Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes both ASU Theses and Dissertations, submitted by graduate students, and the Barrett, Honors College theses submitted by undergraduate students.
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- Creators: School of Social Transformation
Description
This thesis intends to identify various alternatives to current prostitution policy in the United States. Specifically, this paper focuses on the proposals of abolition, legalization, and decriminalization, as they are interpreted through feminist perspectives. Additionally, the effectiveness of each proposal is based on how well they would reduce the threat and perpetuation of violence, decrease the spread of venereal disease, and lower the rate of drug use amongst sex workers in the U.S. Each method is analyzed through the success and failure rates in the societies in which they have already been implemented. Ultimately, the conclusion is met that legalization would be the most effective and logical policy reform to ensure the safety of American sex workers.
ContributorsDykema, Kendi Montana (Author) / Weitz, Rose (Thesis director) / Katsulis, Yasmina (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
In the current political moment, sex trafficking is an issues that has gained increased political and media attention. This thesis first analyzes the stories that are told about sex trafficking in policy and the media. Analyzing these stories help us make sense of whose voices, experiences, and needs we listen to, and in relief, whose we do not. Through a case study that evaluates the research, policy work, and advocacy being conducted through the Office of Sex Trafficking Intervention Research at ASU, I first explore how they are dominating the conversation about sex trafficking in Arizona. I offer four critiques on STIR's approach to sex trafficking. First, I critique the language that STIR uses, and the implications of explaining this social issue as sex trafficking instead of survival sex. I then critique the policy and responses around the experiences of LGBTQ youth, and how the theory of dynamic nominalism informs the way we should represent LGBTQ youth in research. Through analyzing specific responses to sex trafficking prevention that STIR offers, such as calling 911, I will explore the need for intersectionality to protect the wellbeing of youth of color. Lastly, through theoretical critiques of neoliberalism, I will explore the ways in which STIR's research, advocacy, and trainings neglect to explore the systems youth must navigate and exist in, and how those systems fail. Through each of these unique critiques, we notice different silences and important considerations that are missing from the work that is dominating the discussion of sex trafficking in the US. Ultimately, this thesis does not argue that we should not care about sex trafficking, but instead argues we need to care more. It explores the ways that acknowledging the complexity and nuance of this great social problem can provide the ability to create meaningful solutions that care for and listen to youth.
ContributorsCossette, Anastasia Grace (Author) / Brian, Jennifer (Thesis director) / Katsulis, Yasmina (Committee member) / School of Human Evolution and Social Change (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Ample research proves the American criminal justice system to be a mechanism for the unjust incarceration of hundreds of thousands of non-violent offenders. Less studied is the fact that thousands of these prisoners die agonizing and ugly deaths in custody each year at the discretion of government officials and public awareness is noticeably lacking. American government is complicit in the expedited premature death of thousands of federal and state inmates thanks to general prisoner anonymity, sociocultural constructs that invite condescension between individuals, and a morally repressive political system. The following analysis regarding the negligent mood underpinning inmate mortality issues attempts to draw connections between American sociological constructs along economic, political, and cultural lines. The priority of this thesis is to detail how such a stunning trend of maleficence has been able to go unchecked for decades, and what this says about American moral and political culture. Social construction theory will be used as a foundation to understanding how subscription to the ideals of American social hierarchies dictates political coercion and consent, and the manner in which this allowed for the emergence of mass incarceration. Further, political alignment and corresponding criminal justice positions will be scrutinized for moral authenticity and juxtaposed to traditional moral interpretations of the U.S. Constitution for ideological consistency. By doing so, I explore how moral and political hypocrisy has led to American moral atrophy, in turn facilitating the ongoing inmate health care crisis, through the sublimation of political values to financial priorities. I also discuss the resolutions for the inmate health crisis through a retroactive, legislative draw-down of incarcerated populations in order to free up budgets and reduce health care provider backlogs. In order to promote the utilitarian benefit of America's perception as a global beacon of freedom and personal liberty, the release of non-violent prisoners is advocated for under the pretense of mending the deep divides along class and racial lines that permeate American society. Finally, I will argue for the reinterpretation of penal philosophy to retreat from methods of incarceration and deterrence. I will attempt to persuade corrections officials to go further than simple rehabilitation and aim for complete redemption of inmates in the eyes of society, in part through the use of biblical overtones. The intended result will entail the eventual bowing of the arc of the moral universe back towards justice and even beyond towards redemption.
ContributorsMiller, Scott Matthew (Author) / Gomez, Alan (Thesis director) / Katsulis, Yasmina (Committee member) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor)
Created2017-05