Daniel Mears

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at Florida State University

Critiques of extended restrictive housing (ERH), used to manage incarcerated persons deemed to pose a threat to prison order and safety, have led to calls for reducing its use. There is a need for guidance about how to achieve this goal. Drawing on a qualitative study of restrictive housing in Florida, we glean insights from personnel about (1) how...

The use of extended solitary confinement (ESC) has received domestic and international condemnation for its potential effects on the mental health of incarcerated persons. Despite the criticism, prison systems continue to rely on the practice. To advance understanding of why the housing is used and how correctional personnel view it, this study dev...

الأوراق البحثية تشبه المقالات التحليلية، إلا أن الأوراق البحثية تؤكد على استخدام البيانات الإحصائية والدراسات السابقة إلى جانب قوانين صارمه للاستشهادات. كما تتطلب الورقة البحثية الجيدة دمجًًا بين الفن والعلم. ولكن كيف يتحقق كل هذا؟ من خلال هذا الكتاب بعنوان )أساسيات البحث في علم الجريمة والعدالة الجنائية(، أستاذا علم الجريمة دانيال ميرز وجوشوا كوكر...

An evidence-based approach to crime and justice policy can go a long way toward ensuring that the best available research is considered in decisions that bear on the public good. However, the term “evidence-based” is characterized by a great deal of rhetoric. Indeed, there remains a marked disjuncture between calls for evidence-based policy and an...

An evidence-based approach to crime and justice policy can go a long way toward ensuring that the best available research is considered in decisions that bear on the public good. However, the term “evidence-based” is characterized by a great deal of rhetoric. Indeed, there remains a marked disjuncture between calls for evidence-based policy and an...

An evidence-based approach to crime and justice policy can go a long way toward ensuring that the best available research is considered in decisions that bear on the public good. However, the term “evidence-based” is characterized by a great deal of rhetoric. Indeed, there remains a marked disjuncture between calls for evidence-based policy and an...

The juvenile court was created as a means of diverting youth from the criminal justice system, and, in turn, diversion within the juvenile court has been used for a variety of purposes. This paper argues that an understanding of diversion, and its implications, requires distinguishing deservingness and consequentialism. Analysis of the former goal...

Solitary confinement may affect incarcerated persons. Yet, what is known about those who work in solitary confinement units? Drawing on Sykes’ classic, The society of captives, on the “pains of imprisonment,” we argue that solitary confinement work may adversely affect correctional personnel. This study extends prior work on deprivation theory, sol...

Drawing on prior theory and research, this study develops and tests hypotheses about the potential for work in extended restrictive housing (ERH), which entails solitary confinement, to contribute to emotional numbing among personnel. It draws on a mixed-methods approach using data from a large-scale survey and from focus groups and interviews with...

Prior work on extended restrictive housing (ERH) has focused primarily on incarcerated persons rather than on potential impacts of this housing on personnel. Drawing on scholarship on the get-tough era, prison personnel, and ERH, we seek to shed light on contemporary correctional management practices and how doing so can illuminate the broad-rangin...

There is conflicting evidence on whether people, particularly those with preexisting mental health problems, have worse mental health during and after extended solitary confinement (SC) stays. Using administrative data on 843 men, we examined within-person changes in mental health functioning and service use surrounding long-term stays in SC in Flo...

The punitive era in the United States and other countries has included reliance on long-term restrictive housing (LTRH)—consisting of solitary confinement with few privileges—as a means of managing violent and disruptive individuals in prison. We examine how work in such housing may influence how personnel, including officers and staff, view indivi...

Studies suggest that there is a linear and positive relationship between family size and delinquency. However, questions exist about this assessment. Drawing on prior scholarship and analyses, we revisit and test the family size-delinquency relationship. We also test whether the effect varies by sibling relatedness. Results indicate no consistent o...

We argue that reconceptualizing social bond theory (SBT) through incorporation of dual agency and change can identify unique causal change sequences, improve its ability to explain offending, and generate new questions about it. The reconceptualization recognizes that individuals and those with whom they interact play an ongoing role in contributin...

