Race, Institutional Rule Breaking, and Disciplinary Response: A Study of Discretionary Decision Making in Prison

1980 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 931 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric D. Poole ◽  
Robert M. Regoli
Author(s):  
Roy Y. Chan

Colleges and universities are historic institutions in the U.S. that have sprung up since the founding of Harvard College in 1636. Though their evolution and development is quite simple, the involvement of numerous organizations and groups with philanthropy and higher education is quite complex. Utilizing resource dependency theory and institutional theory, this chapter reviews the historical, sociological, and organizational overview of the practices of philanthropy as it relates to American higher education. Two conceptual frameworks are developed and proposed by the author for teacher-scholars and advanced practitioners seeking to conduct formal research on institutional advancement in higher education. The paper argues that the fundraising professionals (e.g., board of trustees, the president, development officers) role on securing major resources and private gifts within the organization and field level is the result of coercion, imitation, and conformity to institutional rule, institutional isomorphism, and normatively based decision making in higher education.


2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin L. Borry ◽  
Alexander C. Henderson

Rules are essential components of organizations, especially given their foundational role in inducing organizationally preferred behavior and reducing behavioral variability among its members. Despite the existence and prevalence of these centrally important tools, rule deviation occurs. This study proposes to understand the ways in which emergency medical service (EMS) professionals break rules for prosocial purposes—to help patients. In particular, this research seeks to understand how specific organizational and personal attributes influence rule-breaking tendencies. Results indicate that aspects of ethical climate are significantly related to prosocial rule-breaking (PSRB) tendencies, whereas empathy is not. In addition, this study finds that other characteristics, such as a conformist personality, risk taking, expertise, and experience on the job influence PSRB. These findings contribute to the literature on rule deviation and EMS practices and shed light on the complexity of decision making in frontline public services.


Author(s):  
Robert Svensson ◽  
Lieven J. R. Pauwels ◽  
Frank M. Weerman

Morality, and particularly the capacity to experience shame and/or guilt, may be viewed as sediments of early experiences with the commitment of acts of crime and rule-breaking and the consequences of these acts. This chapter addresses the specific roles of moral beliefs and moral emotions such as shame and guilt and how they are related to criminal decisions. It presents an overview of relevant theoretical frameworks that explain why and how moral beliefs and moral emotions affect criminal decision making. The focus of this chapter is particularly on anticipations of shame and guilt, two powerful and painful emotions that humans naturally want to avoid. In addition, findings from empirical studies are reviewed, and implications for criminological theory and prevention are addressed.


2021 ◽  
pp. 088740342110354
Author(s):  
Michael Ostermann ◽  
Jordan M. Hyatt

Back-end sentencing is the discretionary, administrative process through which individuals on parole are returned to prison for violating the requirements of their supervised release. Parole officers play a crucial role in this process as they are the witnesses to the rule-breaking behaviors of people on parole supervision and ultimately must initiate the back-end sentencing process. This study explores predictors of parole officer decision-making when determining whether to consider a person for revocation or to gear programmatic community-based resources toward them in an attempt to decrease the likelihood of their eventual revocation. Our results indicate that if people released to parole are front-loaded programmatic resources as a part of their release conditions from prison, the odds that parole officers subsequently gear community-based programs toward them decreases by approximately 60%. Other factors such as demographics, actuarial risk levels, and criminal history were not significantly predictive of officer decision-making in this context.


Safety ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pelé ◽  
Deneubourg ◽  
Sueur

Pedestrians are ideal subjects for the study of decision-making, due to the inter-individual variation in risk taking. Many studies have attempted to understand which environmental factors influence the number of times pedestrians broke the rules at road-crossings, very few focused on the decision-making process of pedestrians according to the different conditions of these variables, that is to say their perception and interpretation of the information they receive. We used survival analyses and modeling to highlight the decision-making process of pedestrians crossing the road at signalized crossings in France and in Japan. For the first pedestrians to step off the kerb, we showed that the probability to cross the road follows three different processes: one at the red signal, one just before the pedestrian signal turns green, and one after the signal has turned green. Globally, the decision of the first pedestrian to cross, whether he or she does so at the green or at the red signal, is influenced by their country of residence. We identify the use of cognitive processes such as risk sensitivity and temporal discounting, and propose new concepts based on the results of this study to decrease the incidence of rule-breaking by pedestrians.


2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Simen ◽  
Fuat Balcı

AbstractRahnev & Denison (R&D) argue against normative theories and in favor of a more descriptive “standard observer model” of perceptual decision making. We agree with the authors in many respects, but we argue that optimality (specifically, reward-rate maximization) has proved demonstrably useful as a hypothesis, contrary to the authors’ claims.


2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Danks

AbstractThe target article uses a mathematical framework derived from Bayesian decision making to demonstrate suboptimal decision making but then attributes psychological reality to the framework components. Rahnev & Denison's (R&D) positive proposal thus risks ignoring plausible psychological theories that could implement complex perceptual decision making. We must be careful not to slide from success with an analytical tool to the reality of the tool components.


2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Arceneaux

AbstractIntuitions guide decision-making, and looking to the evolutionary history of humans illuminates why some behavioral responses are more intuitive than others. Yet a place remains for cognitive processes to second-guess intuitive responses – that is, to be reflective – and individual differences abound in automatic, intuitive processing as well.


2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (01) ◽  
pp. 46
Author(s):  
David R. Shanks ◽  
Ben R. Newell

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