A 1966 review of major problems, issues, and developments in the field of juvenile delinquency in the United States. It was written at the request of John W. Gardner, Secretary of the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, to provide a review of the field of delinquency which might be useful to the department in its planning. With the assistance of Anne Romasco.
Published in 1962, Cottage Six documents the implementation of more effective use of the social sciences in the therapeutic program of an institution for children, particularly its Cottage 6, inhabited by adolescent boys. It analyzes the problems that confront any institution that wishes to develop an integrated clinical and therapeutic community program.
Howard W. Polsky was professor at the New York School of Social Work, Columbia University.
Your Community was first published in 1935. This later edition, revised by Donald S. Howard, director of the Department of Social Work Administration of the Russell Sage Foundation, to reflect changes in social work and community and civic organizations, examines the idea and scope of the local community and its efforts to conserve the health and safety and promote the education and general welfare of its inhabitants. Topics include housing planning and zoning, medical care, consumer protection, public assistance, worker wages and employment conditions, and recreation. Its followup, Studying Your Community by Roland L. Warren, was published by the Russell Sage Foundation in 1955.
Joanna C. Colcord was director of the Charity Organization Department of the Russell Sage Foundation.
From the preface: “The present work and a simultaneously published companion volume, Theory and Practice of Social Planning, share an overall goal. They would conceptualize and illustrate both specialized planning for social programs or fields and the social aspects of more general planning endeavors. Of particular concern here is the demonstration through use of a number of critical planning concepts often discussed only in the abstract. Author and reader, of course, are concerned with specific policies and with programs in specific fields. The studies presented – they are short monographs rather than true chapters – introduce issues and problems in a variety of high-priority areas. The specific rationale for selection and the manner in which each study is employed are discussed in the first chapter.” Topics include: the anti-poverty war, child delinquency, income security, city renewal, community psychiatry, and the delivery of social services at the local level.
ALFRED J. KAHN was professor of Social Policy and Planning at the Columbia University School of Social Work.
A collaboration with the Russell Sage Foundation and the American Sociological Society, this report assesses sociologists’ contributions to the field of corrections and the study of crime and examines how sociological training and theory can be carried over into practical professional application in the field. Topics include the organizational aspects of the prison system, social-psychological aspects of prison life, probation and parole, and correctional career opportunities for sociologists.
Lloyd E. Ohlin was director of the Center for Education and Research in Corrections, University of Chicago.
“By bringing together two strands of social science research that are usually treated separately—those on youth transitions to adulthood and incarceration—and by providing careful new data analysis, David J. Harding and Heather M. Harris make an important contribution to our understanding of incarceration, race and poverty in America. Their nuanced portrait of the long-term outcomes observed among incarcerated youth is insightful, and generates major implicationsfor both research and policy.”
—HARRY J. HOLZER, John LaFarge Jr. SJ Professor of Public Policy, Georgetown University
The incarceration rate in the United States is the highest of any developed nation, with a prison population of approximately 2.3 million in 2016. Over 700,000 prisoners are released each year, and most face significant educational, economic, and social disadvantages. In After Prison, sociologist David Harding and criminologist Heather Harris provide a comprehensive account of young men’s experiences of reentry and reintegration in the era of mass incarceration. They focus on the unique challenges faced by 1,300 black and white youth aged 18 to 25 who were released from Michigan prisons in 2003, investigating the lives of those who achieved some measure of success after leaving prison as well as those who struggled with the challenges of creating new lives for themselves.
The transition to young adulthood typically includes school completion, full-time employment, leaving the childhood home, marriage, and childbearing, events that are disrupted by incarceration. While one quarter of the young men who participated in the study successfully transitioned into adulthood—achieving employment and residential independence and avoiding arrest and incarceration—the same number of young men remained deeply involved with the criminal justice system, spending on average four out of the seven years after their initial release re-incarcerated. Not surprisingly, whites are more likely to experience success after prison. The authors attribute this racial disparity to the increased stigma of criminal records for blacks, racial discrimination, and differing levels of social network support that connect whites to higher quality jobs. Black men earn less than white men, are more concentrated in industries characterized by low wages and job insecurity, and are less likely to remain employed once they have a job.
The authors demonstrate that families, social networks, neighborhoods, and labor market, educational, and criminal justice institutions can have a profound impact on young people’s lives. Their research indicates that residential stability is key to the transition to adulthood. Harding and Harris make the case for helping families, municipalities, and non-profit organizations provide formerly incarcerated young people access to long-term supportive housing and public housing. A remarkably large number of men in this study eventually enrolled in college, reflecting the growing recognition of college as a gateway to living wage work. But the young men in the study spent only brief spells in college, and the majority failed to earn degrees. They were most likely to enroll in community colleges, trade schools, and for-profit institutions, suggesting that interventions focused on these kinds of schools are more likely to be effective. The authors suggest that, in addition to helping students find employment, educational institutions can aid reentry efforts for the formerly incarcerated by providing supports like childcare and paid apprenticeships.
After Prison offers a set of targeted policy interventions to improve these young people’s chances: lifting restrictions on federal financial aid for education, encouraging criminal record sealing and expungement, and reducing the use of incarceration in response to technical parole violations. This book will be an important contribution to the fields of scholarly work on the criminal justice system and disconnected youth.
DAVID J. HARDING is professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley.
HEATHER M. HARRIS is a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California.
The sixth biennial issue of reports on the status of organized activities in social work and in related fields, including 83 signed articles prepared by authorities on the topics discussed as well as a directory of national and state agencies, both governmental and voluntary, related to social work.
Presented at the Fifty-Second Congress of the American Prison Association in Detroit, October, 1922, this pamphlet presents a selection of noteworthy plans and illustrations, with special reference to unusual or improved features. The plans selected include state prisons in New York and Alabama and tentative plans for a state prison and a state reformatory, plans for single buildings at two reformatories for women, plans for cottages at two reformatories for boys, and tentative plans for a metropolitan jail designed by the writer with special reference to the needs of Chicago.
HASTINGS H. HART was director of the Department of Child-Helping of the Russell Sage Foundation.
A survey by the Department of Surveys and Exhibits, Russell Sage Foundation, examining the correctional system of Springfield, Illinois, including adult offenders, juvenile delinquents, and the organization of the police department.
ZENAS L. POTTER, Department of Surveys and Exhibits, Russell Sage Foundation
President's address at the Fifty-Second Annual Congress of the American Prison Association, Detroit, Michigan, October 12, 1922.
HASTINGS H. HART was director of the Department of Child-Helping at the Russell Sage Foundation.
