“The area of developmental and life-course criminology is my primary research interest. I enjoy this research area as it allows me to incorporate several disciplines—such as criminology, biology, and psychology—into my work.”
Fronteras: Thank you for agreeing to speak with us, Dr. El Sayed, about your recent research on the Texas penal and carceral system. Can you tell us briefly about your areas of specialization and what kinds of courses you teach at UTA?
Dr. El Sayed: Firstly, I wanted to thank you for conducting this interview and allowing me to share a bit about my research with your audience. The area of developmental and life-course criminology is my primary research interest. I enjoy this research area as it allows me to incorporate several disciplines—such as criminology, biology, and psychology—into my work. This is an area of criminology which is interdisciplinary in nature and examines events early in life, sometimes as early as the prenatal period, to understand changes in problem behaviors and offending over time. Over the summer I taught a newly designed undergraduate course on developmental and life-course criminology and am teaching it this semester as a special topics course for graduate students. Beyond that, I typically teach statistics, research methods, as well as women and crime. These areas also intersect with my other research interests.
Fronteras: First, a very general question: Does the Texas penal and carceral system have any characteristics that set it apart from that of other states?
Dr. El Sayed: Due to the size of Texas, the Texas penal system is unique in that it is one of the largest in the country. From a criminology standpoint, this means there is a lot to study and examine about the Texas penal system especially in regards to corrections. Specifically talking about the death penalty—which is the topic of one of my papers we will be discussing today—Texas is consistently in the lead, if not the top state, for the number of annual executions. These are a couple of significant ways which Texas’ penal system stands apart from that of other states.
“…we were interested in whether the type of correctional facility, either public or private, that an inmate serves time in will impact the amount of infractions, or misconduct, committed while incarcerated.“
Fronteras: This year you and three coauthors published an article titled “Comparing the Rates of Misconduct Between Private and Public Prisons in Texas” in the journal Crime and Delinquency. You and your fellow researchers explore whether incarceration in a private or public prison affects rates of recidivism or good conduct. Can you tell us, in lay person’s terms, what kinds of data and metrics you used to explore this question and what some of your findings were?
Dr. El Sayed: The data were obtained from official prison records collected by the principle corrections agency of Texas. We had access to a variety of variables ranging from facility information to an array of inmate history and classification records. Respondents eligible for the study entered the facilities of interest at some point between August 10, 2004 to August 10, 2007. The premise of this study was creating a work-around to research questions that are imperative to corrections studies but cannot be examined for methodological reasons since it would require an experimental design. Applying an experimental design would require randomly assigning respondents (i.e., inmates) to random punishments which would be unethical. In this particular case, we were interested in whether the type of correctional facility, either public or private, that an inmate serves time in will impact the amount of infractions, or misconduct, committed while incarcerated. To examine this question we applied propensity score matching. This type of analysis is classified as a quasi-experimental design in that it resembles an experiment without having to randomly assign respondents to the treatment (i.e., the type of prison facility). By applying propensity score matching, we created two groups of inmates that were similar to one another on many key variables but only varied by the type of prison facility they were serving their sentence. The amount of inmate infractions were similar at both private and public institutions for all examined types of misconduct except for being physically violent. Results indicated that physically violent infractions were 10 percent less likely to occur in private institutions when compared to public institutions. It is important to note that the findings is from one study and cannot be considered causal. The findings do indicate that more research is needed about the contributions, if any, of private institutions beyond those provided by public institutions.
Fronteras: We were also quite fascinated by another one of your recent articles, titled “Death in Dallas: Sentencing Patterns of Pre-Furman Capital Offenders,” published in the Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice this year. You and your coauthors examine Dallas, TX county data to determine the role of ethnicity in capital sentencing between 1923 and 1972. Can you tell us about what you found and why you picked the cut-off date of 1972 for this study?
Dr. El Sayed: I’m going to answer the second question first. For the study you’re referring to, we used 1972 as the cut-off date because in that year the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Furman v. Georgia (1972) marked the beginning of the modern death penalty era. The Supreme Court issued a historical moratorium on capital punishment as it held that the procedural application of capital punishment was unconstitutional. Due to the significance of this decision, capital punishment is commonly viewed broadly as occurring during either the pre-Furman or post-Furman period. The study examined whether national capital punishment trends were reflected in an individual county, Dallas, during the pre-Furman period and did find support of similar trends. Specifically, there was evidence of racial disparities in who received a death sentence in Dallas county during 1923-1972. The paper also provides historical vignettes of individual cases to provide a closer look at how traces of racial disparity were present in the criminal justice proceedings.
“My goal in the classroom is to not only teach students but also assist them into becoming knowledgeable, broad-thinkers.”
Fronteras: It must be both a challenge and an opportunity to be a professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice in the current historical moment, and to educate your students on the issues of policing, ethnicity, and incarceration that are currently driving protests and firestorms of public debate on social media. What kinds of conversations are you leading in your class to guide students in their thinking about these issues?
Dr. El Sayed: I thoroughly enjoy conducting research and teaching in the area of criminology and criminal justice. My goal in the classroom is to not only teach students but also assist them into becoming knowledgeable, broad-thinkers. In doing so, pressing issues occurring today are often tied into the lessons so that students may become critical thinkers and prepared to apply the knowledge they gain in the classroom to the challenges they may have to help resolve when they enter the criminal justice workforce. This way, students are given the tools needed to be proficient police officers, attorneys, academics, and whichever profession they choose to pursue once graduating.
Fronteras: Thank you for speaking with us about your research. What are some of your upcoming projects?
Dr. El Sayed: I am working on several projects that I am really excited about. Currently, I am coauthoring a manuscript that utilizes a sample of children who enrolled in the study when they were 54 months old. The focus of the study is to examine the concurrent development of self-control and externalizing behaviors across their early-life trajectory. Although these variables are typically examined in a staggered time-order (e.g., examines how self-control in childhood effects externalizing behavior in adulthood), this manuscript will be one of the first to examine both self-control and externalizing behaviors concurrently by applying dual trajectory analysis. This study will aid in answering whether the development of self-control regulates externalizing behavior across the life course. Another project I am currently working on examines the link between adolescent delinquent behaviors and engaging in white-collar crime during adulthood. While much is known about committing white-collar offending, less is known about white-collar offending within the life-course framework. When published, this paper will be one of only a few to examine white-collar offending over the life course.
Thank you for the thoughtful questions about my research. I enjoyed discussing some of my research with you today.
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