Jock Young on the State of Criminology

I just returned from a 3 day visit to Los Angeles for the American Society of Criminology meeting. I enjoy the ASC (much more than the American Sociological Association meetings). The highlight of this year's meeting for me was listening to Jock Young deliver a stinging criticism of the discipline's abstracted empiricism (taken from C. Wright Mills, "where precision is mistaken for truth").

The real irony of the ASC is that so few of these people know any criminology!

He correctly (imho) criticizes mainstream U.S. style criminology as a all method and no substance. One takes data that he or she didn't collect and builds mathematical models to test theories that he or she did not develop. This leads to reificiation of existing theory, uncritical reliance on linear model methods, and uninteresting questions.

He also took swipes at Travis Hirschi, Criminology the journal, and Albert Blumstein. While some of it was more mean-spirited than I generally like, it was refreshing and different.

Jon Trott on Jesus Camp

I plan to work up a post on Jesus Camp as soon as the movie finds its way here to Morgantown. In the interim, for anyone interested, I suggest you check out Jon Trott's commentary.

I consider Mr. Trot to be one of the few evangelicals visible in the public sphere who is still worthy of my trust. Jon was part of a team of journalists from JPUSA (Jesus People USA) a common-purse christian community who published Cornerstone Magazine. In 1992, Trott and Mike Hertenstein wrote a long expose piece on Christian commedian Mike Warnke. This material was eventually compiled into a book. I grew up listening to Mike Warnke's testimony and accepting hook, line, and sinker. Trott and Hertenstein called shenanigans on Warnke's largely mythical back-story and called him to accountability.

The Cornerstone expose was published at a time when my cynicism about evangelical Christianity was at an all time high. It was a relief to me to find self-proclaimed Christians who took their faith seriously, while refusing to check their intellect at the church door.

Anyway, I found Trott's blog while doing some google-stalking of Mike Warnke. Mr. Warnke is back... he did a show here in Morgantown a few weeks ago (at a church with about 20 people present... a far cry from the arenas of thousands he used to perform in front of).

Toothless in Miami

By now most people have seen the ugly incident between the University of Miami and Florida Atlantic's football squads. If you haven't seen it, the youtube stream is available below. (Warning it is violent).



Others have already pontificated on the lack of an appropriate response by the NCAA, the Atlantic Coast Conference, or the respective (using that term loosely) universities. While the violence on the field is disturbing (criminal actually; at least two of the players on that field should have been charged with aggravated assualt) equally troublesome is the way in which Miami President (and fellow Maxwell School alum) Donna Shalala spun and soft-pedaled the incident.

The University of Miami simply will not tolerate or condone this type of behavior. Period. We expect the best from our students. Indeed we hold all of them to a high standard of personal conduct.

The one bright light is that the thousands of students from both institutions who attended the game behaved in exemplary fashion and kept their seats and their heads.

Of course, "not tolerating or condoning this type of behavior" does not go so far as to take away scholarships, or fire coaches and althletic directors. And hey, there were a few people there who did not commit aggravated assault; we should celebrate their conformity with acceptable comportment and committment to civil decency.

Of course Shalala is not going to be too critical. The Univerity of Miami (as is also the case for my employer) generates massive revenue from intercollegiate athletics. And in Miami's case (which is not true for my employer) the Huricane Mystic and Swagger is part of the marketing jugernaught. This behavior brings them coverage, revenue, and recruits.

We have a problem with elite college athletics. I acknowledge this with no small degree of cognitive dissonance as I love sports generally and college football in particular. But something is way out of wack.

Brent Musburger's pie hole (a rant for noone in particular)

I watch a lot of college football (some might say too much). Typically, I tune out the banter of the commentators. While some of them draw my attention to interesting strategic aspects of the game (such as Bob Davie and Mike Gottfried) most just fill air with the obvious (Brent Musburger & John Maddden {in the NFL}) .

But last night as I watched an obviously overmatched Penn State team struggle against Michigan, I caught a couple of comments by Musburger that flabergasted me. This man has been doing football play-by-play for more than 30 years. I have to think that in that time-span he'd pick-up some of the canonical rules of game management.

