Thesis--University of Wisconsin--Madison. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis explores recent Scottish penal culture through the biographical narrative accounts of retired judges. Insights from the sociology of punishment are used to develop a more fully cultural approach to the judiciary and to sentencing practice. This entails a view of the judiciary as a complex institution whose practices reflect tension and compromise, and which recognises judges as bearers of penal culture through their sentencing practices. The aims of the research are twofold: to provide insight into the changing conditions of judging in Scotland and into the judicial role in criminal justice. Narrative research methods were used to interview retired judges and gain contextual accounts of judicial life and practice. This approach focuses on subjectivity and on individual responses to experiences and constraints. Reflecting the judicial role in punishment, an interpretive position based on the hermeneutics of faith and suspicion is used to evaluate and interpret these narrative accounts. This conceptual and methodological framework is used to explore aspects of judicial occupational culture including training and early experiences, the status of criminal work, judicial conduct, collegiality, the influence of criminological research on sentencing practice, and the relevance of the ‘master narrative’ - judicial independence - to sentencing. It is also used to explore the frameworks of meaning and vocabularies of motive which judges bring to penal practice. What emerges from these judicial narratives is firstly the entanglement of individual life histories and organisational imperatives. Secondly, a picture emerges of a judicial habitus that includes complex motivations, some openness to new approaches, and capacity for reflecting on the conditions which structure and constrain criminal justice practice. This suggests the reflexive judge may be an important vector of penal change and there are implications for judicial training, penal reform and for the dissemination of criminological and criminal justice research.

The primary goal of this paper is to investigate the phenomenon of a dream, a desire, or an idea transpiring in the thoughts of an individual, growing in importance to the individual, and finally becoming an idée fixe, or irresistible idea, which cannot be suppressed by the individual. The investigation will be concerned with the two of Dostoevsky's heroes who best exemplify the phenomenon.

<p>The aim of this study is to investigate how the female author, Charlotte Brontë, describes the development of her female protagonist in Jane Eyre and to compare this to how the male author, Fyodor Dostoevsky, describes the development of his male protagonist in Crime and Punishment, inside the patriarchal 19th century.</p><p>My basic idea is that both characters in these two books have to reach their own unknown to find satisfaction and a new existence, and I want to investigate what the characters have to go through to find that existence. To help me in my exploration of Jane Eyre I make use of Gilbert and Gubars’ book The Madwoman in the Attic and in the case of Crime and Punishment, I make use of Pelikan Straus’ article ”“Why did I say ’Women!’?” Raskolnikov Reimagined”. Both authors discuss literature from a gender perspective, but without comparing female and male characters or authors with each other, which I believe is important for a more holistic understanding of gender issue.</p><p>The conclusion of this essay is that these books are describing the main characters’ evolution towards their personal unknown with the same tools, a double self, an important symbol, and in the end a love partner that embodies that unknown. Furthermore, I conclude that this development moves in opposing directions, whereby the female character gets in touch with a more traditional male disposition and the male character gets in touch with a more traditional female disposition. This mirrors the different position men and women are assigned in the patriarchal society. In conclusion, I suggest that all social roles are ultimately confining (irrespective of sex), and are attracted to the opposite pole, in order to discover what the individual does not have access to in the social sphere.</p>

The aim of this study is to investigate how the female author, Charlotte Brontë, describes the development of her female protagonist in Jane Eyre and to compare this to how the male author, Fyodor Dostoevsky, describes the development of his male protagonist in Crime and Punishment, inside the patriarchal 19th century. My basic idea is that both characters in these two books have to reach their own unknown to find satisfaction and a new existence, and I want to investigate what the characters have to go through to find that existence. To help me in my exploration of Jane Eyre I make use of Gilbert and Gubars’ book The Madwoman in the Attic and in the case of Crime and Punishment, I make use of Pelikan Straus’ article ”“Why did I say ’Women!’?” Raskolnikov Reimagined”. Both authors discuss literature from a gender perspective, but without comparing female and male characters or authors with each other, which I believe is important for a more holistic understanding of gender issue. The conclusion of this essay is that these books are describing the main characters’ evolution towards their personal unknown with the same tools, a double self, an important symbol, and in the end a love partner that embodies that unknown. Furthermore, I conclude that this development moves in opposing directions, whereby the female character gets in touch with a more traditional male disposition and the male character gets in touch with a more traditional female disposition. This mirrors the different position men and women are assigned in the patriarchal society. In conclusion, I suggest that all social roles are ultimately confining (irrespective of sex), and are attracted to the opposite pole, in order to discover what the individual does not have access to in the social sphere.

