Showing 1 - 4 of 4 Items
Who We Are: Incarcerated Students and the New Prison Literature, 1995-2010
Date: 2013-05-01
Creator: Reilly Hannah N Lorastein
Access: Open access
- This project focuses on American prison writings from the late 1990s to the 2000s. Much has been written about American prison intellectuals such as Malcolm X, George Jackson, Eldridge Cleaver, and Angela Davis, who wrote as active participants in black and brown freedom movements in the United States. However the new prison literature that has emerged over the past two decades through higher education programs within prisons has received little to no attention. This study provides a more nuanced view of the steadily growing silent population in the United States through close readings of Openline, an inter-disciplinary journal featuring poetry, essays, fiction, and visual art created by incarcerated students enrolled in the College Program at San Quentin State Prison. By engaging the first person perspective of the incarcerated subject, this project will reveal how incarcerated individuals describe themselves, how they maintain and create intimate relationships from behind bars, and their critiques of the criminal justice system. From these readings, the project outlines conventions of “the incarcerated experience” as a subject position, with an eye toward further research analyzing the intersection of one's “incarcerated status” with one’s race, class, gender, and sexuality.
Racial Bias within Capital Punishment: Instructional Comprehension
Date: 2024-01-01
Creator: Marcus Gadsden
Access: Open access
- This dissertation examines the existence of racial bias within capital punishment. Since colonial times discriminatory death sentencing has impacted racial minorities, and despite living in a post-colonial epoch, the United States Justice system continues to produce alarming racial disparities. Consequently, both law reviews and social science journals indicate that race remains a significant factor in criminal trials. So, to what extent does racial bias influence capital punishment trials? Given that it does exist, how can it be alleviated? Through a statistical/qualitative analysis of psychological studies, Supreme Court cases, and jury instructions, this dissertation suggests that implicit cognitive bias continues to produce daunting realities in contemporary criminal punishment processes. Notably among juries, traditional judicial procedures have ostensibly triggered implicit bias and psychological intimidation, i.e. jury instructions. Moreover, do long and complicated jury instructions heighten instances of partial judgment? In Racial Bias within Capital Punishment: Instructional Comprehension, I argue that inaccessible jury instructions provide a space where jurors adhere to subtle racial preferences. Consequently, the swaying capacity of juries in capital punishment trials proceeds to arbitrarily produce discrepancies in sentencing rates.
The Lay Judge System: Following a Tradition of Maintaining the Status Quo or Forging a Path Towards More Reformation of the Justice System? Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2015-05-01
Creator: Alexandra Mathieu
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Service Beyond Bars: How Correctional Chaplains Mediate the Movement of Religion in Prisons and Jails This record is embargoed.
- Embargo End Date: 2028-05-18
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Lia F. Kornmehl
Access: Embargoed