Scholars have called for greater understanding of the effects of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on later youth development, including research on sleep as a potential contributor to delinquency. This study seeks to extend that work by situating the focus on ACEs and sleep within a life-course perspective, one that examines life events and tur...

A signature feature of the get-tough era in American corrections has been the proliferation of restrictive housing (RH). Although sometimes equated with solitary confinement, this housing encompasses a variety of distinct forms of incarceration. They are unified by an emphasis on restricted movement and privileges—yet vary in their design and uses....

The evidence regarding the behavioral effects of restrictive housing (RH) is mixed. This study used within-individual analyses to examine changes in behavior across multiple stages of one type of RH: extended solitary confinement (ESC). The results showed that the odds of a disciplinary infraction were significantly higher than baseline during the...

Restrictive housing substantially limits inmate movement and privileges. Proponents argue it creates safer prison systems, while opponents claim it does not and harms inmates. However, few studies have systematically examined restrictive housing through the perspective of those who work in prison systems or scrutinized the diverse dimensions releva...

In contemporary American corrections, extended solitary confinement (ESM) as a management tool has emerged as a strategy for avowedly controlling the most violent individuals and, in so doing, creating a safer prison system. We theorize that the emergence of this unique form of housing may also be viewed as a signal of prison system failure. To adv...

The present study investigated whether race moderates the effect of age on juvenile court dispositions in ways that illuminate a subtler form of racial disparities than has been previously identified. Drawing on prior theory and research, we hypothesize that at young ages, virtually all youth are perceived as children and met with treatment-oriente...

Despite concerns and debates about the policy of using extended solitary confinement for managing individuals deemed to be too violent or disruptive to be controlled any other way—for the broader goal of system order and safety—empirical assessments of disparities in placements into this form of incarceration are limited. Prior studies typically ha...

Objectives To test the cumulative disadvantage hypothesis—that system-level racial and ethnic disparities accumulate from intake to final disposition—by investigating relative and absolute disparities across different pathways through the juvenile justice system. Methods Using a sample of 95,670 juvenile court referrals across 140 counties in four...

There is mixed evidence on whether incarcerated persons with mental illnesses have increased odds of being placed in solitary confinement. This study answered this question using a large system-wide sample and a propensity score matching design that accounted for a wide range of individual and facility confounds. Having a mental illness was associa...

In recent decades, long-term solitary confinement has become a mainstay of prison systems. Critiques and research of this confinement typically have focused on its potential harms. Few studies have examined the range of harms to those placed in it; fewer still have examined solitary confinement's potential benefits or sought insight from those who...

PurposeResearch shows that parental incarceration can produce adverse effects across the life course. One question that remains largely unaddressed, however, is whether these effects are age-graded. Drawing on developmental and life-course scholarship, we argue that parental incarceration will exert different effects depending upon the developmenta...

Drawing on qualitative data from focus groups with correctional personnel in one of the nation's largest women's prisons, this study examines staff perceptions of how incarcerated women cope with long-term solitary confinement. We find that women's strong ties to other women and their prison pseudofamilies may influence the behaviors that explain t...

The get-tough era in juvenile justice ushered in significant changes to how schools respond to delinquency. One of the most visible changes has been the increasing presence of police officers who work in and patrol schools. The purpose of this article is to argue that this practice has blurred the boundaries between schools and police and, in turn,...

Objectives This article tests two theoretical ideas: (1) that social concerns about particular “dangerous classes” of offenders shift over time to influence court sanctioning practices and (2) that, since the 1990s, sex offenders in particular came to be viewed by courts as one such “dangerous class.” Methods We examine sanctioning trends in Flori...

Objectives We present results from a randomized controlled trial of a school-based intervention that provided services to youth with prior police contact. The youths’ prior police involvement ranged from police contact without an arrest to being placed on probation. The intervention used a wraparound-style approach and a school-based, multisystem t...

The extent to which disproportionate minority contact (DMC) in the juvenile justice system varies across states remains largely unknown. Using a multijurisdictional sample of 146 counties across four states, the present study utilizes multilevel modeling with cross-level interactions to explore whether there is variation in the influence of race an...

