Browsing by Subject "criminal records"

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    Criminal Records and College Admissions
    (2020-07) Stewart, Robert
    The systems of criminal justice and higher education are two major institutions that have profound effects on American social life. Since their inception, both institutions have served as powerful socioeconomic sorting mechanisms. As both institutions have expanded, they have played increasingly important roles in social mobility, socioeconomic status, and life opportunities. Criminal records are a pervasive, acutely restrictive feature of American social life, perpetuating cycles of crime, inequality, and lost opportunity, especially for low-income people and people of color. Higher education has long been considered a key to unlocking social mobility and developing social cohesion in American society, and a potentially compelling mechanism for facilitating desistance. College attendance and completion are associated with lower rates of unemployment and higher relative earnings. Through college, students can access valued opportunities, develop human capital, and foster civic membership. Yet, most colleges require applicants to disclose detailed criminal history information as part of the application process, and some evidence suggests that applicants are being rejected on the basis of their records. Thus, the benefits of higher education may not accrue for students with criminal records. The increasing scrutiny of criminal records in college admissions is especially consequential for groups most subject to the criminal legal system, particularly young Black males. Considering the historic underrepresentation of Black Americans in higher education and overrepresentation in justice-involved populations, criminal history disclosure requirements could raise additional barriers to racial progress, student learning, and citizenship. Drawing on original data sources, including a national audit of college admissions, I find that criminal record screening in college admissions raises substantial hurdles and barriers on the path to college for students with criminal records, demonstrating how records overwhelms potential life course opportunities, hardens inequality, and redefines social membership.
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    Digital Punishment: The Production and Consequences of Online Crime Reporting
    (2015-07) Lageson, Sarah
    This dissertation is a mixed methods study of the production, dissemination and effects of digital crime reporting, such as mug shot websites, crime blogs, Facebook crime watch pages, and Twitter crime update accounts. These websites post arrest records and booking photos before individuals are charged or convicted, but they remain online indefinitely. This dissertation asks big questions about data privacy, criminal justice and punishment through three qualitative studies: 1) the murky world of citizen journalism within the specific context of crime news; 2) the sociolegal framework of case law in this area and how social actors interpret this law, and; 3) the empirical effects of these records for those who appear on the websites, speaking to broader social, civic, and psychological consequences. At its core, this study argues that the internet has elevated crime and punishment to the center of daily life, routine activities, and American culture more than ever before. Within this framework, I make three concrete arguments: First, I argue that these websites operate as a new form of social control strategies by fostering a fear of crime and publicizing transgressions. Importantly, publishers are non-state actors who engage in a meaning-making process by focusing on crime and therefore feeling they have a direct impact on crime. Second, I argue that the ambiguity around the legality of these sites produces new forms of consciousness around our rights to public information and freedom of speech. Finally, I argue these sites constitute novel forms of punishment in the widespread nature of the reporting, in heightening the variety and levels of crimes publicly punishable, and by permanently archiving these punishment symbols in digital spaces. Empirically, I find digital criminal histories are characterized by their scope, breadth, availability, and permanence. These websites post arrest records, full names, and booking photos before individuals are charged with or convicted of a crime, yet they remain online indefinitely. These websites are often produced by amateurs who use crime as a method to address broader social issues. These sites appeal to consumers by providing access to real-time crime information allowing them to feel they have an active role in crime prevention without directly interacting with the criminal justice system. There are consequences to these practices, particularly in the spread of erroneous and dismissed records. While criminal history data changes rapidly at the jurisdictional level, there does not exist a system to ensure corresponding updates are made online. These crime websites thus constitute a new form of punishment: They culminate in a curated and searchable online history, which is often unknown to the website subject until they face consequences of these records. These records communicate powerful signals of guilt by attaching a criminal label to millions of arrestees, simultaneously introducing a host of social and psychological consequences.