James H. Johnson’s research while affiliated with University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and other places

This paper describes a state-funded inmate education and re-entry program that provides soft skills training for soon-to-be released offenders. The paper presents preliminary evidence regarding the impact of this training on 14 young male participants. Data came from information prepared by inmates throughout the training program and ethnographic field notes from interviews with inmates following successful completion of the program. The paper begins with four hypotheses on "the African American male problem" (spatial isolation, social capital, search and destroy, and cultural capital/employer preference), assessing their implications for designing interventions to facilitate African American male inmates' re-entry into mainstream society. It describes the North Carolina Inmate Education and Re-Entry Program, profiling its participants, describing preliminary program successes, and examining the pro-social actions inmates have taken in working to achieve their goals. All 14 participants expressed willingness to work in legitimate occupations and rebuild and improve their family lives. Two earned work release privileges and are successfully employed, two were released from prison and have jobs, and another runs a legitimate business from prison. (Contains 91 references.) (SM)

The authors use data from the Los Angeles Survey of Urban Inequality to empirically test the utility of four perspectives advanced to explain the declining social and economic fortunes of the African-American male over the past quarter century: the spatial isolation hypothesis, the cultural capital/employer preference hypothesis, the search-and-destroy hypothesis, and the social capital hypothesis. They assess the utility of these hypotheses by exploring the labor market experiences of African-American males in metropolitan Los Angeles, focusing specifically on the determinants of labor force participation and comparing their experiences with those of their white and Hispanic male counterparts.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how African American male and female college students differ in their attitudes concerning rape. Two-hundred and ten college students completed a 12-item questionnaire designed to measure their views toward this issue. A 2-group multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) revealed statistically significant differences between African American men and women, with men being more accepting of stereotypes and myths about rape. These differences are discussed in the context of sexism and rape myths. Strategies for changing students' attitudes toward rape are proposed.

Considerable research has been devoted to the steadily deteriorating social and economic status of the African American male in urban America over the last quarter century. Their rates of school failure, joblessness, homicide, incarceration, and other antisocial behaviors far exceed those of their white, Hispanic, and Asian male counterparts. In fact, the magnitude of these problems has led some researchers to characterize the African American male as an endangered species, l A range of theories spanning the entire political spectrum has been advanced to explain the declining socioeconomic fortunes of the African American male vis-a-vis other males in American society. In this article, we provide a general overview of four of the competing perspectives on "the African American male problem": the spatial isolation hypothesis, the cultural capital~employer preference hypothesis, the search and destroy hypothesis, and the social capital hypothesis. Following the discussion of the theoretical underpinnings of each of these schools of thought, we review recent empirical studies that attempt to evaluate the relative weight of the various factors undergirding these competing perspectives which have been culled from the extant literature. 2 To set the context for these analyses, we begin by reviewing selected social and economic indicators of the status of the black male in American society.

This study investigated the utility of the PK scale of the MMPI-2 with college students. Results indicated that the PK scale, when combined with DSM IV criteria, does discriminate between college students who obtain a score of 65 or higher and those who score below 65. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Clin Psychol 53: 841–846, 1997

This study investigated the utility of the PK scale of the MMPI-2 with college students. Results indicated that the PK scale, when combined with DSM IV criteria, does discriminate between college students who obtain a score of 65 or higher and those who score below 65. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Clin Psychol 53: 841–846, 1997

Using data from a recent survey of over 4,000 households, the authors estimate that nearly 100,000 jobs were lost because of the 1992 Los Angeles civil unrest and that only 26,000 jobs have been created in the rebuilding effort, resulting in a net loss of 74,000 jobs. Non-Hispanic Whites suffered 15% of the civil-unrest-related job loss, but they captured 60% of the employment opportunities created in the rebuilding process. The restoration efforts have done little to aid Hispanics, Blacks, and Asians, who made up 85% of those who lost jobs as a result of the civil disturbance. Instead, these efforts appear to have contributed to the growing racial and ethnic divisions in Los Angeles.

This paper outlines an alternative, contextual framework for analyzing capital murder cases involving young Black males. To illustrate the utility of the framework, we draw upon the findings of recent social science research, which document the effects of forces operating in both the societal and local environmental contexts, and on information from court case materials that illustrate how the critical life course events of a single African American male defendant, when appropriately anchored in the two broader contexts, offer a unique perspective on the lethal violence problems that currently plague the African American community. The framework is assessed in terms of its ability to “level the criminal justice playing field” for young Black males.