Studies increasingly highlight that poor sleep is associated with harmful health and behavioral outcomes, including delinquency. Theory and research suggest that sleep effects may be curvilinear and greater for some groups, but this idea remains largely unexamined in studies of adolescent offending. Drawing on prior scholarship and regression analy...

Although the media gives considerable attention to prison privatization, there have been few assessments of how newspapers portray the debate about it and how that portrayal aligns with what is known empirically about private prisons. This study addresses this gap in the literature by undertaking a content analysis of newspaper articles ( N = 131)...

Objectives This article examines the influence of social context on punishment decisions. To this end, we present a theoretical framework to identify outcomes that can occur when police and probation officers work in schools. Method The proposed framework draws on organizational theory as well as scholarship on school discipline and punishment and...

Scholars have identified diverse ways in which get-tough policies adversely affect minorities. An interest has also emerged in privatized corrections and the potential for exploitation of those who experience it. Drawing on these literatures and on focal concerns theory, we hypothesize that some groups of individuals may be more likely to receive p...

Scholars and policymakers have advanced different arguments for why restrictive housing may improve or worsen inmate behavior, yet few studies exist that assess the impact of this housing on such outcomes. This study draws upon prior theory and research to hypothesize that inmate adjustment will worsen after placement in disciplinary segregation am...

As part of the rise of “get tough” punishment in recent decades, prison systems increasingly have relied on solitary confinement and what many contemporary accounts have termed “restrictive housing.” The latter includes an emphasis on some form of isolation and restrictions on privileges. Use of solitary-like confinement has engendered considerable...

Research Summary Governments historically have relied on private organizations to assist with the provision of correctional punishment and services. This reliance continues but has engendered considerable debate that stems from ideological divides. Debate stems as well from a disjuncture between the limited evidence about privatization and calls fo...

Despite the widespread use of restrictive housing in correctional institutions, little is known about the factors associated with placement in this setting. This study advances two theoretical arguments about the use of this practice. The prison system view argues this housing is essential for institutional order and that, accordingly, only inmates...

Criminal justice cannot be highly effective or cost-efficient because of its fragmented design and the lack of research on systems operations and impacts. Substantial improvement to public safety and justice requires a systems approach that involves multiple stakeholder groups. This approach includes creation of an agency responsible for oversight,...

Cambridge Core - Research Methods in Sociology and Criminology - Fundamentals of Criminological and Criminal Justice Inquiry - by Daniel P. Mears https://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Criminological-Criminal-Justice-Inquiry/dp/1316645134

Fundamentals of Criminological and Criminal Justice Inquiry - by Daniel P. Mears February 2019

Fundamentals of Criminological and Criminal Justice Inquiry - by Daniel P. Mears February 2019

Fundamentals of Criminological and Criminal Justice Inquiry - by Daniel P. Mears February 2019

Fundamentals of Criminological and Criminal Justice Inquiry - by Daniel P. Mears February 2019

Fundamentals of Criminological and Criminal Justice Inquiry - by Daniel P. Mears February 2019

Fundamentals of Criminological and Criminal Justice Inquiry - by Daniel P. Mears February 2019

Fundamentals of Criminological and Criminal Justice Inquiry - by Daniel P. Mears February 2019

Fundamentals of Criminological and Criminal Justice Inquiry - by Daniel P. Mears February 2019

Fundamentals of Criminological and Criminal Justice Inquiry - by Daniel P. Mears February 2019

Fundamentals of Criminological and Criminal Justice Inquiry - by Daniel P. Mears February 2019

Fundamentals of Criminological and Criminal Justice Inquiry - by Daniel P. Mears February 2019

Fundamentals of Criminological and Criminal Justice Inquiry - by Daniel P. Mears February 2019

Fundamentals of Criminological and Criminal Justice Inquiry - by Daniel P. Mears February 2019

Fundamentals of Criminological and Criminal Justice Inquiry - by Daniel P. Mears February 2019

This article examines the legacy of lynchings on contemporary whites' views of blacks as criminal threats. To this end, it draws on prior literature on racial animus to demonstrate the sustained influence of lynching on contemporary America. We hypothesize that one long‐standing legacy of lynchings is its influence in shaping views about blacks as...

