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The Sociology of North Carolina © |
Below we list articles and reviews from The Bulletin of the North Carolina Sociological Association and our WWW pages which focus on the sociology of North Carolina. So often our books only mention national patterns, leaving us wondering about specific states and/or regions.
Here are the articles which focus on North Carolina:
Introduction
Research on the effects of race on criminal justice sentencing has shown mixed results. Unnever and Hembroff (1988) have even found a real randomness in sentencing practices which has gone unexplained. Chicicos and Waldo (1975) challenged the idea that social class influenced the sentence of courts in California. Jankovic (1978), however, finds that there have been claims of racial and social class bias in the American criminal justice system for the past 50 years. As expected, lower class and African American defendants are more likely to serve jail time than others. Numerous others, including Walker (1983), have even found similar results in other nations.
North Carolina's First Offender Program
The North Carolina First Offender Program was set up in 1990 in order to provide structured alternative sentencing and substance abuse education for first-time misdemeanor drug and alcohol offenders. In theory the program does not allow for bias in sentencing since outcome is based on performance of the offender. Prior to the offender's court date, he/she must complete a 15-hour education program and not be convicted of any subsequent charges while enrolled. Those who finish the program are found not guilty. Those who do not complete the program are found guilty in District Court.
The Demography of the Offenders
All 753 first-time alcohol and drug offenders in Wake County, North Carolina in the first three years of the program (1990-1993) were included in the study. There were 602 males and 151 females. 25.3 per cent were African Americans, the mean age at first offense was 24, and the average educational level was 11 years.
The Results of the Program
Because the dependent variable had only two values (guilty=0 or not guilty=1), maximum likelihood logistic regression analysis was used to study the correlates of the completion of the program. Table 1 shows that educational level, race, marital status, student-status and seriousness of offense all were correlates of successful completion of the program and thus the sentence handed out by the courts. The age, sex or state of origin of the offender did not influence the outcomes. (Note that the ordering of the variables in the table does not influence the significance levels).
Discussion of the ResultsTable 1 Maximum Likelihood Logistic Regression of Convictions (Guilty=0, Not Guilty=1) _____________________________________________________________ Variable Beta Chi Square Probability Constant 3.9 22.61 0.000 Offense (1=alcohol, -0.45 19.86 0.000 2=paraphernalia 3=marijuana 4=combination of 2 and 3 Race (1=black/other, -0.65 45.02 0.000 0=white Student (0=non-student 1=student) 0.28 5.94 0.015 Marital Status -0.31 4.94 0.026 (1=single, 2=ever married, 3=married) Grade (highest grade attained) -0.22 20.65 0.000 State (1=NC, 2=other) 0.52 1.64 0.100 Sex (0=female, 1=male) 0.08 .52 0.470 Age of Offender -0.00 .01 0.934 (in years) _____________________________________________________________
In the first three years of the program, African Americans offenders were much judged more harshly than whites. Only 30 percent of African Americans completed the program while 63 percent of whites did. Jankovic (1978) predicts this finding. This is distressing since one of the goals of the program was to eliminate racial disparity in sentencing. The more serious the charge, the less likely the completion of the program. It was surprising to find that married offenders were less likely to complete the program. Being a student helped predict success in the program.
Implications of the Findings
Since one of the goals of the First Offender program was to eliminate racial disparity in outcomes, it would be hard to assume the program has been a success, even with the controls for the variables available. But one important variable not collected by the court was resources such as transportation. The classes required were held in Cary, a very up-scale community far from Raleigh for those without a car. The Triangle Transit Authority ran only two daily routes to the class location and the routes left from Raleigh at 8:00 AM and 9:15 AM while the classes were offered only at 6:30 to 9:00 PM. It is clear that there remains a need for further research of new programs to insure that their design does not erect barriers to completion to all those who are required to participate as part of the legal system.
References
Chicicos, T.G. and Waldo, G. (1975). "Socioeconomic Status and Criminal Sentencing: An Empirical Assessment of a Conflict Proposition." American Sociological Review 40:753-777.
Jankovic, I. (1978). "Social Class and Criminal Sentencing." Crime and Social Justice 10:9-16.
Unnever, J.D. and Hembroff, L.A. (1988). "The Prediction of Racial/Ethnic Sentencing Disparities: An Expectation States Approach." Journal of Research and Crime and Delinquency 25:53-82.
Walker, M.A. (1983). "The Court Disposal and Remands of White, Afro-Caribbean and Asian Men." British Journal of Criminology 29:353-367.
Reviewed by George H. Conklin
Source: Sociation Volume 25, Number 1.
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Review of Environmental Justice, Swine Production and Farm Loss in North Carolina, by Bob Edwards (ECU) and Anthony E. Ladd (Loyola University New Orleans). Report prepared with the help of a grant from the Faculty Senate, ECU and presented at the 2nd National Black Land Loss Summer Academic Conference, 1998.
