Abstract Mass incarceration is a popular term in today’s society that is means to describe the high incarceration rate in the United States. Because of this, the United States has the largest prison population in the world. Mass incarceration is a movement that truly began to make headway during Reagan’s presidency and his declaration of a War on Drugs. The sensationalization of the dangers of crack cocaine sparked a “tough on crime” mentality and a long series of punitive measures that would come to disproportionately affect the black community. Today, mass incarceration has become an extremely controversial topic. The debate has centered on whether this country is too punitive and how current policies may be disproportionately affecting black men as they make up 33% of the prison population but only 12% of the general population (Alexander, 2010). However, regardless of the controversy, mass incarceration continues to affect millions of individuals in this country. Thus, the question is why individuals continue to be imprisoned at such alarming rates. Not only has the prison system take a strong foothold in this country but its power and influence continue to grow with the prison industrial complex. Therefore, ensuring that future generations will continue to be affected. In order to stop mass incarceration, we must consider alternatives to our prison system, such as a focus on rehabilitation rather than deterrence. Or perhaps an abolition of our prison system altogether.

This systematic literature review synthesizes findings from empirical studies published between 1989 and 2016 to examine types, use, purpose and implementation of information and communication technology in public child welfare to determine if there are thematic reoccurrences in these arenas. Study results yielded information to the field of social work and public child welfare by determining themes in successful usage, purpose and implementation of information and communication technology in public child welfare to better serve those vulnerable populations. This systematic literature review contextualizes and identifies these themes across the literature. Studies included in this review were analyzed and categorized to determine reoccurring themes in information and communication technology use, purpose and implementation.

Much recent scholarship is devoted to projecting Japan’s future and analyzing its prospects as a global power. After two decades of economic stagnation, alarming demographic trends, and the 3/11 triple disaster, some scholars argue that Japan is grappling with an era of precarity, marked with instability and anxiety. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe returned to office in 2012, promoting his economic reform policy, “Abenomics” and within the third “arrow" of this approach targeting structural reforms, he promoted “womenomics”, a term coined by Kathy Matsui of Goldman-Sachs. Prime Minister Abe’s objective is to create a society where "women can shine” and women can participate in the labor market more equitably. However, it is unclear if equality can be achieved when Japanese women still encounter persistent workplace sex discrimination. While labor laws, such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Law, have attempted to tackle workplace sex discrimination, many scholars and critics believe the laws have not done enough. One way Japanese women have attempted to combat workplace sex discrimination is with litigation. Starting in the 1960s, women have resorted to judicial relief to address discriminatory treatment in the workplace. However, while litigation is a powerful tool for social change in Japan, the literature suggests that Japanese women are reluctant to litigate, consistent with the larger consensus that Japan is a low-litigious society. If Japanese women have engaged in “litigation campaigns" and litigation rates are rising, yet Japanese women are reluctant to litigate, this creates an interesting paradox worth exploring. While these two conditions are not unique in and of themselves, what is curious in this nexus is how Japanese women actually relate to the law. This study analyzes how Japanese women relate to the law. Through semi-structured interviews with Japanese working women about their experiences, thoughts, and opinions, this study illustrates how Japanese women “do" law and deepens our understanding of their relationship with the law. In addition to this, this study proposes a new model for measuring litigiousness. Rather than measuring litigiousness in terms of aggregate litigation rates, this study operationalizes litigiousness in terms of personal intent. By applying this model to qualitative data, this study demonstrates that Japanese women actually do demonstrate a moderate degree of litigiousness as it relates to workplace sex discrimination. That is, the nail that sticks up isn't always hammered down.

