Digital Commons Network^™

Making A Difference Is Focus Of New Police Officer, Mark D. Weinstein

News Releases

Kaley Aurand, a 2023 criminal justice graduate of Cedarville University, was sponsored by the Xenia Police Department (XPD) in the completion of her training at the police academy. Today, Aurand, who graduated from the five-month Ohio Peace Officer Basic Training Academy at Sinclair Community College in November, is now a full-time police officer for the Xenia Police Department. She was sworn in on Monday, Nov. 27.

Juvenile Curfews In Metro Atlanta: A Case Study And Content Analysis Of Laws, Arrests, And Victimizations, Olivia Berry

Political Science Theses

This thesis aims to analyze how juvenile curfew laws in Metro Atlanta affect juveniles compared to case studies in the literature. The research focuses on 11 Metro Atlanta counties with and without these laws. This study is primarily qualitative and designed to draw attention to the makeup of juvenile curfew laws, potential consequences, and how the situation in Metro Atlanta may differ from other regions. By utilizing data on juvenile crime and victimization sourced from the Georgia Bureau of Investigations Crime Statistics Database, in tandem with the language of each curfew law, this study explores the potential impacts of these …

Bailing On The Bondsman: An Argument For Abolishing Monetary Bail, Sean Freeland M.S., J.D.

Lincoln Memorial University Law Review Archive

Money bail as a condition for pretrial release has existed throughout American history. Two out of every three inmates held in jails across the United States have not been tried for a crime and are only held because they cannot afford to pay the cost of their bail. The longer a defendant awaits trial in detention, the higher the chance they will be convicted of a crime and sentenced to a longer term than a defendant who is awarded pretrial release. The prolonged time awaiting trial in detention contributes to recidivism and increased criminalization for individuals and their communities. For …

Implementation Of A Screening, Brief Intervention, And Referral To Treatment Protocol For Treatment Of Opioid Use Disorder In Post-Carceral Populations, Adaora Ede, Mary Johnson

Graduate Publications and Other Selected Works - Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

BACKGROUND: Opioid use disorder (OUD) is a pressing public health issue in the US affecting marginalized populations the most. Within the correctional setting, 65% of inmates are affected with OUD, worsening health outcomes when untreated.

LOCAL PROBLEM: This evidence-based practice (EBP) project targeted justice-involved individuals with co-occurring OUD at a behavioral health clinic in Johnson City, Tennessee. This project aimed to improve outcomes related to recidivism and relapse through clinician education and the implementation of a Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) protocol.

METHODS: Johns Hopkins Nursing Evidence-Based Practice Model (JHNEBP) was the guiding EBP model for the …

Faith: The Foundation Of Law Enforcement, Mark D. Weinstein

News Releases

Derek Zelenka, a 2005 graduate of Cedarville University, works as a detective for the City of Brunswick Police in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, and as a hostage negotiator for the Southwest Enforcement Bureau SWAT team in greater Cleveland. Zelenka has worked as a school resource officer for the last eight years, and he also works in youth ministry at his local church.

Insanity And Incompetency: Courts, Communities, And The Intersections Of Mental Illness And Criminal Justice In The Wake Of Kahler And Trueblood, Gwendolyn West

Golden Gate University Law Review

Today, people with mental illnesses in the United States are ten times more likely to be incarcerated than hospitalized. About 20 percent of the United States population experiences some kind of mental illness each year, and about 3 to 5 percent of the population experiences a severe and persistent mental illness. By contrast, more than 60 percent of jail inmates and at least 45 percent of prison inmates in the United States have a diagnosed mental illness. Studies have found that anywhere from 25 percent to 71 percent of people with serious mental illness in a given community have a …

After The Criminal Justice System, Benjamin Levin

Washington Law Review

Since the 1960s, the “criminal justice system” has operated as the common label for a vast web of actors and institutions. But as critiques of mass incarceration have entered the mainstream, academics, activists, and advocates increasingly have stopped referring to the “criminal justice system.” Instead, they have opted for critical labels—the “criminal legal system,” the “criminal punishment system,” the “prison industrial complex,” and so on. What does this re-labeling accomplish? Does this change in language matter to broader efforts at criminal justice reform or abolition? Or does an emphasis on labels and language distract from substantive engagement with the injustices …

