Digital Commons Network^™

Race And Local Television News Crime Coverage, Jeremy Harris Lipschultz, Michael L. Hilt

Communication Faculty Publications

Viewers of local television newscasts across the United States are regularly exposed to crime news stories. Crime coverage by local television stations is studied with an interest in how live reporting, dramatic video, and timeliness influence perceptions of race in the United States. Crime coverage did not always identify the race of a suspect because that information often was not available from police. However, when violent criminals or suspects were identified, race normally was shown through a mug shot, photograph, or video from the scene. When an African-American suspect was shown in police custody, the images tended to reinforce existing …

Social Disorganization Theory: Examining The Mediating Effects Of Social Ties And Disorder On Crime, Matasha L. Harris

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

Using study data collected for a larger research project entitled Project on Policing Neighborhoods in Indianapolis, Indiana, 1996, the relationship between social ties and disorder on neighborhood structural characteristics and crime rates was tested. Using two Structural Equation Models the mediating effects of social ties and disorder on neighborhood structural characteristics and crime received partial support from the analysis of Indianapolis data.

The results revealed that poverty and family disruption exerts a positive impact on crime rates. The results also revealed that neighborhoods with high levels of racial heterogeneity have a negative effect on social ties. As well, the study …

Race, Crime, And Institutional Design, Erik Luna

Law and Contemporary Problems

Minorities are gravely overrepresented in every stage of the criminal process--from pedestrian and automobile stops, to searches and seizures, to arrests and convictions, to incarceration and capital punishment. While racial data can provide a snapshot of the current state of affairs, such information rarely satisfies questions of causation, and usually only sets the scene for normative theory.

Crime In Tennessee 2002, Tennessee. Bureau Of Investigation.

Crime in Tennessee

No abstract provided.

Anti-Reproductive-Rights Crimes In California, 2003, California Department Of Justice

California Agencies

Senate Bill 780, effective January 1, 2002, enacted two new laws: the California Freedom of Access to Clinic and Church Entrances (or California FACE) Act, and the Reproductive Rights Law Enforcement Act. The Reproductive Rights Law Enforcement Act added sections 13775 through 13779 to the California Penal Code requiring the Attorney General to collect and analyze information relating to anti-reproductive-rights crimes and submit a report to the Legislature. This publication is the result of that mandate.

An "anti-reproductive-rights crime" is defined in section 13776 (a) of the California Penal Code as "a crime committed partly or wholly because the victim …

Mothering, Crime And Incarceration, Kathleen J. Ferraro, Angela M. Moe

Sociology Faculty Publications

This article examines the relationships between mothering, crime, and incarceration through the narratives of thirty women incarcerated in a southwestern county jail. The responsibilities of child care, combined with the burdens of economic marginality and domestic violence, led some women to choose economic crimes or drug dealing as an alternative to hunger and homelessness. Other women, arrested for drug- or alcohol-related crimes, related their offenses to the psychological pain and despair resulting from loss of custody of their children. Many women were incarcerated for minor probation violations that often related to the conflict between work, child care, and probation requirements. …

Perceptions Of Minorities' Criminal Involvement In Grand Rapids: Community And Media Dialogue, Rafael E. Castanon

McNair Scholars Journal

This study examines media overrepresentation and its effects on community perception. The research examines the perception of racial/ethnic involvement in violent crimes in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Grand Rapids Police Department arrest reports for violent crime were dichotomized by race/ethnicity and compared to news articles reporting violent crimes found in the Grand Rapids Press to determine if a disparity exists between those data sets. To measure public perceptions, questionnaires were administered concerning racial/ethnic groups and their likelihood to commit violent crimes. The overall intention is to provide a better understanding of root causes of minority disparity within the Criminal Justice System.

