Digital Commons Network^™

Structural Determinants Of Homicide: The Big Three, Maria Tcherni

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Building upon and expanding the previous research into structural determinants of homicide, particularly the work of Land, McCall and Cohen (1990), the current paper uses county-level data to disentangle three major influences on homicide rates: poverty, racial composition, and the disruption of family structure. Theoretical foundations of these influences are laid out, and the effects of the three factors on homicide rates are tested at two time periods as far removed from one another as possible: 1950-1960 and 1995-2005. All major variables typically used in homicide research are included as controls. The results of analyses show that the effects of …

The R-Word: A Tribute To Derrick Bell, Kenneth B. Nunn

UF Law Faculty Publications

Racism has become the “R-word,” an allegation that is so outrageous that it cannot even be spoken in public, let alone seriously addressed. In this brief exploration, I propose that it is exactly because racism continues to loom large in American society that talking about it has become taboo. In other words, banning the “R-word” serves a political function. It masks the failure of American society to confront the existence of racism and do something about its effects. Derrick Bell's path breaking work can be used to show why the focus of race discourse has moved from debating over what …

Race, Gender, And Tokenism In Policing: An Empirical Elaboration, Meghan S. Stroshine, Steven G. Brandl

Social and Cultural Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

According to tokenism theory, “tokens” (those who comprise less than 15% of a group’s total) are expected to experience a variety of hardships in the workplace, such as feelings of heightened visibility, isolation, and limited opportunities for advancement. In the policing literature, most previous studies have defined tokenism narrowly in terms of gender. The current research extends prior research by examining tokenism as a function of gender and race, with an examination of racial/ethnic subgroups. Particular attention is paid to Latino officers as this study represents the first known study of tokenism and Latino police officers. Quantitative analyses reveal that, …

Collateral Consequences Of Criminal Convictions: Confronting Issues Of Race And Dignity, Michael Pinard

Michael Pinard

This article explores the racial dimensions of the various collateral consequences that attach to criminal convictions in the United States. The consequences include ineligibility for public and government-assisted housing, public benefits and various forms of employment, as well as civic exclusions such as ineligibility for jury service and felon disenfranchisement. To test its hypothesis that these penalties, both historically and contemporarily, are rooted in race, the article looks to England and Wales, Canada and South Africa. These countries have criminal justice systems similar to the United States’, have been influenced significantly by United States’ criminal justice practices in recent years, …

Racial/Ethnic Matching Of Clients And Therapists In Mental Health Services: A Meta-Analytic Review Of Preferences, Perceptions, And Outcomes, Timothy B. Smith, Raquel R. Cabral

Faculty Publications

The effects of matching clients with therapists of the same race/ethnicity have been explored using a variety of approaches across several decades. We conducted a meta-analysis of three variables frequently used in research on racial/ethnic matching: Clients' preferences for a therapist of their own race/ethnicity, clients' perceptions of therapists, and therapeutic outcomes. Across 52 studies of preferences, the average effect size was d = .63, indicating a moderately strong preference for a therapist of one's own race/ethnicity. Across 81 studies of individuals' perceptions of therapists, the average effect size was d = .32, indicating a tendency to perceive therapists of …

Information Overload, Multi-Tasking, And The Socially Networked Jury: Why Prosecutors Should Approach The Media Gingerly, Andrew Taslitz

Andrew E. Taslitz

The rise of computer technology, the internet, rapid news dissemination, multi-tasking, and social networking have wrought changes in human psychology that alter how we process news media. More specifically, news coverage of high-profile trials necessarily focuses on emotionally-overwrought, attention-grabbing information disseminated to a public having little ability to process that information critically. The public’s capacity for empathy is likewise reduced, making it harder for trial processes to overcome the unfair prejudice created by the high-profile trial. Market forces magnify these changes. Free speech concerns limit the ability of the law to alter media coverage directly, and the tools available to …