Natural hazards have been an increasing problem in wildland recreation areas. This study attempted to identify factors affecting park visitor perception of and preparedness for hazards. A model was formulated incorporating three major independent variables which might affect park visitor responses to hazards. These were: (1) previous experience, (2) information about hazards provided by the park administration (such as warnings located on signs or in brochures), and (3) visitor perception of whether responsibility for hazards rests with the individual or with an outside authority such as government or God. Trip length and knowledge of hazards were also thought to be factors influencing visitor behavior. The model was tested during the summer of 1976 in four study areas: Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, and the High Uintas Primitive Area. Personal interviews and questionnaires were used to obtain the data. The results showed that the set of influences upon visitor behavior varied with each park studied. In general, however, hazard warnings and visitor perceptions of where responsibility for hazards lay had no influence upon visitor behavior. In contrast, previous experience, trip length, and visitor knowledge about hazards had important influences upon visitor preparations for hazards.

This thesis examines the place of metaphor in biomedical knowledge about two major public health problems: cancer and coronary heart disease (CHD). Specifically, it considers why cancer is constituted by biomedicine in obviously metaphorical concepts that are also highly pejorative. Conversely, the metaphorical dimension of the biomedical knowledge concerning CHD is less obvious and less negative in its connotations. This thesis posits that the difference in linguistic styles associated with cancer and CHD can be accounted for by whether knowledge about them confirms or challenges the knowledge and value system of modernity. Cancer, as construed by biomedicine, appears to confound some important tenets of the epistemology and knowledge of modernity. In particular, it confounds the idea that the body is a machine and that nature is an inert order obeying objective laws. It thus suggests that the universe, including that of bodies, is not entirely subject to rational understanding and control. Women having irrational bodies and an affinity with unruly nature are primary sites for cancer. It is therefore hardly surprising that cancer's metaphors express a fear that order based on masculine rational agency is fragile. By contrast, biomedical knowledge about CHD appears to confirm key aspects of modernist knowledge. Specifically, it suggests that the (masculine) body can be understood as a machine that exists as part of a wider domain of nature that is inert and is fuelled by objective laws. Unlike cancer, which is depicted as mysterious and arcane, CHD is presented as an ailment with causes that are well understood and treatment that is effective, thus affirming the truth of rationality and technology. Coronary heart disease is construed overwhelmingly as a disease affecting men exercising their capacity for rational agency, free from the 'dictates' of an irrational body. Coronary heart disease is depicted as a disruption of supply and demand rather than as a threat to social order itself. In Durkheimian terms, sacred things can be pure and beneficent or they can take impure and threatening forms. Cancer expresses the impure, threatening dimension of sacredness in exposing threats to the knowledge and order of modernity. Conversely, coronary heart disease is profane, in those terms, since it offers apparent confirmation of the knowledge and order of modernity. Cancer makes us aware of deeply held values by making us conscious of threats to them but the knowledge of CHD is so congruent with the knowledge system of modernity, that it does not provoke us to examine that framework; it merely affirms our routine and mundane view of the world. These findings suggest that biomedicine can be regarded as a secular religion because it acts as a cosmology. Knowledge of the body and its ailments is set within a wider conceptual framework and value system recognizing and naming sources of order and danger. This further suggests that while biomedicine may be rightly regarded as a technical and instrumental body of knowledge, it is nevertheless fuelled by and intertwined with deeply held values and convictions that are beyond the domain of rationality. The unexamined, a-rational elements of biomedicine have been virtually ignored within public health and explain some of its limitations in defining and responding to familiar public health problems. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Department of Public Health, 2003.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of History, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

