No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Although parole boards have discretion and responsibility for deciding if and when prison inmates will be released on parole, previous studies of parole decisionmaking have found that the recommendations made by prison staff weigh heavily in parole decisions. In light of these findings it is surprising that the prison recommendation process has not come under greater scrutiny. What contributes to release recommendations made by prison superintendents, whether those recommendations are influenced by those made by lower level prison staff, and the factors shaping the latter, have not yet been explored by criminal justice scholars. It is the purpose of this research to examine parole release recommendations made at the prison decisionmaking stage. Practices followed by prison staff within one large state prison system as they formulated release recommendations for a random sample of 1610 parole applicants were examined. Of these applicants, 58% were recommended for release by unit management teams that operated on the cell block level. Using multi-level modeling it was possible to take into account characteristics related to applicants and prison staff teams, as well as institutions. Observations of decisionmaking teams and conversations with prison staff supplemented and contributed to the interpretation of quantitative findings. Results showed significant variation across teams and institutions in both the probability of an applicant receiving a positive recommendation for release--even after controlling for applicant and decisionmaking attributes--and in the strength of the influence of one applicant attribute: number of misconducts. A strong concordance also was found between recommendations made by lower level prison staff teams and prison superintendents. The findings have implications for prison and parole policies, the relationship between prison personnel and paroling authorities, prison operational procedures, and the perceptions of people who are incarcerated. / Criminal Justice

<p> Polyurea microcapsules are micron-scale, hollow polymer spheres commonly used in agriculture to encapsulate pesticides for controlled diffusive release onto target crops. Diffusion of these active materials through a protective polymer wall offers a safer and more effective method of delivery compared to the direct spraying of crops with toxicants. The approach we are taking to control the release rate is to coat pre-formed porous polyurea capsules with a separate release-controlling outer layer. This allows us to separately optimize the load-bearing capsule wall and the release control layer, an approach commonly used in other membrane diffusion systems.</p> <p> Montmorillonite clay incorporation into polymer matrices can reduce membrane permeability by forcing diffusants to take a tortuous path around the stacked silicate sheets. Effective formation of clay-polyurea composites requires the delamination of clay particles into thin sheets with high aspect ratios, and their incorporation into polyurea microcapsules either during interfacial polymerization, or post-polymerization. The net negative surface charge of the silicate sheets should facilitate their initial binding to the cationic polyurea surfaces, as well as subsequent binding of polycations to the clay-coated polyurea capsules to create layer-by-layer (LbL) capsule assemblies with decreasing release rates of internal materials.</p> <p> The main focus of this project is to gain a fundamental understanding of montmorillonite clay and polyurea microcapsules, and the development of a model polyurea composite capsule for release rate analysis. Emphasis will be placed on the reduced permeability of microcapsules coated with clay by LbL assembly post-polymerization, followed by an exploration of further layering with polycations.</p> / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)