Explicating Correlates Of Juvenile Offender Detention Length: The Impact Of Race, Mental Health Difficulties, Maltreatment, Offense Type, And Court Dispositions, Christopher A. Mallett, Patricia A. Stoddard Dare, Mamadou M. Seck

Social Work Faculty Publications

Detention and confinement are widely acknowledged juvenile justice system problems which require further research to understand the explanations for these outcomes. Existing juvenile court, mental health, and child welfare histories were used to explicate factors which predict detention length in this random sample of 342 youth from one large, urban Midwestern county in the United States. Data from this sample revealed eight variables which predict detention length. Legitimate predictors of longer detention length such as committing a personal crime or violating a court order were nearly as likely in this sample to predict detention length as other extra-legal predictors such …

A Conversation With President Obama: A Dialogue About Poverty, Race, And Class In Black America, Joseph K. Grant

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

No abstract provided.

Self-Control Theory : An Exploration Of Racial Disparities In Offending., Emmaleigh E. Kirchner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study seeks to examine whether racial disparities in offending can be explained through self-control theory. The study utilized longitudinal responses of a nationally representative sample of 1700 adolescents. Parenting and self-control measures are taken from the mothers supplemental survey and peer pressure and offending are taken from self-reports from the adolescents at a later time. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the racial differences in self-control theory. Both a measurement model and a structural model are presented. The results of the study find empirical support for the construct of self-control theory, even within the face of racial disparities. …

Delinquency : A Trajectory Analysis Of African-American Males., Wyatt Brown 1985-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The initial goals of this study include locating and identifying the taxonomic groups mentioned in Moffitt's (1993) (i.e. life-course persistent offenders, adolescent-limited offenders) using data from the National Longitudinal Survey 1997 (NLSY97). Further, this study compares the social demographics with the predictions of Moffitt (1993,1994) as her theory describes race, particularity those of African-American offenders. This study also examines the role of parental and peer relationships and their effect on the offender disparity among the typologies defined by Moffitt (1993). This study explores one hypothesis: there is a relationship between social bonds, particularly peer association and admittance into Moffitt's (1993) …

Introduction, Hon. Steven C. Gonzàlez

Seattle University Law Review

At Seattle University School of Law’s Symposium on Racial Bias and the Criminal Justice System, students, faculty, judges, scholars, lawyers, and community members gathered to address racial disparity in the criminal justice system and to explore ways to keep the promise of our democracy that we all are equal before the law. Race, ethnicity, skin color, and national origin profoundly influence our legal structure and our liberty. The way that race influences perceptions and actions is critically important in the context of our criminal justice system—a system that changes lives, disrupts and protects communities, and represents a key part of …

O.P.P.: How "Occupy's" Race-Based Privilege May Improve Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence For All, Lenese C. Herbert

Seattle University Law Review

This Article submits that Occupy’s race problem could, ironically, prove to be a solution if protesters grow more serious about exposing the injury of political subordination and systems of privilege that adhere to the criminal justice system. Privilege is a “systemic conferral of benefit and advantage [as a result of] affiliation, conscious or not and chosen or not, to the dominant side of a power system.” Accordingly, now that police mistreatment affects them personally, Occupy may finally help kill a fictitious Fourth Amendment jurisprudence that ignores oppression through improper policing based on racial stigma. Occupy may also help usher in …

Collateral Consequences, Genetic Surveillance, And The New Biopolitics Of Race, Dorothy E. Roberts

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article is part of a Howard Law Journal Symposium on “Collateral Consequences: Who Really Pays the Price for Criminal Justice?,” as well as my larger book project, Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century (The New Press, 2011). It considers state and federal government expansion of genetic surveillance as a collateral consequence of a criminal record in the context of a new biopolitics of race in America. Part I reviews the expansion of DNA data banking by states and the federal government, extending the collateral impact of a criminal record—in the form …