For instance, Penn State scored a touchdown with 3:30 left in the game, drawing them within 7. Musburger, ratchets up the drama: "folks, get ready for an onside kick..." What? There is 3:30 left in the game and Penn State has all its time-outs. If wikipedia is to believed, onside kicks only work about 23% of the time. That means that with that much time left on the clock, trying an onside kick will likely give Michigan the ball at the 50 yardline. Even if Penn State were to stop the Wolverines, a punt would give them the ball back inside their 20. Given how poorly Penn State's offense was faring against Michigan, the onside kick gives them little chance to win as they would have to cover 80 yards or more.

But Penn State's defense was playing fairly well. Kicking it deep, stopping the run, and using time-outs is the smartest strategy. In the best case scenario, Penn State gets the ball back close to the 50. There they have a chance to work some corner routes and possibly get into the end-zone. [Though we all knew that the odds were against them].

In the end Penn State did the right thing and kicked it deep. Unfortunately, Michigan's rushing attack was too strong and they worked the ball up to the 40 before having to punt with about a minute left. Penn State's last ditch effort came up short.

Now, what I just described makes sense to someone who pays attention to football strategy. Why in the world would Musburger make such a comment? Can he really be that clueless to basic principles of strategy? Bob Davie (the color commentator who usually focuses on strategy) tried to point this out, but Musberger said: "Yeah, but Bob, they need to give themselves a chance."

Musberger had another idiotic comment about a hit on the Penn State quarterback being unnecessary. Even Kirk Herbstreit told him it was a good hit....

Oy, I'm not sure why I'm even commenting on this. Maybe I should quit my job and go into commentating.

Jericho ... I want my money back

So its the new TV season. And though I shouldn't watch TV until I get tenure, thanks to TIVO I have hours of entertainment waiting for me when I return home each night. I started watching a new series on CBS called Jericho. The premise is engaging enough: how does a small town pull together in the face of nuclear fall out. The pilot episode, despite some crappy writing, held me with the plot development. There are several mysterious characters who appear to possess interesting back stories (Ala Lost); the premise of survival in a post apocalyptic heartland also has promise.

However, in watching the second episode last night, I've concluded the show's liabilities outweigh its advantages. The same characters with mysterious and intriguing back stories are superhuman. One lead character, apparently on the outs with his family for not growing up, performed a tracheotomy on an 8 year-old in anaphlaxis (after sustaining a head injury and deep flesh wound to his thigh); then he fixed a school bus and drove it back to town (fighting to stay conscious the whole way) returning a group of stranded elementary school children to their parents. Then he climbed on top of a hospital to see the waves of oncoming nuclear rain; then he helped evacuate the hospital to a salt-mine, where he wired dynamite to seal the mine closed to protect the citizens from radiation. But before he sealed himself in with them (making arrangements with his brother to get them dug out later, of course) he heard a distress call from a former love interest who was abducted by escaped felons posing as sheriff's deputies...... puke....

The writing is terrible, the characters are cliched, and the show (only in episode 2) is already stumbling towards cancellation.

Wondering if I was the only one to feel this way, I checked the Internet for reviews. Apparently, I am smoking crack. TV critic Rachel Thomas writes answers the burning question: Is it worth your precious viewing time?

Absolutely! Jericho delivers that "what if" factor in a very real and poignant way. The pilot episode beautifully sets up the foundational history of the main characters. As the events unfolded, I couldn't help but feel the emotions of each of the characters and often wondered how I and those around me would react if a nuclear mushroom was spotted off in the distance. After one episode, I was hooked and am anxiously awaiting to see how this little town survives the unthinkable.

I can almost give Ms. Thomas a pass because her review stops with the pilot. But Brian Tallerico of the UnderGroundOnline review writes:

the second episode ("Fallout") is actually stronger than the premiere, feeling more confident and settled in its tone. Both episodes occasionally fall into a bit too much melodrama...

Stronger???, oy.

This is why I don't listen to TV critics. Anyway, I'm going to give the show one more episode before I delete my DVR pass to it. Maybe they can surprise me; but I suspect that this show will only last one season.

