Ashley G. Blackburn’s research while affiliated with University of Houston - Downtown and other places

This article focuses on models of faculty mentoring and how these have been implemented at the college-level. As most mentoring, especially of tenure-track faculty members, occurs at the university-, department-, or program-level, there are special considerations for mentoring programs at the college-level where one must consider the interdisciplinary nature of mentorship. Experiences from a recently implemented college-level tenure-track faculty mentoring pilot program are discussed. This article specifically focuses on the pilot program’s development and implementation. The benefits and challenges of mentoring are discussed as well as recent developments in the discipline of criminology and criminal justice regarding mentorship to engage and support faculty as they move through the tenure-track and beyond.

The rate at which women experience incarceration has increased substantially over the last four decades. Justice-involved women are often the primary caretakers of children and suffer more often from mental health, substance use, and other issues at higher rates than justice-involved males. Previous research has noted the need for gender-responsive programming, but less research has explored women inmate perceptions of the programming within women correctional facilities. This qualitative study examined 545 incarcerated women across multiple institutions in a large Southern prison system. We asked incarcerated women about their perceptions of accessibility, needs, benefits, and problems in correctional programming. Findings indicate that women’s programming may still not adequately address gender-based needs. Additionally, women among the sample identified several programming-related issues.

Parental incarceration has been found to negatively impact families and communities. This study examined characteristics that impact receiving in-person visits among a sample of incarcerated mothers of minor children in a large Southern prison system. Factors impacting post release plans to live with children were also examined. Contact with their children, race/ethnicity, offense type, previous incarceration, and sentence length predicted whether incarcerated mothers received in-person visits from their children. Receiving visits from their children, race/ethnicity, having custody prior to arrest, and offense type predicted whether incarcerated mothers planned to live with their children after release from prison. Implications for policy and future research are presented.

This study examines how attitudes toward in-prison sexual assault reporting have changed over time. Further, we examine factors that influence the willingness of incarcerated women to advise reporting in-prison sexual assaults. Responses from two cross-sectional samples taken ten years apart with 814 incarcerated women are examined. Findings suggest that women surveyed in 2016 were less likely than those surveyed in 2005 to advise the immediate report of a sexual assault. Factors such as age, sexual orientation, violent offense, and perceptions of safety were significant predictors of reporting behaviors. Implications for future research and policy are discussed.

While research examining sexual violence in prison has increased over the past 15 years, relatively scant attention has been paid to rape supportive beliefs and the factors influencing inmate adherence to these beliefs. Given the demonstrated role from studies outside the prison context that rape supportive beliefs have on sexual violence, important parallels can be drawn from studying the inmate population. Importation and deprivation models have been used to explain how inmates adapt to prison life—whether attitudes and behaviors are imported from their lives outside prison or are developed in prison due to the conditions of incarceration. Using a sample of male and female inmates (n = 875) from a large state prison system in the southern United States, the researchers explored the degree to which inmate rape supportive beliefs (IRSB) were influenced by variables indicative of importation or deprivation models of prison adaption. Findings revealed greater support for importation variables among both male and female inmates. With some variation, measures such as gender, age, ethnicity, and education were significant in explaining IRSB, similar to findings of studies on rape supportive beliefs among noninmate samples. Because these beliefs can manifest in problematic attitudes and behaviors among inmates, such as prison sexual violence and the underreporting of such violence, it is important that correctional administrators understand this relationship and take steps to lessen IRSB. Since IRSB largely correlate with factors unrelated to conditions of confinement, efforts to educate and sensitize inmates to prison sexual violence can replicate best practices based on populations outside of prisons.

https://ccjls.scholasticahq.com/article/11130-cultivating-police-use-of-force-perceptions-through-cinema-maintaining-the-racial-divide

This first step cultivation analysis examines the quantity, temporal dynamics, and stance of municipal police officer use of force depictions based on the gender of the officer. The 112 theatrically released films that comprise the core cop film genre were systematically identified. Subsequently, a population of 468 police use of force scenes was identified to serve as the units of analysis for this study. Findings revealed male officer use of force scenes appeared across all 40 years of films. Female officer use of force scenes, however, were highly restricted to specific films, years, and often dwarfed by male scenes within films. Lone female officer use of force scenes saw their highest representation in the 1980s but declined in the 1990s and 2000s, becoming increasingly dependent on a male officer’s presence. Implications of such patterns are discussed as well as potential second step cultivation studies.

Female offenders experience mental health symptoms at a higher rate than male offenders and females in the community. The current study investigated individual characteristics and experiences that may impact symptoms of depressive disorders and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among a sample of female inmates in a large Southern prison system. Results showed high rates of reported childhood and adult victimization experiences among the sample. Factors such as seeking mental health treatment prior to incarceration significantly impacted the reporting of depressive and PTSD symptoms, as did victimization histories. Findings suggest that women would benefit from screening to identify mental health needs at the onset of incarceration as well as gender responsive needs assessment and programming to address histories of victimization and current mental health symptomatology.

Television crime programs not only impart messages regarding the nature of crime and criminal justice but also aid in the creation of stereotypes regarding females working in law enforcement. Using a mixed-methods approach, the study analyzes a sample of prime-time crime dramas to examine issues of employment, discrimination, sexualization, and victimization within series episodes. Although portrayals of female law enforcement officers have improved, female characters continue to face issues of discrimination and victimization. The manner in which these messages may be cultivated and disseminated and what this means for consumers, especially women interested in law enforcement careers, are explored.