Unreliable Forensic Science, Sarah Ciuffetelli

Quest

The Effectiveness of Forensic Science

Research in progress for CRIJ 1301: Introduction to Criminal Justice

Faculty Mentor: Stefanie LeMaire

Sarah Ciuffetelli uses critical thinking to examine the effectiveness of forensic sciences during criminal investigations. The assignment requires students to find the most prominent scholarly research in forensic sciences and discuss its efficacy. Further, the research leads students to discuss the potential limitations investigators must consider when examining forensic evidence. Lastly, students find at least six scholarly sources to provide an in-depth analysis of the research.

Sarah begins by discussing the history of forensic science and the ever-increasing technology used in …

Bargaining In The Shadow Of The Truth: How Client Assertion, Perception Of Guilt, And Predictive Inaccuracy Influence Plea Recommendations, Anna D. Vaynman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Over the past few decades, the largely hidden, secretive, and widely used system of plea bargaining has caught the fervent attention of scholars. The Shadow of the Trial model has been central to much of the plea-bargaining literature, despite significant critiques about its oversimplification. The model posits that defendants and their attorneys make plea decisions based largely on the estimated probability of conviction and the severity of the sentence to which the defendant could be exposed at trial.

The model, however, assumes that all actors are rational, equally risk averse, have no competing interests, and possess high predictive accuracy. It …

Carl Vinson Institute Presentation, Holly Lynde

Georgia Criminal Law Review

No abstract provided.

Carceral Data: The Limits Of Transparency-As-Accountability In Prison Risk Data, Becka Hudson, Tomas Percival

Secrecy and Society

Prison data collection is a labyrinthine infrastructure. This article engages with debates around the political potentials and limitations of transparency as a form of “accountability,” specifically as it relates to carceral management and data gathering. We examine the use of OASys, a widely used risk assessment tool in the British prison system, in order to demonstrate how transparency operates as a means of legitimating prison data collection and ensuing penal management. Prisoner options to resist their file, or “data double,” in this context are considered and the decisive role of OASys as an immediately operationalized technical structure is outlined. We …

Meet Our New Faculty: Yvette Butler, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

Associate Professor Yvette T. Butler joined the Indiana Law faculty this summer. She earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Minnesota, Morris, and her law degree from The George Washington University Law School.

Syringe Service Programs In Indiana: Moving Past The “Moral” Concerns Of Harm Reduction Towards Effective Legislation, Steven Nisi

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

Negligent Hiring: Recidivism And Employment With A Criminal Record, Benjamin David Pyle

Faculty Scholarship

This paper tackles a difficult legal and policy challenge—reducing the impact of criminal justice records on job applicants’ chances in a manner that does not spur more discrimination—by looking at how another area of law, tort liability, impacts employers’ decision-making. It uses theoretical and empirical methods to study the most common reason employers report being reluctant to hire workers with a criminal record: legal liability generated by the tort of negligent hiring. While the purpose of the tort is ostensibly to protect and make whole those harmed when an employee misbehaves in a foreseeable manner, I show that, in practice, …

Assessing The Risk, Addressing The Need: A Mixed Method Approach To Designing A Strengths-Based, Post-Incarceration, Correctional Assessment For Women, Rashonda Johnson

Dissertations

Women are the fastest-growing segment of the incarcerated population, steadily increasing since 1985 (ACLU, n.d.). More than one million women are behind bars or have some involvement with the criminal justice system. The rapid growth of incarceration among women has led scholars and researchers to address the growing needs and risk levels that lead to increased recidivism rates. The creation of assessment tools specifically focused on female populations began in 1999. However, before this time, instruments were historically designed for men within the criminal justice system, and addendums were added to these tools to be used with female populations (Voorhis …

The Juris Master: A Proposal For Reducing Excessive Public Defender Caseloads, Blake Comeaux

Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses

The US public defense system is underfunded, understaffed, and underdelivering on the Constitutional promises of the 6^th Amendment, the right to a fair and speedy trial. This state of our public defense system results in monstrous impacts for indigent defendants nationwide. Through indefinite delays in litigation, being abandoned in jail while sitting on waiting lists for public defenders, and being outright denied representation, indigent defendants are deprived of their rights. Beyond just defendant neglect, our current system puts immense strain on public defenders, prosecutors, and state budgets. In an attempt to combat this current state of affairs, this paper …