Stay tuned for reviews of Kidnapped, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and the latest installment of the best show on TV, HBO's the Wire.

More jesus camp...

I'm going to work up a substantive post about the new Documentary on Jesus Camp. However, I think this documentary and the discourse that's swirling around it is ultimately counter-productive. Yes, there is an evangelical subculture; but this jesus camp is not in any way, shape, or form, representative of it.

The ABC News clip provided below references the massive "evangelical subculture" and its growing collection of institutions, cultural objects, and celebrity figures, as if this were a new thing. That just shows that the news media is beginning another discovery cycle of the evangelical subculture. In reality, this subculture has been part of the mainstream society for at least 30 years. At one point in time this was my dissertation focus; why that crashed and burned is subject of another post.

Incidently, one of the more irritating things in the news clip is the interview with the author Lauren Sandler (described as a secular liberal feminist who says:

Voice Over: She says the evangelical youth movement will have a negative impact on this country's future because even the most moderate young evangelicals are inflexible on issues such as abortion and gay marriage.

Sandler: It's an absolute, straight up, us-against-them. You're with us, or you're against us.

Uh.. you mean like the [ fill in your group here ] rights movement? The thing that frustrates me to no end about any social movement is this artifically sustained us-against-them mentality. If you strip out the substance and just look at the rhetorical style, there's very little difference between an abortion rights activist and an anti-abortion activist. And to call attention to this pisses people off. You can't reason with true-believers. That's the true shame here.

Anyway, check out the ABC news story for yourself.

Welcome to my childhood

This movie makes me cringe:



updated: I changed the embedded film to a youtube stream, so it will stop running automatically.

One of the reasons I like reading Radley Balko

We share good taste in television entertainment. He likes the Wire.

Proof that there is no hope

I just spent the last hour clicking through random blogrolls (I still don't know how to do that myself; if a visitor knows how to setup blogrolling please feel free to enlighten me via the comments, or an email: cjcolyer gmail com ). I started with a post at Althouse, which is yet another continuation of breast-gate. I started reading the comments and became increasingly disappointed in the quality of discourse.

For instance, from Ms. Althouse herself:

What vicious people, eh? I love the way to go out of their way to exclude, eject, and distance people who they might persuade, but this is absolutely standard treatment by the left side of the blogosphere. I have to try to resist opposing their positions because I find them so distasteful. It's anti-persuasion going on over there.

From where I see the world, neither side of the blogosphere is particularly well behaved. Althouse and (more so) her commenters learn hard to the right. But vicious, exclusive, divisive characterizations of the otherside are certainly not restricted to the left.

You can find plenty of anti-persuasion going on in the comments of right-leaning political blogs such as Althouse, the Volkh Conspiracy, or Professor Bainbridge. If you strip out the direction of the contempt, its structure is indistinguishable from what you might read at Daily Kos, or Crooked Timber. [Note, I say comments. I find Bainbridge and the primary contributors at Crooked Timber to be be intelligent contributors to discourse (but hold a lesser opinion of the Volkh contributors or KOS).]

As I read through these posts, I was reminded how empty this echo-chambers is. Most of the commentary was snarky in-group bully behavior. Certainly we can do better than this? Perhaps I'm just sensitive to (and frightened by) the rhetoric of true believers. I lost my enthusiasm for leftist activism in graduate school but am not willing to cross over to the overly-simplistic conception of the world we tend to see on the right. (Yeah, that was probably an overly-simplistic criticism; I'm tired sue me.... I'll write a post sometime about my thoughts on conservatism).

I'm stopping now and am going to go read a book or something.

Note: in the unlikely event that Althouse wanders over to my little corner of the internet, I am not calling attention to her for the purpose of character assassination. Her blog is one of 10 that I check daily and though I don't often agree (in fact, I find her style of argumentation frustrating), I typically learn something.

A short post on breastgate

Too much of my yesterday was devoted to reading the fascinating if goofy discourse around some feminist blogger, who posed for a picture in front of Bill Clinton, apparently so that we can see that she has *gasp* breasts (note, start with the link from Bitch PhD above and then follow the click-throughs).

