The thesis is a case study in prison resistance. It examines the imprisonment and penal treatment of women who were confined for politically motivated offences in Northern Ireland between 1972 and 1995. It comprises an historical account of the main events in the women's prisons during the period, and establishes links between successive phases in the administration of political imprisonment and qualitative shifts in the character of prison regimes. The account also links the various punitive, administrative and gendered regulatory responses by the prison authorities to different strategies of collective organisation and resistance by women political prisoners. In modelling the cycle of punishment and resistance in terms of a dialectic of prison conflict, the thesis also argues that this relationship was grounded in prison regimes that combined both politicised and gendered correctional influences. The theoretical basis of the thesis comes from the Foucauldian formulation that structures of power or authority produce the conditions by which they are resisted. However, the thesis also engages feminist analyses in order to explain how `general' penal procedures take on different forms and meanings according to the disciplinary population upon whom they are practiced. This supports the argument that, just as prison punishment acquires specific forms when applied to different prisoner populations, punishment also forms the context in which prison resistance materialises. The practical and empirical basis of the thesis is grounded in the oral narratives of women former political prisoners, staff, and other relevant participants and observers.

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This thesis is primarily concerned with the social control and disciplining of women within a semi-penal institution. As a case study it critically analyses the history of one particular institution from 1823 to 1994, chronicling its development from a nineteenth century female reformatory to a twentieth century bail and probation hostel for women. Through an analysis of this history, the thesis fulfils three aims. First, it explicitly identifies the themes of continuity and discontinuity in the history of semi-penal institutionalisation, and thus contributes significantly to the feminist theoretical literature by establishing this oft forgotten arena as a significant site of social control for 'deviant' women, placed somewhere between the formal control of the prison and the informal regulation of the domestic sphere. Second, it deconstructs the dominant, hegemonic discourses around domesticity, respectability, motherhood, sexuality and pathology that have been mobilised to both define 'deviance' in women and to construct semi-penal institutional regimes aimed at reforming deviant behaviour. This analysis also makes an important contribution to this field of study in that it confirms that the discourses utilised to characterise and discipline women in reformatories during the nineteenth century, continue to be mobilised for the same purpose in a probation hostel nearly two hundred years later. In recognising this fact, the thesis dismantles the popular notion that such institutions are unproblematic simply because they are 'not custodial'. Finally, the thesis analyses the way in which women cope with or resist the disciplinary regimes and discourses imposed upon them. It concludes that women utilise a range of strategies through which they can re-gain and re-assert a sense of agency and authority within a regime that, whilst claiming to 'empower', actually serves to induce submission in women and to `infantilise' them, reducing them to a less-than-adult status. Through an examination of these strategies of resistance and coping it becomes apparent that the distribution of power in the semi-penal institution is not fixed, but can be subtly negotiated and redistributed. This thesis therefore complements and adds to the existing body of literature around women's resistance to custodial regimes by highlighting that these methods of survival are not only to be found in prisons but in semi-penal institutions also.

Les études internationales portant sur la violence et l’homicide se sont principalement intéressées aux aspects socioéconomiques comme la pauvreté, les inégalités ou la composition démographique. Bien que de nombreux résultats intéressants soient ressortis de ces études, les notions sociopolitiques sont rarement abordées de manière détaillée. L’objectif de la présente étude est d’identifier les éléments caractérisant la gouvernance étatique qui sont en lien avec les variations du niveau d’homicides des différents pays du monde. L’attention est portée sur diverses dimensions du politique, notamment celles du pluralisme politique et de la gouvernance, tant au niveau exécutif que judiciaire. Par ailleurs, les notions de violence politique ainsi que la liberté d’expression et de presse sont également abordées. Les données utilisées pour comprendre les liens entre le politique et l’homicide proviennent de l’Enquête mondiale sur l’homicide (Voir Ouimet, 2015), ainsi que celles d’autres grands organismes mondiaux. Des analyses statistiques bivariées et multivariées sont effectuées sur 150 pays du monde. Les principaux résultats montrent que la légitimité de la gouvernance exécutive et judiciaire est statistiquement liée aux variations du taux d’homicides des pays du monde lorsque les aspects économiques sont contrôlés. / International studies on violence and homicide have mainly focus on socioeconomic aspects such as poverty, inequality or demographic composition. Although many interesting findings emerged from these studies, sociopolitical notions are rarely discussed in detail. The objective of this study is therefore to identify the elements of state governance that are related to the homicide level variation in different countries of the world. Attention is drawn to various political dimensions, including political pluralism along with executive and judicial governance. Moreover, political violence as well as freedom of expression and press are also addressed. The data used to understand the relation between politics and homicides mainly come from the World homicide survey (see Ouimet, 2015) and other major international organisations. Bivariate and multivariate statistical analyzes are carried out on 150 different countries. Main results show that the legitimacy of executive and judicial governance is statistically related to variations in the homicide rate in countries when economic aspects are controlled.

