Domestically and globally females continue to be underrepresented in policing, despite their greater likelihood of advancing themselves through higher education, driving organizational change, and being less likely to use excessive force or be named in civil litigation than their male counterparts. Extant research indicates that women may be effectively gated from policing by a subculture that aggrandizes characteristics consistent with the crime-fighting paradigm. Using qualitative data from in-depth interviews with female officers, this study investigates the female officer experience of police subculture in terms of masculinity, gender disparities, and sexualized activities. To understand the perceived environment of the department and contextualize it within the literature, the dominance of masculine personality traits and gender disparities within the department are first explored to determine whether a hypermasculine subculture was present. Then, female officers’ definitions of sexual harassment, their roles in these activities, and their motivations for participation were examined.

The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified decades of vulnerabilities, disparities, and injustices within the U.S. correctional system. The spread of the coronavirus poses a particularly serious threat to those that comprise the system, including personnel, attorneys, prisoners, their families and extends into the communities in which facilities are located. These correctional facilities and communities were especially underprepared for the sudden onset of a highly contagious virus, which has resulted in an exceedingly high number of infections among those who work and are held in the facilities. Rampant overcrowding in the U.S. correctional system, an aging population, and a population exhibiting high rates of underlying health conditions are highly likely to exacerbate the spread of this highly contagious virus. This potentially dire set of interrelated circumstances necessitates rapid decarceration measures that effectively balance public safety and public health. Unfortunately, there has been unclear guidance as well as changing and even contradictory information coming from the federal government concerning rapid measures to mitigate the spread of infection to justice system personnel and federal prisoners. In this paper we summarize the federal response and how it has impacted those responsible for implementation. Furthermore, we discuss how systemic deleterious conditions of the U.S. correctional system serve as both accelerants to as well as effects of the pandemic. We end highlighting critical issues relating to early release due to COVID-19 that will necessitate future research.

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The North American Free Trade Agreement has a fourth member, the U.S.-Mexico border, with 22 million inhabitants, $300 billion in gross domestic product, $100 billion in trade, and a unique history and culture. In 1995, it witnessed some 225 million legal frontier crossings each way, mostly Mexican shoppers, who spent $22 billion in the United States, paid $ 1.7 billion in taxes, and generated 400,000 jobs but received no services. Balanced against the costs of Mexican illegals, American taxpayers made a 600 percent profit. This made Mexico the United States' second- (not third-) largest trading partner. Paso del Norte (Juárez-El Paso) is the border's capital, a binational metropolis of 2 million. Problems abound, from water, immigration, and drug trafficking to public safety, health, welfare, the environment, and infrastructure. But they are not being effectively addressed because they run east-west (from San Diego to Corpus Christi), while government authority and interests run north-south, to and from Washington, Mexico City, and nine state capitals. A binational bankable Border Authority is urgently needed.