Law Commons^™

Criminal Responsibility: Meta-Analysis And Study Space, Lauren E. Kois

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Criminal responsibility (CR; i.e., sanity) has garnered significant research attention over the years. While some variables predicting insanity outcomes are consistent, others are not. Study-level characteristics, such as sample selection, variability in the operational definition of insanity, or other unknown influences may explain discrepant findings. It is critical to consolidate these variables and systematically assess differences in methodology to understand the state of the literature and to guide future research. As such, I conducted the first meta-analysis and study space analysis (see Malpass et al., 2008) in this area. Only 16 studies met inclusion criteria for the meta-analysis. Summary effects …

Individual Levels Of Bias And Immigration Policies In The United States: A Test And Extension Of The Dual Processing Model Of Bias, Lorraine Phillips

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The present study was a test and extension of the Dual Process Model of bias on attitudes toward immigrants and immigration policy in the United States. The Dual Process Model predicts that people who score higher on either the Social Dominance Orientation scale or the Right Wing Authoritarian scale will hold more negative attitudes toward immigrants, particularly if immigrants are viewed as a threat. A sample of 315 participants from across the United States was recruited using Amazon’s M Turk site. This study used a combination of attitudinal measures, policy scales, and experimental vignettes. The study found that the Dual …

Interrogation Techniques In South Korea: What Happens In A Korean Interrogation Room?, Hyunjoo Lee

Student Theses

Recently, South Koreans have realized that, due to the techniques used during police investigations, suspects might often commit suicide or confess to crimes that they did not commit. Unfortunately, many studies in Korea are retrospective with regard to false confessions (i.e., case study), and no systematical research studies have been conducted on how Korean police officers interrogate suspects. To prevent events in which potentially guilty suspects are treated inhumanely and innocent suspects falsely confess, self-reported surveys were administered to 86 Korean police officers to systematically analyze how Korean police officers prepare for interrogations (e.g., interrogation training session attendance), how they …

Details In Testimony: How Hedge Words Influence People’S Perceptions Of Victim Testimony Credibility, Justine B. Rayborn

Student Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine whether hedge words and the age of a memory can influence the way participants (mock jurors) perceive an alleged sexual assault victim’s credibility. Prior research has demonstrated many issues that can affect the accuracy of memory for childhood events such as childhood amnesia, fragmented and distorted memories, false memories and source monitoring errors and the way in which jurors’ decisions can be swayed based on verbal cues to confidence. Here, we further investigated whether jurors' decisions are sensitive to the age of the memory—an event that happened in the recent or distant …

The Impact Of Incarceration And Societal Reintegration On Mental Health, Veronica Wicks

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine ex-offender’s beliefs on the impact of incarceration and societal reintegration on mental health. The study is a qualitative design using interviews that were audio recorded and transcribed for analysis. The study sought to address the relationship between perceptions of mental health and experiences of incarceration and reintegration among formerly incarcerated individuals. The following themes emerged from participant responses: incarceration challenges, mental health stigma, and rehabilitation service accessibility. The findings of this study may contribute to social work practice by providing awareness to the factors impacting ex-offenders’ mental health and interventions needed. The …

Radio Dispatch Cognitive Abilities And Working Memory, David A. Buitron

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Public safety radio dispatchers incontrovertibly have to manage multiple tasks at any given time, from relaying lifesaving information to field units, to simultaneously overseeing several monitors and keeping up with the radio transmissions in a timely manner. Interestingly, however, the underlying cognitive abilities necessitated for performing such tasks have not been thoroughly investigated. To begin understanding the cognitive faculties that underlie dispatching tasks, we gauged cognitive ability measures relevant to dispatcher duties and introduced Working Memory Capacity (WMC) as underlying the differentiation on performance. The four general dispatcher cognitive factors identified by Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) literature, were …

The Effect Of Phenotypic Bias On Lineup Construction Fairness, Sydney Y. Wood

Student Theses

There is converging evidence that people make inferences about others’ culpability and deservingness of punishment based on whether they express more of the African phenotype (e.g., darker skin, wider nose, thicker lips; Blair, Judd, & Chapleau, 2004; Eberhardt Goff, Purdie & Davies, 2004; Kahn & Davies, 2011). What is less clear is whether facial features that are phenotypically related to particular racial groups play a role in the mistaken identification of innocent Black suspects. Eyewitness descriptions lack detail with regard to racial phenotypes (Fahsing, Ask & Granhag, 2004; Nicholson & Kovera, 2013). Without descriptions containing phenotypic features to use when …

The Development And Testing Of Potential Music Piracy Warnings, Joanne Ullman

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

A combination of technological, legal, and economic factors necessitates efforts to protect music from being illegally reproduced in a globally digital environment. Entities such as record companies, recording industry organizations, and special governmental agencies are committed to eradicating the unauthorized dissemination of copyrighted material. Furthermore, the FBI provides an official anti-piracy icon with accompanying text to be placed on websites and packaging. In support of these initiatives, the principal goal of this study was to empirically identify icon design elements that will most successfully communicate to consumers the illegality of unauthorized music reproductions.

