The United States prison population has grown seven-fold over the past 35 years. This dissertation looks at the impact this growth in incarceration has on crime rates and seeks to understand why this drastic change in public policy happened. Simultaneity between prison populations and crime rates makes it difficult to isolate the causal effect of changes in prison populations on crime. This dissertation uses marijuana and cocaine mandatory minimum sentencing to break that simultaneity. Using panel data for 50 states over 40 years, this dissertation finds that the marginal addition of a prisoner results in a higher, not lower, crime rate. Specifically, a 1 percent increase in the prison population results in a 0.28 percent increase in the violent crime rate and a 0.17 percent increase in the property crime rate. This counterintuitive result suggests that incarceration, already high in the U.S., may have now begun to achieve negative returns in reducing crime. As such it supports the work of a number of scholars (Western 2006, Clear 2003) who have suggested that incarceration may have begun to have a positive effect on crime because of a host of factors. Most of the empirical work on the question is undertaken at an aggregate level (county, state, or national data). Yet, criminologists (Sampson et al. 2002, Spelman 2005 and Clear 1996, 2007) have long argued that the complex intertwining of crime and punishment is best understood at the neighborhood level, where the impacts of incarceration on social relationships are most closely felt. This dissertation examines the question using a panel of neighborhoods in Tallahassee, Florida for the period 1995 to 2002. I find evidence to support the contention that the high levels of prison admissions and prison cycling (admissions plus releases) is associated with increasing crime rates in disadvantaged neighborhoods. This effect is not found in other neighborhoods. Looking more closely at the issues of race and class, I find that while marginalized neighborhoods experience slightly higher crime rates, they are faced with much higher incarceration rates. In Black neighborhoods in particular, prison admissions are an order of magnitude higher in comparison with non-Black neighborhoods even though underlying crime rates are not very different. If incarceration does not lower crime, then why did prison populations multiply seven-fold? This dissertation argues that mass incarceration is a central institution in the neoliberal social structures of accumulation. Mass incarceration as an institution plays a critical but underappreciated role in channeling class conflict in the neoliberal social structures of accumulation (SSA). Neoliberalism has produced a significant section of the working class who are largely excluded from the formal labor market, for whom the threat of unemployment is not a sufficient disciplining mechanism. At the same time, it has undermined the welfare systems that had managed such populations in earlier periods. Finally, the racial hierarchy essential to capitalist hegemony in the United States was threatened with collapse with the end of Jim Crow laws. This dissertation argues that mass incarceration has played an essential role in overcoming these barriers to stable capitalist accumulation under neoliberalism.

The emperical pseudopotential method in the large basis approach was used to calculate the electronic bandstructures of bulk semiconductor materials and layered semiconductor heterostructures. The crucial continuous atomic form factor potentials needed to carry out such calculations were determined by using Levenberg-Marquardt optimization in order to obtain optimal cubic spline interpolations of the potentials. The optimized potentials were not constrained by any particular functional form (such as a linear combination of Gaussians) and had better convergence properties for the optimization. It was demonstrated that the results obtained in this work could potentially lead to better agreement between calculated and empirically determined band gaps via optimization / Physics / M. Sc. (Physics)

En 1908, les juges de la Cour Suprême des États-Unis citent pour la première fois des études en médecine, en sociologie et en psychologie afin de valider la constitutionnalité d’une loi. Depuis, le recours aux preuves scientifiques s’est largement développé et il a pris une place dans le travail du juge aux États-Unis et au Canada. La preuve scientifique se présente comme un outil d’information essentiel pour le juge dans le contentieux constitutionnel des droits et libertés. Elle permet ainsi de décrire les réalités sociales et les aspects techniques qui intéressent directement la résolution des questions constitutionnelles. Au delà de son rôle d'information, son recours s’inscrit dans une logique de concrétisation de l’analyse constitutionnelle. Plus précisément, les critères du contrôle de constitutionnalité impliquent des questions de faits que la preuve scientifique pourra démontrer. En prenant ainsi un tout autre rôle, le recours aux preuves scientifiques questionne sur la nature du contrôle de constitutionnalité et sur les méthodes du juge. Malgré l’intérêt des juges américain et canadien pour ce mode de preuve, leur statut et leur régime juridique dans le contentieux constitutionnel demeurent indéterminés. Ces incertitudes touchent tant des questions de procédure que des questions de fond sur leur rôle dans l’analyse constitutionnelle et dans le raisonnement du juge. Dès lors, la recherche d'un cadre méthodologique a semblé nécessaire. Ce modèle permet de revaloriser l’apport des preuves scientifiques dans le contentieux constitutionnel et il contribue à la protection des droits et libertés. Il présente, alors, un intérêt pour l'ensemble juges constitutionnels / In 1908, the U.S. Supreme Court Justices made several citations of medical, sociology andpsychology studies for the first time. Since then, the use of scientific evidence has expanded and it became an important part of the work of the Supreme Court of the U.S. as well as the Supreme Court of Canada. Scientific evidence is an essential tool to inform judges in constitutional rights cases. It gives information on social realities and technical questions which are directly relevant to resolve questions of law. However, the use of scientific evidence is more than a medium of information. Indeed, it implies an interest for facts that go beyond the parties. Constitutional doctrine itself implies empirical questions that could find answers in scientific evidence. By determining those facts, scientific evidence becomes a part of the constitutional doctrineitself. Consequently, the use of scientific evidence interrogates on the nature of judicial review and on the judge’s methods. Thought judges in the U.S. and in Canada frequently cite scientific evidence, their use is mostly unregulated and indeterminate. The uncertainties surrounding the use of scientific evidence concern procedural questions as well as questions regarding their role in decisionmaking. Those questions must be answered. Once resolved, we research a methodological framework in which scientific evidence could be used consistently by American and Canadian judges. This approach is essential to reassert the value of scientific evidence in constitutionalrights cases and to improve constitutional rights protection. Finally, this framework might be relevant for judges beyond the United States and Canada

The emperical pseudopotential method in the large basis approach was used to calculate the electronic bandstructures of bulk semiconductor materials and layered semiconductor heterostructures. The crucial continuous atomic form factor potentials needed to carry out such calculations were determined by using Levenberg-Marquardt optimization in order to obtain optimal cubic spline interpolations of the potentials. The optimized potentials were not constrained by any particular functional form (such as a linear combination of Gaussians) and had better convergence properties for the optimization. It was demonstrated that the results obtained in this work could potentially lead to better agreement between calculated and empirically determined band gaps via optimization / Physics / M. Sc. (Physics)