I won't comment on any of substance (not that there's much of that in any of these posts). But today I stumbled across Jonathan Swift, a blogger who is hysterical!

My favorite part of his commentary on breastgate focuses on Ann Althouse's argument that feminists should have nothing to do with Bill Clinton:

Conservatives were justifiably outraged when it was revealed that Clinton was only the second President in history known to have sex while in office (John Kennedy being the first) and that he got away with it. Everyone knows that our best Presidents have been those who successfully repress their sex drive into more constructive things like tax cuts and military action.

Read the whole thing for a treat in wit and sarcasm. [Especially you, Felicia.]

Why is this woman smiling?

This morning's Corning Leader,

the paper's leadstory is concerned with a man-hunt for a prisoner who escaped from the Erie County Correctional Center several weeks ago. He is armed and extremely dangerous (having shot three State Troopers earlier in the week).

The paper included the picture on the right. I'm not sure I would be smiling if the police were ransacking my trunk with a shotgun.

Alaina G. Levine and the academic etiquette of butter

I subscribe to the RSS feed for Inside Higher Ed (sort of a freebie Chronicle knockoff). This morning, they published an essay by Alaina G. Levine, a director of special projects of the University of Arizona's College of Science, concerning manners.

She begins her tale by describing an anomaly...

A gorgeous, well-dressed man had claimed the chair to my right at the table. There are plenty of good-looking academics, but few of them show up to a scholarly conference impeccably dressed in a three-piece pin-stripped suit, matching tie tack and cuff links, and shoes as shiny as mirrors. My reaction upon observing this unusual creature outside his native habitat? This is going to be a mighty fine lunch.

However, her Prince Charming quickly revealed himself to be Lurch. This ogre reached across the table, stuck his (hairy) hand in the bread basket, and then "spread mountains of butter on its entire spherical surface, until the roll ceased to be no longer." Holy [ fill in a noun of your choice]! Apparently at this banquet, they served a chemically enhanced butter that leads to the chemical decomposition of wheat and glutten. This twit should have known better... than to put butter on a roll at a professional banquet. The clod!

And she goes on

Dr. Suit’s fingers were smeared with butter and when he appeared satisfied that his masterpiece, the Ball o’ Butter, was complete, he then commenced gorging on it, one huge buttery bite at a time. He shifted said Ball o’ Butter between hands, licking his once perfectly manicured fingers as he went. I quickly lost my appetite (for the food and the man).

The truth begins to emerge. It appears that she was planning on doing some intensive networking with this fellow after the event. But his hideous table manners (eating butter on a roll) broadcast his inadequacies for all to see. Levine wonders if this is the way this dude acts on job interviews, or having lunch with his dean. She uses this set-up to instruct the rest of us on how we should behave at all times.

1. Smile and remember other actions to take during the first interaction. (I presume this includes not telling our interactant that her breath stinks, or that her superority complex is unbecoming a colleague).
2. Keep your handshake quick, firm and dry. ["The shake should employ two pumps up and down, and then get the heck out of there."]
   
3. Place that napkin on your lap ["The napkin will stay on your lap the entire time you are sitting there, even after the mal is complete." -- apparently, you are not to eat anything that might require dabbing; if you are soiled, discretely use the table linen].
4. Harness the silverware [Just like at the Wedding, outside in... I guess]
5. Utilize the b-d rule for triumph over the bread plate [this is too convoluted to comment on]
6. Don't reach or grab, just pass [ok]
7. Consume your bread in no less than an eon. ["The courteous way to dine on bread is to tear off a bite-size piece, butter on that morsel, and pop it in your mouth. Chew swallow, and repeat." - To which I saw.... give me a freaking break.
   

Levine is convinced that conformity with these arbitrary rules of high culture and etiqute will lead to professional success.

The reality is that scholarly strength can get you in the door, but proper etiquette and manners will seal the deal, and ultimately, elevate your academic credentials. So the next time you have an important function, wear a great suit, shine your shoes, and make sure you hone your business etiquette skills before you go.