Chapter 1 develops a model of parallel trading of corporate securities (shares, bonds) and derivatives in which a large trader can sometimes profitably acquire securities and the corporate control rights inherent therein for the sole purpose of reducing the corporation's value and gaining on a net short position in the corporation created through off-setting derivatives. At other times, the large trader profitably takes a net long position in the corporation and exercises its control rights to maximize the corporation's value. This strategy is profitable if and because other market participants cannot observe the large trader's orders and hence cannot predict how the control rights will be exercised. In effect, the large trader is benefitting from trading on private information about payoff uncertainty that the large trader itself creates. This problem is most likely to manifest in transactions that give blocking powers to small minorities, particularly out-of-bankruptcy restructurings and freezeouts, and is bound to become more severe when derivatives trade on an exchange rather than over-the-counter. Chapter 2 investigates in parallel the cross-country determinants of crime and punishment in the largest possible sample of countries with data on homicides, victimization by common crimes (ICVS), incarceration rates, and the death penalty. While models with a small number of plausible covariates predict much of the variation of homicide and incarceration rates between major developed countries, they predict only one seventh of the actual US incarceration rate. Chapter 3 probes into the pervasive correlations between legal origins, modern regulation, and economic outcomes around the world. Where legal origin is exogenous, it is almost perfectly correlated with another set of potentially relevant background variables: the colonial policies of the European powers that spread the "origin" legal systems through the world. The chapter attempts to disentangle these factors by exploiting the imperfect overlap of colonizer and legal origin, and looking at possible channels, such as the structure of the legal system, through which these factors might influence contemporary economic outcomes. It find strong evidence in favor of non-legal colonial explanations for economic growth. For other dependent variables, the results are mixed. / Economics

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2004. / Advisor: Dr. Ted Chiricos, Florida State University, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Oct. 06, 2004). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--Mississippi State University. Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Concentrating on G.W.F. Hegel’s controversial Naturphilosophie (1830), Part I ventures the following thesis: Hegelian nature is characterized by a “constitutive lack.” Insofar as the natural register lacks the precision and necessity immanent within the dialectical developments of conceptual thought it is capable of radical novelty—the unexpected. This is important: it offers a sense of how the natural register is open to thought and yet, simultaneously, a source of that which has the perpetual possibility of undermining conceptual distinctions and anticipations. The remainder of the project systematically maps what such a conception of nature must mean in terms of Hegel’s concept of spirit (Geist). Consequently, Part II analyzes Hegel’s bizarre account of psychopathology. The central thesis in this context claims that what Hegel’s speculative analysis of ‘madness’ shows us are the ways in which subjectivity might be dominated by its material-instinctual dimension as it unfolds within the unconscious depths of concrete subjectivity. Subjectivity retains the perpetual possibility of regression insofar as it reverts to being materially (maternally) determined strictly by way of externality. Questioning the presupposition of nature’s complete sublation, Part III focuses on Hegel’s political writings. Hegel’s analysis of criminality and punishment allows for the possibility of what we will call “surplus repressive punishment.” A surplus repressive punishment, a brute form of natural external pressure, would constitute spirit’s, i.e. freedom’s, “regressive de-actualization” at both the individual (subjective) and intersubjective (objective, communal) levels. Therefore, surplus repressive punishment, as an expression of spirit’s naturality, serves to undermine spirit’s objective actualization in its entirety. The problem of nature remains very much an active dimension of spirit’s concrete actualization at the socio-political level. The project offers a precise indication of how Hegel’s philosophy of spirit, i.e. his philosophy of freedom, is one intertwined with the problem instantiated by the matrices of nature. Sensitivity to this problem, that there is a problem here, and that Hegel’s system can be pursued to address it is one of the not always recognized merits of his thought. Simultaneously, Hegel’s system becomes surprisingly relevant for our contemporary world insofar as nature remains a problem for our living present.