Socio-economic patterns of changes in job occupations are macro processes tied to state, national and international politics. The decline in farming as an occupation in the United States has been an on-going process as farms get larger and the number of families needed for farm labor becomes fewer and fewer each year. Between 1982 and 1997 every county in North Carolina lost farms, the average being 28.5%. In 1982 of the 11,400 farms producing pigs, 60% had fewer than 25 hogs.
Between 1989 and 1997 almost 7,000 hog producers went out of business, while in roughly the same period the number of hogs in North Carolina increased from 3.7 million to more than 10 million. New, large corporate-style hog farms were begun and were placed in the eastern part of the state.
Compared to humans, hogs can produce two to five times the amount of waste. 10,000 hogs can require as much waste treatment as a city of 17,000 humans. Unfortunately most hog waste is held in lagoons and the odor of such lagoons has caused a political storm in many rural areas of North Carolina, a fact amply documented by the authors. When sprayed on farm land, the heavy metals fed to hogs to control disease pollute the environment.
Environmental racism and discrimination predict that when an environmentally undesirable facility is begun, its location will tend to be in areas where the local population is poorly equipped to say no, either because of poverty, lack of education or racism. In addition, the hypothesis would predict that corporate farms would be implicated in driving smaller farms out of business.
Edwards and Ladd examine a number of variables to test the predictions of the environmental justice hypothesis.
The results are shown in Table 1.
The results are generally in conformity with the environmental justice perspective, conclude Edwards and Ladd. As shown in Model 3, farm loss increases in the eastern part of the state as the hog population increases. Home ownership tends to decrease farm loss. Farm loss does not seem to change black poverty rates at the .05 level. However, farm loss is associated with declining poverty rates among whites. In two of the three models, farm loss was associated with the percent of the county black.
The flooding in eastern North Carolina in September 1999 reached the 500-year levels, releasing millions of gallons of hog waste into the rivers of the state. There is no doubt that the political issue of hog farm pollution will continue to be highly important for many years to come. More consolidation has taken place since Edwards and Ladd wrote. New large-scale hog farms are now on hold while the legislature debates the environmental and social concerns.
From a sociological point of view, however, it would seem that as long as farm loss is positively associated with lower poverty levels, small farms will continue to decline in North Carolina. Small-scale farming is hard work, and not very well paid. Individual farmers can earn more money working in the secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy. The urban consumer demands the lowest possible price for food, and urbanites now clearly dominate the political world.
Edwards and Ladd conclude by noting the small, non-significant but nevertheless troubling positive correlation between farm loss and black poverty. They suggest more research will be possible in this area as new data become available. One would hope that this correlate does not reflect racism in the job marketplace. With a new data series expected, this is one avenue which does need to be explored.
Table 1
Multiple Regression (OLS) of Farmloss in North Carolina
on County Attributes 1982-1997. (Standardized Betas Shown)
County Characteristics Farm Loss
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Environmental Justice Variables
Percent Homeownership -.49** -.46** -.45**
Median Years of Education -.16 -.16 -.19
Percent Registered to Vote .40** .35** .36**
Percent Black .23** .26* .22
Percent Black Poverty .14 .15 .16
Percent Change in Black Poverty -- -- .14
Percent Change in White Poverty -- -- -.22**
Control Variables
Percent Change in Population
Density, 1980-1990 .27** .27** .23*
Eastern County (1=yes; 0=No) .26** .30** .32**
Pork Industry Dynamics
Percent Change in Hog Population
Size (1982-1992) .15 -.02 -.07
Eastern County Percent Change
Hog Population 1982, 1992 -- .24* .24*
Adjusted R Square .40 .43 .47
F-Score 9.06 9.06 8.86
DF 97 97 97
* Sig. at the .05 level.
** Sig. at the .01 level.
Note: Similar results were shown for Farm Household Loss.
1980 county characteristics are used unless otherwise noted.
Data are from Table 3 in the original paper.
Reviewed by George H. Conklin
Source: Reviewed in Sociation Volume 25, #3, November 1999.
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Note: for our foreign readers who might want some more
information on the area of Boone, NC, please
click here.
Had this book been published by an
academic, no doubt it might have been entitled, An Exegetical and Critical
Analysis of Poverty, Strong Families and Strong Women in a Rural Appalachian
Community: A Post-Feminist Examination and Reinterpretation.
Instead it was written by a lifelong
resident of the area near Boone known as Matney. Her goal is to describe
the way which she grew up in a mountain family which grew their own food,
buried their own dead, and existed largely outside the cash economy.
Medical care in the mountains was primitive.
Doris Smith was the seventh of eight children. Her brother, Dobie, was
born last. Following his birth Doris' mother came down with childbirth
fever and was not expected to live, the same fate of her father's first
wife.