Scholarship suggests that prison inmates who are visited may be less likely to recidivate. Questions exist, however, about whether the observed relationship is causal and, if so, whether it is consistent for different groups of inmates. To address these questions, this study employs two methodological approaches – first, conventional regression ana...

Schools in the United States are increasingly faced with the challenge of navigating two seemingly contradictory approaches to school safety. On the one hand, they attempt to make schools safer by employing get-tough, punishment-oriented policies. On the other hand, schools promote support-oriented policies that seek to address the root causes of s...

Studies have found that sexual victimization can adversely affect an adolescent’s psychological well-being, physical health, and behavior. Little is known, however, about how friendships are influenced by such victimization. Drawing on research on sexual violence and the salience of peers among adolescents, the current study extends prior work by e...

Schools have adopted get-tough policies and support-oriented policies, each of which creates not only potential benefits but also potential risks for youth delinquency and education. This article identifies potential benefits and risks of get-tough approaches and support-oriented approaches, respectively, to reduce delinquency. It then identifies c...

The rise of mass incarceration necessitated increased investment in prisons. This increase occurred alongside of policy maker calls for greater government accountability and reliance on evidence-based practices. Despite advances in the understanding of “what works” to reduce crime and recidivism, a notable gap in research exists: What is the eviden...

Disparities in historical and contemporary punishment of Blacks have been well documented. Racial threat has been proffered as a theoretical explanation for this phenomenon. In an effort to understand the factors that influence punishment and racial divides in America, we draw on racial threat theory and prior scholarship to test three hypotheses....

Although prior research links parental incarceration to deleterious outcomes for children during the life course, few studies have examined whether such incarceration affects the social exclusion of children during adolescence. Drawing on several lines of scholarship, the authors examined whether adolescents with incarcerated parents have fewer or...

Drawing on theory and research on prisoner behavior, this study examines whether spatial distance from home influences inmates' likelihood of engaging in misconduct. Three hypotheses are developed: distally-placed inmates will engage in more misconduct, distance will have a greater effect on misconduct among younger inmates, and visitation will med...

Objectives The study tests two related hypotheses about recidivist sentencing premiums and the progressive sanctioning logic on which they rest: (1) among first-time felons, punitive sanctions will more effectively reduce recidivism than will less severe sanctions and (2) among second-time felons, progressively tougher sanctions will more effective...

After the Columbine school shooting in 1999, concern about bullying crescendoed. A prominent belief emerged that bullying causes school shootings. However, many of the beliefs about bullying constitute myths—that is, empirically unverified assumptions. These beliefs ignore critical conceptual issues that attend to efforts to understand the bullying...

Purpose To illuminate how racial disparities in police use of force may arise and to guide research aimed at explaining such disparities. Methods We draw on research on policing, racial disparities in criminal justice, and cognitive bias and decision making to argue that police-citizen encounters require rapid assessments that demand reliance on c...

Out-of-Control Criminal Justice shows that our system of criminal justice is broken; it is out of control. The author writes that a research-based strategy is needed that builds on the insights of those who work within criminal justice or are affected by it. Such a strategy must entail continuous evaluation and improvement, so that what works can b...

This article seeks to contribute to theory and research on factors that shape public preferences for juvenile justice policy. To this end, it tests the argument that perceptions about juvenile crime, an instrumental concern, will influence individuals’ willingness to vote for policymakers who support transfer of youth to adult court and, separately...

Juvenile justice policy continues to evolve as policy-makers respond to fluctuations in crime, public sentiment, and changing policy priorities.

Drawing on prior sentencing and prison scholarship, this study examines the use of solitary confinement as a form of punishment. Specifically, it assesses whether, given a prison infraction, minority inmates—and young, male, minority inmates in particular—are more likely to be placed in solitary and to be placed in it for longer durations. Multilev...

Objectives An enduring legacy of the 1980s “war on drugs” is the increased use of imprisonment for drug offenders. Advocates anticipated, in part, that prison is more effective than community sanctions in reducing recidivism. Despite the contribution of drug offender incarceration to prison growth nationally, and debates about whether this approach...