Thesis advisor: David M. Rasmussen / This dissertation defines and defends the concept of ‘criminal oppression.’ Criminal oppression occurs when people are excluded from full participation in important social and political institutions because they are perceived to have violated certain community norms. Oppression is primarily a structural phenomenon, in which practices of formal and informal institutions unjustly harm people based on group membership. In structural oppression, there is rarely an individual who can be said to be responsible for the oppression, but I argue that at times, individuals may also be agents of oppression when they create, perpetuate, or exacerbate structural oppression. Applying this theory of oppression, the criminal justice system in the United States is an oppressive structure that unjustly harms those considered to be ‘criminals’ through a variety of practices. There are three categories of unjust practices: policing, adjudication and punishment, and collateral effects of arrest and conviction. These three categories of practices create the social group ‘criminals’ by subjecting certain people to these kinds of treatments. I use the word ‘criminal’ to describe those who are treated as criminals by police, the courts, and even private individuals like employers. To be a ‘criminal,’ it is not necessary that one has committed a crime or been convicted of a crime. Racial and criminal oppression deeply related historically and conceptually. Nevertheless, they are distinct kinds of oppression. In the United States, those who are not racially oppressed but are ‘criminals’ face many of the same unjust obstacles as those who are racially oppressed in addition to being ‘criminals.’ Some may argue that ‘criminals’ duly convicted of crimes deserve to be socially and politically excluded. But, I argue that the criminal justice system is not properly conceived of as an apolitical institution that can assess moral blameworthiness. Nor should it be able to offer punishments that amount to social and political exclusion. Instead, the criminal justice system is one political institution amongst many, and it ought to be governed by the same principles of liberty and equality that govern other political institutions. Criminal law’s proper function is to facilitate government as a system social cooperation. Therefore, it ought to respond to criminal acts with actions designed to promote inclusion rather than exclusion. Moreover, even if someone has committed a crime, that does not mean that they ought to be subject to violence or permanent second-class status. Finally, I address specific, feminism-driven arguments for using the criminal justice system to fight violence against women. Some feminists argue that the expressivist function of punishment—the ability of punishment to express disapproval and disavowal—makes it a perfect tool for fighting the normalization of violence against women. The problem, they contend, is that this violence is under-punished in the United States, and the solution to ending violence against women is to increase prosecutions and advocate for harsher punishments because punishment will change the social norms and make violence against women rarer. To this, I argue that those who create laws or mete out punishments do not have control over the social meaning of punishment with precision. The historical and present-day oppressive features of criminal law and punishment interfere with the ability of prosecution and punishment to condemn certain types of acts without also condemning people. Thus, feminists who try to use the criminal justice system to fight gender-based violence will find it to be ineffective and potentially harmful to the already oppressed group of ‘criminals.” Chapter 1argues that ‘criminals’ are oppressed using a structural model of oppression that focuses on how collections of institutional policies and practices can create and maintain unjust power relations between groups of people. I will also use an externalist theory of group identity to argue that being arrested or convicted of a crime is not necessary or sufficient for membership in the social group ‘criminal.’ Chapter 2 explains the relationship between racial oppression and the oppression of ‘criminals,’ noting the historical development of the modern prison system. Chapter 3 argues that the proper role of criminal law is to support systems of social cooperation, not to punish pre-political wrongs. I will suggest that criminal law is in essence part of the social contract, not a separate sphere of justice to which distinctive, retributive principles apply. Instead, the criminal law cannot determine moral blameworthiness and is only justified in sanctioning rule violations for the sake of supporting social cooperation in a society whose institutions are worth supporting. In Chapter 4, I propose a feminist, expressivist defense of the use of prosecution and harsh punishment as a response to rape and domestic violence that takes the structural nature of violence against women into account. Chapter 5, however, demonstrates why even this theory cannot justify incarceration in the non-ideal sphere because of the oppressive history and practice of the American criminal justice system. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.