Mountain culture helped out, and each
child was cared for by another family for over a month of hospitalization.
Her father tried to get welfare, but returned home only with two pieces
of cloth. Eventually the cloth was sewn into clothes, but the mother was
so weak the children had to peddle the sewing machine.
Today in sociology we are so used to
hearing about the Culture of Poverty we have
practically forgotten
that it was the strong cultures of farming communities and mountain folk
which guaranteed survival. In story after story, author Bliss shows how
customs aided survival. Fortitude, good humor, faith and cooperation enabled
people to survive while living in an economy based on hunting, gathering,
farming and small jobs for cash.
Doris' father obtained his small farm
in Matney, not far from the well-known Mast General Store, by working on
logging Grandfather Mountain, now itself another tourist attraction. Wood
was loaded onto the Tweetsie Railroad, which was then a working railroad
serving Boone.
Tourists will recognize all three names
quickly since they now exist not to support the farming folks of the area,
but as destination sites for bored time-share condominium tenants. The
natural beauty of the area is a magnet for worldwide tourism.
Unlike today, the Mast General Store
used to trade goods for eggs, possum skins and farming produce. Bliss writes,
"Sometimes we'd hit it lucky and catch several possums in one night. The
hides or fur brought a pretty good price. We usually sold ours to Mast
Store. The hides had to be stretched on a board and dried. A good possum
hide would bring from ten to twenty-five cents. Possum huntin' provided
a mountain family with many variations, food for some, fur for money, but
mostly the fun of bein' out in the hills with a bunch of younuns explorin'
the woods and telln' tall tales." (p. 100).
The stories provide more than raw information;
they are also entertaining. Good humor helped make the necessity of hunting
seem like fun for all. In her essays, Bliss covers many social customs,
including birth and bathing rituals, religious practices and the functionality
of social customs in dealing with hardship, including issues of modesty
when everyone lived in close quarters. Extended nursing of children was
also practiced by at least a few mothers in the area.
Families raised most of what they ate
and putting food by was required. Even feed bags were recycled for use
in clothing, a custom my wife's family followed. Four feed bags sewed together
made a bed sheet. Feed companies, knowing farm girls wore the bags as clothing,
sometimes printed fancy patterns on the sacks.
Towards the end of Bliss' childhood
(after 1940), the monetary economy began to appear in the mountain, along
with different customs. One was a mown lawn. Previously farm families let
household yards grow up into grass for the hay. But trying to look modern,
the Bliss family decided to buy a lawn mower, but did not have the money.
So the children set out to clear a field of blackberry roots which could
be sold to Wilcox Drug for homeopathic medicine. They worked really hard
at this. A lawn mower was purchased and their yard then became as dysfunctional
as any suburban yard.
But then more roots were dug and Doris
seriously cut her hand. They let it go, but finally she had to go to the
hospital. Bliss recounts her mother said, "'Doris, I think you better go
to the hospital. I'll help you get cleaned up and you can wear your new
dress.' Mama had made me a new dress out of a feed sack. It was a beautiful
print of sweet peas and I was eager to wear it." They hitched a ride to
the hospital. To engage in conversation with the nurse, Doris asked how
she liked the dress. "Proudly I told her, 'Dad bought chop feed in sacks
and Momma made me this dress from them sacks.' She just looked at me and
I could tell by the look on her face that she wasn't from around Matney
or Banner Elk or she'd a'knowed what a chop feed sack was." (p. 136).
My wife tells a similar story about not knowing that a sheet did not have
four seams until after she was in college.
Doris Bliss has provided us with a
gold mine of now nearly forgotten social customs and practices. Strong
women held the families together. She includes a good many terms which
would be unfamiliar to those who do not reside the American south, including
the word "Holler" in the title. (A holler is a hollow which is really a
mountain valley). A haint is a ghost in the mountains. A boggin is translated
as a toboggin, but the reader is left to guess that a toboggin in local
usage means a close-fitting hat, often knitted, not a sled.
The social customs described by Bliss
are not well remembered today. Current students have no idea what life
was like in Appalachia before good roads and a cash-based economy. But
we are fortunate. Doris Bliss plans a follow-up volume with more information.
With any luck, an academic press should then take both books and combine
them into an annotated version for college-level students studying economic
development and culture change.
I would strongly recommend the current
volume for inclusion in university libraries and for use in classroom
discussion
in colleges, universities and high schools.
Reviewed by George H. Conklin
"Growing Up Outside the Cash Economy
in Rural North Carolina"
Book review of Dobie
'n' Me in Hoot Owl Holler by Doris Smith Bliss. Kearney, NE:
Morris Publishing, 1998. A copy may be ordered by calling 828-898-9800.
Reprinted