Master of Arts / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / L. Susan Williams / Building upon macrostructural “social threat” (Blalock, 1967) research, the current study develops a theoretical model of judicial decision-making processes that focuses upon racial threats perceived within individual court contexts and the corresponding effects on individual sentencing outcomes. This model recognizes that in the absence of a true-measure of a defendant’s threat to the community (likelihood to re-offend) judicial decision makers often rely upon stereotypical generalizations regarding offender populations to render decisions. Although actors develop biases and stereotypes through interactions with society in general, the most relevant knowledge affecting sentencing decisions is perceptions gained through the course of work. Similar to the influential “Pygmalion in the Classroom” study, biases and stereotypes regarding the criminality of groups of criminal defendants are pervasive in contemporary society, undoubtedly influencing sentencing outcomes. Therefore, the most meaningful measurement of threat, as it pertains to sentencing, is the contextual composition of court caseloads. Using data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics-State Court Processing Statistics (SCPS) program, this study examines court-contextual or caseload level threats and the interaction between courtroom context and individual offense/offender characteristics and the corresponding impact on sentencing outcomes. Findings demonstrate that courts of high minority defendant volume apply more punitive sanctions to (increased sentence length and odds of incarceration) to all defendants within this context, while black defendants receive the greatest sanctions. These findings support assertions regarding the impact of threatening populations within courtroom contexts.

Master of Arts / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / L. Susan Williams / Studies on fear of crime demonstrate that fear of rape controls women’s lives by altering emotions and behavior, though how women construct rape discourse through social networks has not been examined. Further, studies tend to dismiss stranger rape because of its rarity compared to acquaintance rape, but this study argues that research must begin where women are. This study looks to women’s voices to articulate how they talk about fear of rape; specifically, it examines responses to a serial rapist at work in a college town. Framed by feminist methodology, this study establishes the influence of fear on women’s lives and the role of women’s social networks in disseminating information, constructing strategies, and changing behavior as it relates to a local serial rapist. The study utilizes a multi-method approach to quantify levels of fear in the community and to document qualitatively women’s responses to knowledge about the serial rapist. Two surveys, content analysis of local newspapers, and interviews support this research. In particular, group interviews conducted in two environments – campus face-to-face groups and online virtual groups – provide opportunities for young women to voice concerns and report behavioral changes related to the serial rapes. The research demonstrates that women are concerned about insufficient information from formal sources and want more accurate reporting. Women depend heavily on informal networks for information, but it is often incomplete and/or inaccurate and may actually intensify fear. As documented in earlier research, women focus on stranger rape to the neglect of the more common acquaintance rape and tend to strategize in individual terms rather than recognize structural issues. A major finding of this research is that young women actually perceive a change in their own identity as they try to manage fear of rape. However, women’s social networks and, in particular, the increasingly popular online networks, provide a forum from which to try out strategies, build collective discourse, and, in turn, develop greater group consciousness among young women. From the experiences of women in this study, several policy implications are offered for managing fear, including education about the more likely threat of acquaintance rape.

The primary goal of this study was to investigate the habits of college students who use pornography. The study was designed to collect data on the use of online pornography by college students. Through the use of an online survey, the study collected general demographic data and data on the frequency with which students used online pornography. The study also collected data on the general attitudes of college students towards online pornography. Participants consisted of students enrolled at the University of North Texas during the Spring 2016 semester. The participants of the study were contacted by an email requesting the student to respond to an online anonymous survey regarding their use of online pornography. The survey consisted of thirty questions and statements, primarily utilizing a five point Likert scale. Analysis of the data collected as well as a discussion of the findings are included.

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Risk has emerged as a defining feature of punishment in the United States. Feeley and Simon (1992) note that contemporary punishment is increasingly moving away from rehabilitation (the old penology) and moving toward the management and control of offenders (the new penology), often though actuarial techniques. While the profusion of risk assessment instruments, now entering their fourth generation, provides some support for the assertion that risk is indeed an important element in corrections, it was previously unknown if the risk model applied to all offenders, particularly female offenders. This dissertation addressed that gap by examining whether the risk model applied to female offenders in the community corrections setting. This dissertation surveyed 93 community corrections officers employed by the Orange County Community Corrections Department. The findings suggest that the department has incorporated many elements of the new penology into the classification and supervision of offenders in each of its units, though several gender differences were noted. Classification overrides, the perceived level of risk to the community, supervision decisions, and the perceived importance of risk and need factors were all examined in this study. The results indicate that some elements of classification and supervision function uniformly for offenders and operate irrespective of gender, but some areas, such as the perceived level of risk to the community and the perceived importance of risk factors, are influenced by gender.