From Rapists To Superpredators: What The Practice Of Capital Punishment Says About Race, Rights And The American Child, Robyn Linde

Faculty Publications

At the turn of the 20^th century, the United States was widely considered to be a world leader in matters of child protection and welfare, a reputation lost by the century’s end. This paper suggests that the United States’ loss of international esteem concerning child welfare was directly related to its practice of executing juvenile offenders. The paper analyzes why the United States continued to carry out the juvenile death penalty after the establishment of juvenile courts and other protections for child criminals. Two factors allowed the United States to continue the juvenile death penalty after most states in …

Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word: The Fair Sentencing Act Of 2010, Crack, And Methamphetamine, Kyle Graham

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The External Effects Of Black-Male Incarceration On Black Females, Stéphane Mechoulan

Stéphane Mechoulan

This paper examines how the increase in the incarceration of Black men and the sex ratio imbalance it induces shape the behavior of young Black women. Combining data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the Current Population Survey to match male incarceration rates with individual observations over two decades, I show that Black male incarceration lowers the odds of Black non-marital teenage fertility while increasing young Black women's school attainment and early employment. These results can account for the sharp bridging of the racial gap over the 1990s for a range of socio-economic outcomes among females.

Social And Biological Constructions Of Youth: Implications For Juvenile Justice And Racial Equity, Patricia Soung

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

Jury Nullification, Race, And The Wire, James M. Keneally

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Negotiating Social Mobility And Critical Citizenship: Institutions At A Crossroads, Michelle D. Deardorff, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

A Black law professor who teaches at a predominantly White law school and a White public law professor who teaches at a historically Black university in the same southern, urban community are co-authors of this Article. Here, in this piece, we explore the tension between the goals of our institutions and many other institutions to improve the socioeconomic status of our students with our personal goals of preparing students to challenge societal injustice and to be critical citizens who are willing to challenge a government that engages in abusive actions or is exploitative of its citizenry.

A Conversation With President Obama: A Dialogue About Poverty, Race, And Class In Black America, Joseph Karl Grant

Journal Publications

The date is November 13, 2012.1 Just mere days ago, I received the invitation of a lifetime. Last night, I arrived in Washington, D.C. I am staying in the Hay-Adams Hotel on the third floor. I still cannot believe the extent of my life's journey. I have just been summoned to the White House by second term President-elect Barack Obama, who defeated Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for President on November 6, 2012. The 2012 Presidential Election was a hard-fought battle between Barack Obama on the Democratic side, and Mitt Romney on Republican side. The election was a like the …

Localities As Equality Innovators, Robin A. Lenhardt

Faculty Scholarship

This Article thus argues that instead of regarding cities and localities that, like Seattle and Louisville, try to develop serious solutions to existing racial disparities as "bad cities" no different from those whose notorious policies spurred the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, we should be regarding them as potential "equality innovators.” Their on-the-ground experience with the realities of race and its operation in the twenty-first century arguably places them in a better position than courts to develop innovative approaches to the structural racial inequities with which so many municipalities must grapple. Existing doctrine limits dramatically the ability …

Discerning What Can Be Learned From Seasoned Sentence Mitigation Practioners' Experiences Of The Accused And Their Family Members As Historians, Specifically In The Context Of Socio-Cultural Factors, In The Development Of Life History Presentation In Capital Defense Proceedings, Lisa Michele Kelly

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

This qualitative study employed a study of thirteen participants, including social workers, who interview the accused and their family members in death penalty cases, to discern what could be learned from seasoned sentence mitigation practitioners' experience of defendants and their family members as historians. Those interviewed in sentence mitigation investigations are asked to discuss sensitive information while in the midst of a legal process surrounding a violent crime and rendering the accused and their family members extremely vulnerable. The information interviewees provide may have direct bearing on sentencing of the accused. In capital cases, defendants are highly unlikely to avoid …

