[quote name='dmaul1114']Yeah I'm no fan of his work, nor him personally having met him a few times at conferences my department hosted.[/quote]
You're not all bad, then.
Again, I wasn't really talking about welfare per se, but trying new programs with financial incentive to stay in treatments etc. to see if they work.
Here's the precise thing you said that I take issue with:
As a criminologist I agree with this...to a point.
Handouts alone aren't enough, too many people just take them and do nothing to better themselves.
Your words, in context. First the qualifier ("I am an expert") and immediately following it, a broad and unsupported demonstration ("too many people take [handouts] and do nothing to better themselves").
Now you're getting awfully high and mighty about your own qualifications and attacking my own (at the same time you are insisting *me* of being pretentious!), while the root problem I have is that you merely presented an opinion about something under the guise that you're an expert, when your assertion is (to use the scientific terminology) "shit."
It's still a more informed opinion that that of joe six pack that knows nothing about criminology research. I don't claim to be an expert, hell my interest lies mostly in crim theory and policing, not these kinds of correction programs. I was just forced to learn a good deal about them from comps and the focus of the criminal justice half of our department.
Policing, eh? As long as you don't subscribe to the silly-ass James Q. Wilson view of the world. But, one might assume from your
research findings opinion that you indeed do.
And I'm still unsure where someone strictly studying in a crim program develops the gall to talk about social support programs and simultaneously talk down to a sociologist. That's the way it works in your world, I suppose. Be sure to keep in mind, throughout these posts, who's the one reassuring who of their credentials. Here's a hint: you'll see in just a moment who's doing that.
That's a strawman. Gaming has nothing to do with sociology/criminology. While the current topic does so both of us are more informed than most others on parts of the discussion. So that point has no bearing on the current discussion.
My overall point is that your broad generalization that "too many people do nothing to better themselves with handouts" is not only completely useless because it *IS* a broad generalization, it's not something you are an expert in. Nor am I, to be frank; at least I've read some modicum of research on welfare usage trends.
I'm guessing your a sociologist, given that's where the pompous asses go, and part of the reason I sought out the top Criminology program and stayed away from sociology!
Why'sat? So you can have fewer career options in front of you?
I kid. Except I'm not. The CJ program at my university consists mainly of sociologists with a few exceptions. And, I'll have you know, if we're going to have *that* kind of dick-waving prickfight...you know what? I'm not going there. I know who I know, I know who's on my dissertation committee, I know who I've worked wit and studied under. They are who they are.
I start at the same, but base the next steps on my research based on opinons of why things are happening. Observations work, but not when you're doing studies of things that have never been studied before and can't be observed (i.e. new types of police strategies).
I just bristle at this "opinion" stuff. It obviously does exist to a degree, but also to the degree it clicks and interacts with the public and political environment at the time (which is why Martinson's lousy-ass research gave us 30 years of prison growth and idiocy-based deterrence/incapacitation policies). I don't use opinion. The idea of applying a theoretical understanding to research involves considering both those you like (structural causes of the racial gap in recidivism) and those you don't (cultural/mutually reinforced causes of the racial gap). Things I don't like tend to not enter my mind as opinions - otherwise, they'd be things I like. At that point, I'm just performing research to confirm my ideology.
So I often start with opinions on why something doesn't work or how a new program could work based on theory (that's weakly tested like all crim theory IMO) run the program and see what the results say. On writing day the opinion portion stays home, other than in the discussion section when interpreting the results and giving my opinion on what changes should be made and what future research should focus on.
That's a different type of opinion (the "let's play crappy policy maker" section of research and reports that soc and crim types are equally guilty of) from that which you allow to inform the start of your work.
End of story, we just do different types of research probably and have different takes on the best way to do it.
Lemme know if you know if performing event history analysis using a fixed-effects two-level nonlinear regression model requires the level-1 data to be 'stacked.' Seriously, because HLM is being a pain in my
ing ass today.
Definitely would be a tough sell. I just think it stand a reasonable chance to keep people in post release programs and keep them from drifting back into crime. But it may not work at all, that's an empirical question.
But why go all that way when education programs, combined with completed rehab, work? There's no evidence that job placement reduces recidivism (it's n.s. in my data results right now, fwiw, and that's not a change from most other research, save for the Chris Uggen stuff that shows well-paying jobs with advancement opportunities help reduce recid; "Burger King" won't have any effect).
Definitely true. Part of my issue with such things is I worry less about the low-risk reoffenders. We need to focus on the high risk reoffenders. But in all we vastly need to expand rehab and other services for probationers and parolees across the board.
Totally, as for rehab expansion. I don't know that I agree with not focusing on low-risk types; they're low-risk, not no-risk. There is evidence, I believe, that emphasizing working with low-risk offenders (the easiest to "fix") reduces recidivism because high-risk offenders are precisely that: high-risk.
Is remuneration a necessary component? I don't know, but I'd like to see it given a shot. Preferably in a randomized experiment where some are assigned to programs without remuneration and some to programs with and see if the recidivism rates differ.
That's best done outside of crim for right now, to see if real incentives matter. If it does work, then you can make a plausible case for expanding the study to consider criminals. But if you've got a hard sell in front of you, you're best off arming yourself with evidence that what you're claiming is plausible.
I didn't mean to imply that the lifers were widespread, as I know they are a minority. I just have personal issues with handouts that people do nothing for. That parts not my professional opinion, just personal.
I didn't mean to intertwine that with my desire to see a test of remuneration as incentive in criminal programming as that has nothing to do with the welfare system. I have no professional interest in the welfare system. That's for the pretentious sociologists to debate. This thread is just all over the
ing place so arguments are getting mixed up.
Still can't resist the digs, can ye? :lol:
As for the first paragraph in the quote above, I can see we're getting somewhere finally.
