No abstract

While many of the motives people provide for using drugs transcend gender, there are also notable gendered differences. These differences in motive talk aid in stigma management, shape gender performances, and

Microdosing classic psychedelics (e.g., LSD [lysergic acid diethylamide] and psilocybin) is the practice of taking small amounts of these substances to bring about various positive life changes. Little is known about the subjective experiences and perceptions of those who engage in the practice. Accordingly, we use the sociology of accounts as a theoretical framework to explore the ways that those who microdose excuse or justify their practice. Using data from semistructured interviews with 30 people who had microdosed, we find that none provided excuses for their microdosing, but all offered one or more justifications. When discussing their microdosing, participants emphasized six key justifications: denial of injury, self-sustaining, self-fulfillment, appeal to normality, appeal to loyalties, and knowledgeableness. Findings provide insights into the subjective experiences of those who microdose, including the ways that they attempt to align their actions with societal expectations.

While research has identified four main police supervisory styles, it is unclear whether the framework accurately represents the supervisory styles of women. We explored the benefits of promoting women in policing and examined their supervisory styles, drawing on interviews with 38 ranking women. Participants attributed three benefits to promoting women – diversity, people-orientation, and conscientiousness. All 34 who described their supervisory style fell into one of the four previously identified categories. Most common was innovative (50%), then supportive (32%), traditional (12%), and active (6%). We link findings to calls for gender diversity up the ranks of law enforcement.

As drug-related offense and illicit drug overdose rates continue to grow in the United States, criminologists have begun to pay more attention to factors influencing illicit drug use as well as effective methods of promoting drug abstinence in treatment programs across the nation. Although much scholarly attention is given to community-based substance abuse treatment programs, a considerably smaller focus of research is devoted to substance abuse treatment programs that are prison-based. Moreover, some of the most effective methods of treating inmates who are addicted to an illicit drug (such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Therapeutic Community, etc.), although praised for their initiative and theoretical effectiveness, are often demonstrated via individualized empirical study that the expected advantages of such programmatic forms of treatment fail to emerge. The present study explores what scholars have discovered regarding the effectiveness of prison-based substance abuse treatment programs, how such findings appear to contradict one another, and why state prison systems should be more transparent regarding their in-house drug treatment programs in their publicly accessible reports that are formulated into cumulative reports on each states’ Bureau of Corrections websites.

We examine the narratives of parents and stepparents who used methamphetamine to uncover how they talk about parenting decisions relating to their children using drugs. We find that parents draw on themes of protecting children from harm to justify their decisions and to frame themselves as responsible parents. Whereas most said that they would not use with their children, those who did justified their choices by saying they were protecting their children. Regardless of whether they used with their children or not, parents narratively framed their decisions in ways that they believed reflected parenting beliefs common in their social setting. Our findings suggest that one’s ability to frame parenting decisions in culturally accepted practices can facilitate intergenerational drug use.