<p>This study analyses the relationship between the manner of citizens&rsquo / engagement with the state and the level of service delivery they experience in their everyday lives, as residents of Khayelitsha. The phenomena of so-called &lsquo / service delivery&rsquo / protests across South Africa have now become a fixture of South African politics. Khayelitsha is one of the sites with frequent protests in Cape Town and is inhabited by poor people, 70 percent of whom live in informal settlements. While the lack of municipal services is undoubtedly a major problem for many poor people in South Africa, thus&nbsp / far, few studies have been dedicated to investigate empirically this alleged link between service delivery and protest activity. The study utilizes mostly quantitative analysis techniques such as&nbsp / regression analysis and path analysis to discover the form and strength of linkages between the service delivery and participation forms. While residents of informal settlements and therefore&nbsp / poorer services were more prone to engage in protests and thus reinforcing the service delivery hypothesis, this relationship was relatively weak in regression analysis. What is more important than the service delivery variables such as water services was the level of cognitive awareness exemplified by the level of political engagement and awareness on the one hand and level of community engagement in terms of attendance of community meetings and membership of different organizations. In summary the study found relatively weak evidence to support the service&nbsp / delivery hypothesis and stronger evidence for the importance of cognitive awareness and resource mobilization theories in Khayelitsha as the key determinant of protest activity.</p>

I examine the state of Tibetan Buddhism that exists in China in the 21st century and what are the best methods to increase religious freedom and political autonomy. I look at what cause China and Tibet to reach this point, and why do the respective nations do what they do. Man people fundamentally misunderstand the reasons why the Chinese Communist Party oppresses Tibetan Buddhism; they aren't concerned with eradicating religion, they want to simply maintain longterm political legitimacy in Tibet.

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) face the 21st century with questions about change and adaptation to an increasingly science and technology oriented society. They face the challenge of finding a strategy by which they can utilize current resources and energy to maximize their science and technology development. Using a mixed methods research design, this study conducted an analysis of science and technology at HBCUs. The primary objective was to determine what theories (when implemented they are termed strategies) account for the development of science and technology at successful research oriented HBCUs. This was accomplished through a secondary objective – to assess productivity outputs at HBCUs using various science and technology indices. The results and findings can be summarized by stating that the selection of strategy is dependent on the maturity of the HBCU’s science and technology program. An HBCU that is seeking to initiate a science and technology program should pursue a strategy of federal or state policy supportive of introductory efforts. HBCUs with established science and technology programs that are seeking growth strategies should look toward collaborations and partnerships for the purposes of forming networks and clusters. The formation of joint ventures, partnerships, and networks will further develop their science and technology programs. Leadership is a sustaining factor that enhances the effectiveness of both policy and linkages.

Understanding the composition and distribution of the revenue of nonprofit organizations (NPOs) is key to understanding NPOs themselves. This research uses revenue data for 87,127 charitable NPOs to draw three main conclusions. First, revenue structures of NPOs vary widely by subsector and organizational size, with many NPOs demonstrating revenue structures that might be considered uncharacteristic of the nonprofit sector. Second, despite the concerns of many nonprofit scholars, heavy dependence on either government funding or charitable contributions is atypical of NPOs. And third, nonprofit revenue is highly concentrated in relatively few NPOs. The description of revenue expands to examine the relationship between two important sources of revenue, charitable contributions and government subsidies. Nonprofit scholars have long theorized that government funding diminishes charitable giving. This research finds that the effect of subsidy on charity varies substantially among the nonprofit subsectors, but, contrary to widely accepted theory, these effects are more often positive than negative: More than half of government funding of the nonprofit subsectors appears to spur an increase in charitable giving, whereas only 6 percent of government funding is associated with decreased giving. This research suggests that effects of subsidy on charity are less likely due to the decisions of donors than to the decisions of NPOs themselves. These findings assuage some concerns about the future of the nonprofit sector but substantiate others. As government increasingly relies on NPOs to deliver government-funded services, it appears unlikely that NPOs will suffer decreases in charitable giving, and government funding may even enable NPOs to increase revenue from charitable giving. But marginal changes in charitable giving will not mitigate what many see as a distressing move away from reliance on charity toward generating fees for services and generally becoming more business-like. Whether these findings represent a nonprofit sector betraying its charitable roots, diluting its power to effect social change by "corporatizing," emphasizing service delivery at the expense of advocacy, or becoming more efficient, financially stable, and responsive to market demands remains a matter of debate, but debate better informed by the understanding of nonprofit revenue provided by this research.