Utilizing An Evidence-Based Treatment Program For Offenders With Mental Health Disorders To Demonstrate Interprofessional Social Work Practice, Erica Kessinger, Ann Callahan

Social Work Masters Capstone Projects

Sixty-four percent of jail offenders, 54% of state prisoners, and 45% of federal prisoners have a mental illness (Taylor, 2022). Mental illness increases the risk of recidivism. Individuals with mental illness have limited access to appropriate treatment. They are more likely to respond negatively to the prison environment. This can lead to infractions and solitary confinement. In addition, 51% of incarcerated individuals, whether they received mental health treatment or not, are likely to experience recidivism (Pflueger et al., 2015). The practice of interprofessional social work inside the American prison system is desperately needed. The following paper proposes an evidence-based treatment …

Adverse Childhood Experiences And Their Correlation To College Major, Rachel Ling Xiu Held

Helm's School of Government Conference - 2021-2024

The term adverse childhood experiences or ACEs for short, is well known in many fields of study including criminal justice, psychology, social work, and education. There are a multitude of studies that compare ACEs with other risk factors, use ACEs as a comparison tool with other behavioral issues, as well as linking ACEs to criminality, mental health disorders, and physical health. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have been identified as a key risk factor for a range of negative life outcomes, including a strong correlation in juvenile delinquency and crime. Despite many works regarding adverse childhood experiences and the ACE test, …

Innocent Until Presented, Aristo Pangaribuan

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

This paper analyzes a practice of presenting suspects, which is a ritual that displays a suspect before the media. Until now, although it is frequently used by the police, there has been no attempt to examine such practices in Indonesia. In the criminal procedure scholarship, there is no standard term to describe it. This article will refer to such ritual as a presentation of suspects. This ritual has also been practiced around the world with different methods and has a long history, especially in the United States. This article discusses the presentation of suspects and question whether such a ritual …

The Downfall Of Daniel Fitzpatrick: A Creative Short Story, Renee Horsley

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

Daniel grew up with humble beginnings in Starlight, Nebraska. His loving parents provided him and his four other siblings with as much as they could. Victoria grew up wealthy in a small town in Georgia but by fifth grade, Victoria would move to Starlight due to her father’s business proposition. Soon Daniel and Victoria’s worlds collided setting the way for the most epic and yet tragic love story to ever hit Starlight Nebraska. A creative short story that intertwines the disciplines of criminal justice, intergroup dialogue, psychology, and the law.

Sex Offender Treatment And Recidivism Reduction Strategies, Kathleen M. Newhouse

Culminating Projects in Criminal Justice

The assessment, treatment, and risk management of persons who have sexually offended are of considerable interest to a wide variety of stakeholder groups, including legislators and policymakers, court and law enforcement personnel, corrections and community supervision staff, mental health clinicians, victim advocates, and the community-at-large. Utilizing best practices and continually staying up-to-date on the research is imperative to providing quality treatment and/or interventions that may reduce the likelihood of recidivism for individuals who have committed sexual offenses. The goal of treatment for sexual offenses as part of an overall intervention is to hold clients accountable, help them improve their lives, …

Dr. Paul Fessler And Donald Roth, Sarah Moss

The Voice

No abstract provided.

Law Enforcement Cardiovascular Health: A Qualitative Study On Law Enforcement Officers' Risk Awareness And The Targeted Mitigation Of Cardiovascular Disease, Gretchen Sue Harvey Lapp

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Cardiovascular disease-related deaths and injuries are prevalent among law enforcement officers (Han et al., 2017; Keeler et al., 2021), with attribution pointing to the strong associations between the inherent stressors of police work directly impacting the psychological and physical health of police officers (Santa Maria et al., 2018; Violanti et al., 2017). As such, several researchers have studied the associations between police officers' perceptions of stress and the presence of cardiovascular disease risk factors. However, there is a current gap in the literature on information examining the relationship between law enforcement officers' cardiovascular disease risk perceptions and their utilized health …

Against Capital Punishment, Zac Bright, Ben Austin (Editor)

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

Capital punishment has a strong legal precedence in the United States. Capital punishment has been a penal option for those who commit conspicuously wrong acts. For such acts, the punishment seems to be proportional to the crime. In addition to the punishment’s adherence to proportionality, capital punishment mitigates problematic outcomes.

