibly render the world's complexity in a simple and comprehensible manner.

Design should never say, 'Look at me.' It should always say, 'Look at this'. - David Craib

I doubt that designer David Craib attends a lot of social science presentations, but he might have liked a talk I heard at the American Society of Criminology meetings last week. Patrick Sharkey of New York University spoke about how exposure to violence might affect kids at school. The answer is important both for assessing the social costs of crime and for understanding the sources of persistent educational inequalities. And since an ethical researcher would never want to experimentally manipulate a child's exposure to violence, we need to be especially creative in making good use of the available "observational" data. Professor Sharkey has been pursuing such questions for several years and he's now assembled a lot of evidence from different cities using different methodologies. Last week's talk matched test score data from New York City public schools with very precise information about the dates and places in which violent crime was occurring throughout the city. To isolate the effect of violence, he compared kids who experienced violent crime on their block just before the scheduled tests with kids who experienced violent crime on their block just after the test date. I'd never considered such a design, but was immediately attracted to the idea of using time's arrow in this way. By talk's end, I was convinced that recent exposure to violent crime reduces performance on reading and language tests.

This design is a lot cleaner than trying to name, measure and statistically "control for" everything under the sun that might influence both test scores and neighborhood violence (e.g., poverty, gang activity, lead exposure ...). Another powerful approach in such situations is to use each student as his or her own control, testing whether test scores drop below student-specific average scores after exposure to violence. Professor Sharkey (along with Nicole Tirado-Strayer, Andrew V. Papachristos, and C. Cybele Raver) employ this technique as well as the pre/post-exposure design in a new American Journal of Public Health article. Each method has its advantages, but they are especially convincing in combination. I'd imagine that the pre/post-exposure comparison would be especially helpful in situations in which the researcher lacks a long series of repeated measurements on the same individuals. Since I often find myself or my advisees in such situations, I'm sure I'll be borrowing this idea before too long.

Every designers’ dirty little secret is that they copy other designers’ work. They see work they like, and they imitate it. Rather cheekily, they call this inspiration. — Aaron Russell

Maybe these results seem obvious to you (if so, does it also seem obvious that the effects of violence would be much weaker for math tests?), but conclusively nailing down such relationships is extraordinarily difficult.  Or maybe a design comparing data collected "ten days before" with that collected "ten days after" just seems too simple mathematically to make a convincing case. I'd disagree, as would many designers.

Math is easy; design is hard. — Jeffrey Veen

swing state disenfranchisement image from the prison policy initiative

Here's an election image from the smart and creative folks at the Prison Policy Initiative, adapting some data from our recent Sentencing Project report on felon disenfranchisement. 

vandals strike!

Vandals struck my office door sometime during a morning meeting with Sarah Lageson and Mike Vuolo.  No arrests have been made, but we've put the building on lockdown and identified certain persons of interest to the investigation.