What a load of horsecrap. Look, I would never dispute that manners matter. But what are they really used for? I believe that Levine's style of etiqute is a classist bourguois code of conduct used to sort the upper-crust from us common folk. Pierre Bourdieu wrote about this in Distinction. This is an elaborate power game which when boiled down to its source, is empty of meaning.

I avoid these stuffy, pretentious, events like the plague. I don't think you can learn much about other people in these stifflingly formal envirnoments. I went on 7 job interviews last year. I never learned much about the job at the stuffy dinners (except that some of my would-be colleagues like to drink); I spent most of them terrified that everything I did was going to be critiqued later. I learned much more (and presumably my hosts learned more about me) at the informal get togethers. On one trip, I stayed an extra day to save the school some money on airfare. The department chair invited me to her home for dinner and conversation with some other faculty. This was wonderful... all the pretention was dropped and learned what it would be like to live and work with these people.

But then again, it must work for Alaina G. Levine.

Sondheim for students

Although I think all four people who read this blog also read Chris Uggen, I'm passing along a rather funny video link he provided today.

In the annals of bad marketing

I recieved an email this evening from United Airlines

We'd like to remind you that time is running out on the invitation to join Ameniti^®, United's exclusive travel club that was designed especially for you – the frequent traveler who expects world-class service and appreciates excellent value.

It appears for the small sum of $300 a year, I can:

1. Bring a companion for free (everytime I purchase an unrestricted full fare ticket).
2. Get double miles
3. Get 25,000 miles just for signing up.

Of course this does nothing for someone like me who:

1. Never purchases unrestricted full fare tickets.
   
2. Has thus far been unable to fruitfully redeem the miles already accumulated (I have something like 75,000 miles banked at Northwest and have been denied every time I've wanted to upgrade to first class, or tried to use the miles for a round-trip domestic ticket.
3. Have little reason to fly United Airlines.

Other than that, I suppose this is an appropriate marketing ploy.

...everybody is for it, except maybe the students

So says James Renfield in a short essay on the Discussion Class (hat tip to Rex at Savage Minds). Renfield writes that while he is in favor of discussion-oriented teaching methods, he finds himself using them less.

one of my students said that he found the previous two classes very helpful. When he said, "You took control," I replied, "You mean I was lecturing." The student who happened to be standing next to him said, "Oh, that's what that's called."

I have a similar reaction to the lecture / discussion continuum. In graduate school, I was convinced that lecture is an evil tool of indoctrination and domination. I became convinced (somewhat self-righteously, which was the currency of my grad program) that learning should be discursive, multivocal, and nuanced. We were into giving everyone voice. However, now that I'm doing this stuff for a full time gig, I'm starting to recognize that a discussion, in order to be productive, needs to be anchored to some kind of authoritative structure.

Renfield references this fear of authority (or in his words, hierarchy) in pedagogy. This distrust of hierarchy is something to be celebrated:

One of the great discoveries of postclassical civilization is that every soul is valuable; everyone has something to say; everyone deserves to be heard. We talk about this when we talk about learning from our students. This is one of the things we teachers say, always with a tone of self-satisfaction.

But free-wheeling ungrounded discussions seem to fail the learning objective. I recall sitting in a discussion-oriented course taught by a colleague where students were offering opinions left and right. Many of these opinions reflected a fundamental ignorance of broader context and specific social dynamics. Sure, as the instructor, I tried to raise these issues discursively; but when all opinions have equal weight, few took my points for what they were: explicit corrections, not suggestions.

Renfield contrasts the free-wheeling, let a thousand flowers bloom discussions with the hole in the board method (characterized by Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller's Day Off). This is discussion in name only... the instructor knows what the right answer is and asks the class to fill in the blank. I used this format today...

me: does anyone know what form of crime is the most costly in terms of property loss?

student1: Burglary?

me: nope, not Burglary

student 2: Arson?

me: nope, something much more benign

student 3: White Collar Crime?

me: we're getting warmer, but that form of crime typically is restricted to elites...