Assessing Racial Differences In Offending Trajectories: A Life-Course View Of The Race-Crime Relationship, Michael S. Caudy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The developmental and life-course criminology (DLC) paradigm has become increasingly popular over the last two decades. A primary limitation of this paradigm is the lack of consideration of race and ethnicity within its framework. Race unquestionably matters in today's society and yet it has generally been ignored within the context of DLC theories. The current study aims to contribute to the literature informing DLC by viewing life-course theories through the lens of race and ethnicity. Utilizing nationally-representative data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, the current study examines race-specific developmental trajectories of offending over 11 years during the …

General Strain Theory, Race, And Delinquency, Jennifer Peck

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The present study drew on Agnew's General Strain Theory (GST) to examine the relationship between strain, race, and delinquent behavior. To address this possible association, five hypotheses were tested to examine if different types of strain and stress exposure influence delinquent coping and if these relationships are conditioned by race and ethnicity. Using data from the Add Health Study, White, African American, and Hispanic adolescents, the present study attempts to generalize GST to different racial and ethnic groups.

Results from OLS and negative binomial regression analyses indicate that some support was found for GST, in that indicators of strain to …

Slavery And The Law In Atlantic Perspective: Jurisdiction, Jurisprudence, And Justice, Rebecca J. Scott

Articles

The four articles in this special issue experiment with an innovative set of questions and a variety of methods in order to push the analysis of slavery and the law into new territory. Their scope is broadly Atlantic, encompassing Suriname and Saint-Domingue/Haiti, New York and New Orleans, port cities and coffee plantations. Each essay deals with named individuals in complex circumstances, conveying their predicaments as fine-grained microhistories rather than as shocking anecdotes. Each author, moreover, demonstrates that the moments when law engaged slavery not only reflected but also influenced larger dynamics of sovereignty and jurisprudence.

Sport And Masculinity: The Promise And Limits Of Title Ix, Deborah Brake

Book Chapters

This paper uses the lens of masculinities theory to examine the connections between sport and masculinity and considers how law both reinforces and intervenes in sport’s production of masculinity. The paper urges moving beyond a "women vs. men" framework for examining gender equality in sport to include critical study of sport’s relationship to masculinities. The primary law examined in this chapter is Title IX of the Education Amendments in 1972, which is widely (and properly) credited with the explosive growth of women’s sports in the intervening decades. While Title IX has greatly expanded the range of culturally valued femininities for …

Causes, Consequences And Cures Of Racial And Ethnic Disproportionality In Conviction And Incarceration Rates: An Introduction, Janet Moore

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This piece introduces Prosecution and Racial Justice, a panel discussion with Wayne McKenzie of the Vera Institute for Justice, by outlining the legal-historical context for reform strategies that detect and correct effects of racial bias in prosecutorial decision-making.

Rethinking The Fourth Amendment: Race, Citizenship & The Equality Principle, I. Bennett Capers

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

Notwithstanding claims that the election of President Barack Obama signals a post-racial epoch, one does not have to look far for evidence that race still matters. It is particularly evident in how we police, which remains very much racially inflected. Even when racial animus is absent, there often persists the perception that racial bias is present, even inevitable, as the recent firestorm over the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates attests to. Scholars such as Randall Kennedy have long argued that disparate treatment by police amounts to the imposition of a “racial tax.” But this comparison, while descriptively apt, …

The Anticanon, Jamal Greene

Faculty Scholarship

Argument from the "anticanon," the set of cases whose central propositions all legitimate decisions must refute, has become a persistent but curious feature of American constitutional law. These cases, Dred Scott v. Sandford, Plessy v. Ferguson, Lochner v. New York, and Korematsu v. United States, are consistently cited in Supreme Court opinions, in constitutional law casebooks, and at confirmation hearings as prime examples of weak constitutional analysis. Upon reflection, however, anticanonical cases do not involve unusually bad reasoning, nor are they uniquely morally repugnant. Rather, these cases are held out as examples for reasons external to …