This paper advocates, however, that capital punishment should be classified as “cruel and unusual punishment.” Such violation of the eighth amendment delegitimizes capital punishment. Consequently, The Federal Death Penalty Act of 1994 should no longer be considered a valid law because of its constitutional violation.

Bridging The Gap Between Healthcare And Law Enforcement In The Field Of Forensics, Jennifer Rogers

Master of Science in Nursing Scholarly Project

The evolution and integration of forensic nursing into other disciplines within communities create an excellent opportunity to network and collaborate with personnel in other fields. However, this dynamic interaction into new territory may lead to collaborative and communication issues, especially in areas such as the criminal justice system. As the specialty of forensic nursing evolves and becomes more established in different areas of the community, the criminal justice system and nursing need to work together to bridge previously defined gaps.

Through analysis and evaluation of current research and literature, key contributing factors to gap this will be discussed and recommendations …

The Future Of Bail Reform In The United States, Mary Gorham

Senior Theses

This thesis examines bail reform, specifically cash bail reform, across several jurisdictions in the United States. The goal of this research is to provide a synthesis of the literature and reform efforts at the state and federal levels. Importantly, this thesis will examine recent modifications to the cash bail systems in four states. in order to get a balanced perspective on the success of these reform efforts. In the pages that follow, there will be a presentation of the literature review and a discussion of the reforms that have been undertaken since 2015. Additionally, this thesis will discuss how the …

Epidemiology And Criminology: Managing Youth Firearm Homicide Violence In Urban Areas, Joseph A. Mcmillan

Journal of Sustainable Social Change

Violence is considered a public health problem in the United States, yet little is known about the benefit of using a combined epidemiology and criminology (EpiCrim) approach to focus on urban youth gun violence. The purpose of this general qualitative study was to determine in what ways Akers and Lanier’s EpiCrim approach, in tandem with Benet’s polarities of democracy approach, is explanatory of gun homicides by youth in U.S. urban areas and if the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System adequately addresses gun abatement measures. I collected data through semi-structured interviews with 16 criminal justice practitioners and medical professionals with experience …

With Liberty And Justice For The Wealthy: The Criminalization Of The American Poor, Ashlyn Dickmeyer

Honors Theses

The last phrase of the Pledge of Allegiance states “with liberty and justice for all”. However, not everyone has access to this liberty and justice. Liberty and justice can be bought in this country for a price, and those who can’t afford to pay it are often left in the hands of those who can. One of the most prominent ways to see this is by analyzing the criminal justice system. Despite clauses in the Fourteenth Amendment and court cases like Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) establishing and upholding that the poor are entitled to equal treatment within the criminal justice …

National De-Escalation Training Center - Year 1 In-Person Data Archive, Morgan Steele

Criminal Justice Research Data

This dataset includes the demographics, education, perceptions, and assessment of de-escalation skills of law enforcement officers, and other professionals, which were collected as a part of in-person de-escalation training. Many of these trainings were funded as a part of the Office of Community-Oriented Policing Services (U.S. Department of Justice). All of the data is anonymous, and can be linked based on the trainee generated identification number. This data was collected across three separate activities. The first was a pre-training survey that included questions about the trainees' demographics, perceptions, and experiences, and was collected via a Qualtrics survey link. The second …

The Theorizing Of Terrorism Within Criminology, Daren Fisher, Erin M. Kearns

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Objectives. While terrorism studies were once castigated as atheoretical and unempirical, criminology has been well suited to apply theories of crime to terrorism and to then test those theories with rigorous methods and robust data. The present study takes stock of how criminologists have theorized about terrorism and tested those theories over time in 13 of the discipline’s leading journals. Methods. The study systematically examines theoretical framing, hypotheses, methodological approach, focus within criminology and criminal justice, and policy recommendations in terrorism-focused articles. Results. While terrorism has become more central within top journals, sparse attention has been paid to many criminological …