Objectives Drawing on the racial threat and intergroup contact literatures, we explore whether (1) a school’s racial or ethnic context increases school suspensions for Black, Hispanic, and White students; (2) intergroup contact among school board members reduces school suspensions for Black, Hispanic, and White students; and (3) a school’s racial o...

Community corrections in the twenty-first century faces three challenges: how to be an alternative to imprisonment, how to be a conduit for reducing recidivism, and how to do less harm to offenders and their families and communities. Community corrections will reduce imprisonment only if its use is viewed as alegitimate form of punishment and is in...

Concern about the risk of consumer fraud victimization among the elderly has led to programs that disseminate fraud prevention information and provide services. However, little is known about how seniors access such information or learn about or contact these programs. Drawing on scholarship on fraud, media consumption, and the fear of crime, this...

The “get-tough” era of punishment led to exponential growth in the rate of incarceration in the United States. Recent reviews of the literature indicate, however, that limited rigorous research exists examining the effect of imprisonment on the likelihood of future offending. As a result, scholars have called for assessment of this relationship, wh...

Although the privatization of corrections has a long history in America, debates about its merits have intensified in recent decades. The goals of this article are (a) to argue that privatized corrections is more prevalent than recognized and yet little is known about how it compares with public corrections, and (b) to provide a conceptual framewor...

Research Summary We conducted a systematic review of recidivism outcomes for juveniles transferred to adult court, incorporating meta‐analytic techniques. Nine studies—based on nine statistically independent samples—met the inclusion criteria. Pooled analysis suggests that juvenile transfer had no statistically significant effect on recidivism. How...

Research Summary The juvenile court was established to help children through the use of punishment and rehabilitation and, in so doing, “save” them from a life of crime and disadvantage. Diversion programs and policies emerged in the 1970s as one way to achieve this goal. Despite concerns about its potential harm, diversion became increasingly popu...

Prisons are often portrayed as inherently inhumane and criminogenic and the explanation proceeds along these lines: prisons’ inhumanity stems from the very nature of total institutions (Goffman 1961); it is not natural for humans to be caged, and enforcing conformity will inevitably lead to coercion (Zimbardo 2007) and use of the “hole,” if not phy...

Scholars have speculated that inmate behavior may provide a signal about the probability of desistance. One such signal may be the successful avoidance of prison infractions or the cessation of them during the course of incarceration. Drawing on studies of prison socialization, recidivism, and desistance, we assess whether patterns of inmate miscon...

During the 1990s, the United States enacted several punitive sex crime laws. Contemporary scholarship suggests this shift can be understood as a modern “witch hunt.” However, theoretical accounts have yet to examine systematically the emergence of such legislation. This study applies two theories—the first by Erikson and the second by Jensen—to ass...

A justification for lengthier stays in prison stems from the belief that spending more time in prison reduces recidivism. Extant studies, however, have provided limited evidence for that belief and, indeed, suggest the effect of time served may be minimal. Few studies have employed rigorous methodological approaches, examined time spans of more tha...

Este artículo es el número cinco de la serie especial sobre Transición desde la delincuencia juvenil a la delincuencia adulta. El primer trabajo de esta serie (sobre transición delictiva) se publicó en esta misma revista en el número 9 (2011); el segundo (sobre patrones de la carrera delictiva) y el tercero (sobre explicaciones teóricas de las tran...

Sentencing studies have incorporated social context in studying sentencing decisions, but to date the bulk of prior work has focused almost exclusively on county context. An unresolved question is whether there also may be state-level effects on sentencing. Drawing from the minority threat perspective, we examine (1) whether state-level racial and...

The enforcement of speed limits to improve public safety constitutes one of the most common activities that the police undertake. Yet, fundamental questions exist about whether traditional, officer-initiated enforcement actually deters speeding and whether it does so in a cost-efficient manner. Questions exist, too, about unintended harms associate...

Drawing on theory and research on prisoner behavior, this study examines whether spatial distance from home influences inmates’ likelihood of engaging in misconduct. Three hypotheses are developed: distally placed inmates will engage in more misconduct, distance will have a greater effect on misconduct among younger inmates, and visitation will med...