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Mock Jurors' Recommended Sentences For Perpetrators Who Have Traumatic Experiences, Katherine West Aug 2022

Mock Jurors' Recommended Sentences For Perpetrators Who Have Traumatic Experiences, Katherine West

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Experiencing trauma can result in neurological and biological changes, precipitating long-term damage to the brain and body. A considerable proportion of incarcerated persons have reported that they have experienced some type of trauma (Stensrud, Gilbride, & Bruinekool, 2018). Using scenarios of hypothetical crimes of varying degrees of seriousness, this study explores whether disclosure of the perpetrator’s traumatic childhood experiences has an influence on the severity of the sentence that mock jurors would recommend for that perpetrator. The mock jurors’ trait empathy, Belief in a Just World, and their own traumatic experiences were assessed to determine whether these characteristics could account …


Examining Legal Financial Obligations In Washington State, Bryan Lewis Apr 2022

Examining Legal Financial Obligations In Washington State, Bryan Lewis

PPPA Paper Prize

After criminal offenders are convicted of a crime, they must return to the court where a judge will determine their sentence. Sentencing often includes jail time, but it always includes monetary penalties, or Legal Financial Obligations (LFOs). There are many reasons these penalties are given, from restitution for the victims of criminal offenses, to providing government revenue and funding the court, to punishment for the offender. However, these fines, and the interest rates that come with them, often leave offenders with an enormous amount of debt. There are a lot of interests at stake when it comes to LFO sentencing …


Exploring Factors That Influence Human Trafficking Sentencing Lengths, Brent Blakeman Mar 2022

Exploring Factors That Influence Human Trafficking Sentencing Lengths, Brent Blakeman

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The area of human trafficking and sentencing research is currently under-explored. Consequently, little foundational knowledge has been established in this area of sentencing research to ensure that sentencing biases do not exist that undermine the tenets of justice. This study produces research and findings that incrementally contribute to building this foundational knowledge on human trafficking and sentencing. It does this by creating and testing a conceptual framework of human trafficking and sentencing that identifies potential predictors of human trafficking sentencing lengths that can be used to identify potential problematic sentencing issues. The model tested in the study includes the following …


Criminal Justice Expertise, Benjamin Levin Jan 2022

Criminal Justice Expertise, Benjamin Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

For decades, commentators have adopted a story of mass incarceration’s rise as caused by “punitive populism.” Growing prison populations, expanding criminal codes, and raced and classed disparities in enforcement result from “pathological politics”: voters and politicians act in a vicious feedback loop, driving more criminal law and punishment. The criminal system’s problems are political. But how should society solve these political problems? Scholars often identify two kinds of approaches: (1) the technocratic, which seeks to wrest power from irrational and punitive voters, replacing electoral politics with agencies and commissions; and (2) the democratic, which treats criminal policy as insufficiently responsive …