And so it went on for a few minutes before someone finally hit upon occupational theft. This can be an effective way to keep a class engaged; but I find it often backfires as I ask vague, poorly worded questions and students tire of the "guess what Colyer is thinking" game.

We typically see lecture contrasted with discussion. Some argue that there is a disconnect between the learner and the instructor... that lecture is mechanical. Renfeild counters this argument by pointing to one of his favorite teachers, who made exclusive use of the lecture method.

He had extraordinary classes in which he improvised his lectures and was so interactive with the students that they felt part of the process the whole time. At the end of ninety minutes, I'd be astonished to realize that nobody had said a word except Henry. He was learning from his students what it was he could get them to understand, or what he could get away with.

This is the kind of lecturer I aspire to be. I mostly teach large (80 to 100 student) sections of Criminology and Criminal Justice. In the past, particularly in Criminology, I lectured mechanically. I outlined lists and the students copied them down. There was very little dynamic going on. This semester, I'm making a real effort to lecture by pursuing a question. Undoubtedly, I'm going to keep using the Ben Stein hole in the board method... but I will try to be flexible in letting the question emerge as the class moves forward.

I'm glad I found Renfield's essay. His website also includes several other short essays about pedagogy in the University. I'm going to do some more browsing before preparing my next class.

Albany, Airlines, Amtrak, and Annoyances

I'm planning on traveling to Albany this fall for a symposium on the future of death penalty research. My friend Janet has graciously offered to let me crash at her house (big scarry dog not withstanding).

According to Mapquest, the drive from Morgantown to Albany is roughly 8 hours. While not a horrible drive, that's more time than I want to spend in the car for a work-related thing. So, I started pricing out alternative options.

Flying

I was pleasantly surprised. I can buy a plane ticket for less than $300. Though this will involve driving to Pittsburgh (70 minutes), hopping a puddle-jumper to Dulles, and then flying a big plane to Albany. The last time I checked into airfare for this trip, a ticket couldn't be had for less than $400. I'll have to strongly consider it.

However, with the new airport security hassles... one must be at the airport ungodly early. With the connection and layover, the flight will take nearly 4 hours. Getting to the airport 2 hours early bumps us up to 6 hours and then the 70 mile drive to Pittsburgh during rush hour bumps us up to more than 7 hours. Alternatives are looking attractive.

Amtrak

Well if its going to take me several hours regardless of my transportation, I figured I'd check out the train. For $180, I can board a train in Pittsburgh at 7:00 a.m. and arrive in New York City at 5:00 p.m., then wait 2 hours for a northbound train to Albany. I think I'll drive.

Rock your socks off

I just discovered that the greatest rock-n-roll band in the world is making a movie.

Hail the D.

How far we've come

I was reading old newspapers yesterday in the Archives and came across the following announcement in the January 9, 1947 edition of the Logan (WV) Banner.

The P.T.A. is screening an entertaining and informative film this Saturday: How to get the most out of your refridgerator.

I wish that film were available in the archives.

Music for procrastination

I'm in a singer-songwriter groove right now. One of the best places to purchase this genre of music is Paste Music. Paste publishes a magazine that includes a free CD sampler in every issue. It was through that magazine that I discovered Ric Hordinski's amazing ambient guitar work. The Paste Music store makes available a handful of free Mp3s from its catalog. Over the weekend I discovered a new artist (well, new to me): Jonathan Rundman.

One of the free Mp3 titled My Apology was from Rundman's concept album Sound Theology. (Mp3 should be available through that link). Rundman oddly reminds me of chaste, male, Liz Phair. There are imperfections in his voice that work with the music and he takes chances lyrically. In this song, he is making his confession.

i'm sorry for being so cynical
but i'm surrounded by bigots and fools
who say your love is a heavenly paycheck
and faith is all about rules
but i'm guilty of going the opposite way
in the things i do and i say
when i carelessly discount my freedom
and i sit here cheapening grace

Check it out.

Boy I wish this were true.

Bill Mallonee sings:

why is joy something i must steal
starving skeletons looking for a meal
out in the graveyard the church bells peal
earth has no sorrow heaven can't heal