Young Offenders And Juvenile Delinquency In Canada: A Look At The Canadian Juvenile Justice Act (2003), Cameron D.M. Brody

Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies

This paper provides an evaluation and analysis of the laws in place to deal with juvenile delinquency in Canada. The primary focus of this paper is the Criminal Justice Act (Aprill, 2003) which is being introduced to replace the pre-existing Young Offenders Act. Canada's New Criminal Justice Act is the topic of this paper. The Act is to be implemented on April 1, 2003. Fundamentally, it is the old Young Offender Act revised and also includes new changes, revisions, and mandates. After having taken a fairly in-depth look at this new proposal, I will attempt to break it down and …

Citizenship And Severity: Recent Immigration Reforms And The New Penology, Teresa A. Miller

Journal Articles

Over the past twenty years, scholars of criminal law, criminology and criminal punishment have documented a transformation in the practices, objectives, and institutional arrangements underlying a range of criminal justice system functions that are at the heart of penal modernism. In contrast to the preceding eighty years of criminal justice practices that were progressively more modern in their belief in the rationality of the criminal offender and their concern for enhancing civilization through rehabilitative responses to criminality, these scholars note that since the mid-198''0s the relatively settled assumptions about the framework that shaped criminal justice and penal practices for nearly …

Bête Noire: How Race-Based Policing Threatens National Security, Lenese C. Herbert

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article asserts that race-based policing, enabled and exacerbated by race-blind judicial review, creates an ire with a purpose that promises, especially after September 11, to make us all less safe. The illegitimate marginalization of American citizens aggravates an already alienated population and primes them for cooperation with those who seek to harm the United States. Race-based policing guts the expectation of fair-dealing, legitimacy, and justice in the criminal justice system, creating marginalized populations, especially of African Americans. Lack of judicial redress in the face of such policing irrevocably stains already beleaguered African Americans (and others so policed) as inferior …

Back To The Future: Does Apprendi Bar A Legislature's Power To Shift The Burden Of Proof Away From The Prosecution By Labeling An Element Of A Traditional Crime As An Affirmative Defense?, Leslie Yalof Garfield

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article considers whether it would be sound to extend the Apprendi rule to affirmative defenses. Part II of this Article considers the historical foundation of the Due Process Clause and the evolution of the assignment of the burden of proof for affirmative defenses and sentencing factors. Part II also reviews Mullaney and its progeny through the most current case, Apprendi. Part III discusses the Court's model for determining which categories of statutory language constitute elements requiring proof beyond a reasonable doubt and which are "nonessential element[s] of an offense." Part IV evaluates whether it is appropriate to assign the …

Retribution: The Central Aim Of Punishment, Gerard V. Bradley

Journal Articles

When I worked for the Manhattan District Attorney's Office in the early 1980s, criminal sentences were consistently and dramatically too lenient. Though those years marked the ebb tide for the rehabilitative ideal of punishment and indeterminate "zip-to-ten" sentences, only career felons and those convicted of the most serious crimes were candidates for the sentences they justly deserved. Hamstrung by apparently silly rules of constitutional etiquette and bureaucratic sclerosis, the police were eclipsed in the mind of the public by the cold-blooded Everyman, bound only by the law of the jungle and some elusive sense of justice. Ultimately, popular demand required …

Can A Model Penal Code Second Save The States From Themselves?, Paul H. Robinson, Michael T. Cahill

All Faculty Scholarship

Other contributors to this Symposium suggest a variety of changes to the Model Penal Code that they think justify producing a Model Penal Code Second. We offer such suggestions elsewhere. We want to use this space to discuss a slightly different, but related, subject: the need for, and potential effect of, a Model Penal Code Second as a spur to reforming current American criminal codes. Probably the most important point we can contribute is to make clear that current American criminal codes are in serious trouble. About one-third of the states never adopted a modern criminal code during the codification …

Justifications For The Probation Sanction Among Residents Of Virginia--Cool Or Un-Cool?, Brian K. Payne, Randy R. Gainey, Ruth A. Triplett, Mona J. E. Danner

Sociology & Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Perhaps as evidence of a growing cultural gap between our students and ourselves, one of the authors was recently amused when a student asked whether probation was a "cool" sanction. In this study, we begin an investigation into how cool the probation sanction is in the eyes of residents of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Specifically, we use data from a telephone survey of 840 registered voters to explore three questions. First, how often would they recommend the probation sanction in comparison to other sanctions? Second, how do they justify the sanction relative to justifications for other sanctions? Finally, are their …

Reciprocal Effects Of Crime And Incarceration In New York City Neighborhoods, Jeffrey Fagan, Valerie West, Jan Holland

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Article identifies and estimates the ecological dynamics of increasing spatial and social concentration of incarcerated individuals in urban neighborhoods using data from New York City between 1985 and 1997. It argues that this dynamic becomes self-sustaining and reinforcing over time. In conclusion, the Article discusses how high incarceration rates impact the relationships between citizens and the law, directly affecting residents and influencing policy preferences of non-residents.