Recommendations from extant literature indicate that viewers …

A Study Of The Effectiveness Of The Crisis Care & Counseling Course Within The Special Operations Forces At The Joint Special Operations University, Mary Ann Quartetti

Doctor of Education (Ed.D)

The Special Operations Forces have experienced a surge in PTSD and suicides in the past several years, now surpassing conventional military branches. Due to the attached stigma for seeking help from mental health professions and potential negative career effects, military personnel are more likely to seek counseling from their unit chaplain. The U.S. military does not require chaplains to have a counseling degree or certification in counseling as a prerequisite to performing duties as a chaplain, although most Masters of Divinity programs do include some counseling courses. The military does provide limited training to its chaplains in counseling. Special Operations …

The Force Of Manhood: The Consequences Of Masculinity Threat On Police Officer Use Of Force, Aurelia Terese Alston

Dissertations and Theses

Positive community-police relations, which are based on mutual trust, are key to equitable and just policing. Use of force that is perceived as unfair and biased can quickly undermine relations between the police and the public. In an attempt to understand what psychological factors contribute to police use of force decisions and potentially racially biased use of force application, this study proposed masculinity threat as an important psychological factor that influences police behavior. Masculinity threat occurs when a man's status as a man is threatened, and threats to masculinity are often associated with increased aggression and dominance as a way …

Factors Affecting Mental Health Seeking Behaviors Of Law Enforcement Officers, Vincent M. Haecker

Dissertations

The intent of this study was to elicit perspectives from law enforcement counselors, clinicians, chaplains, and peer group leaders for factors affecting law enforcement officer’s (LEOs) seeking mental health assistance. The law enforcement and mental health communities have gone to great lengths to ensure assistance is available to LEOs in an effort to counter the stress and trauma associated with the policing profession. Past studies attempted to elicit LEOs attitudes on mental health services, generating mixed results and were unable to establish why available services were underutilized. This study employed a qualitative methodology to elicit perspectives on this phenomena from …

The Fear Factor: Exploring The Impact Of The Vulnerability To Deportation On Immigrants' Lives, Shirley P. Leyro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This qualitative study explores the impact that the fear of deportation has on the lives of noncitizen immigrants. More broadly, it explores the role that immigration enforcement, specifically deportation, plays in disrupting the process of integration, and the possible implications of this interruption for immigrants and their communities. The study aims to answer: (1) how vulnerability to deportation specifically impacts an immigrant’s life, and (2) how the vulnerability to deportation, and the fear associated with it, impacts an immigrant’s degree of integration. Data were gathered through a combination of six open-ended focus group interviews of 10 persons each, and 33 …

A Case For Empathy: Immigration In Spanish Contemporary Media, Music, Film, And Novels, Constantin C. Icleanu

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This dissertation analyzes the representations of immigrants from North Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe in Spain. As engaged scholarship, it seeks to better the portrayal of immigrants in the mass media through the study of literature, film, and music about immigration spanning from the year 2000 to 2016. Because misconceptions continue to propagate in the media, this dissertation works to counteract anti-immigrant, xenophobic representations as well as balance out overly positive and orientalized portrayal of immigrants with a call to recognize immigrants as human beings who deserve the same respect, dignity, and rights as any other citizen.

Chapter 1 …

Combatting The Core Of Sexual Assault: Training Youth To Become Transformational Leaders In Sexual Assault Perpetration Prevention, Sage Marissa Warner

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Sexual assaulters develop from a culture of learned norms, misunderstanding of consent, and inefficacy in bystander intervention. The most significant sexual assault prevention programs teach individuals to dissociate from this culture, by changing their perceptions, knowledge, and behaviors. However, the lack of long-term effects in these programs depicts a vital loophole in their design. In order to change the culture that breeds sexual assaulters, a program cannot focus solely on individuals’ growth, but must ensure a movement of change in the culture itself. Transformational Leadership (Bass, 1985), a style of leadership in which leaders inspire their followers to become leaders, …

Perceived Credibility Of Child Witness Statements Based On Age And Gender, Beverly M. Griffor

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Although a great deal of empirical research and theoretical analysis has been done on in relation to jury perception of the credibility of child witnesses, virtually none of it has focused on the impact of age and gender of child witnesses alone on juror perceptions. This study expands on the existing body of knowledge on juror bias by exploring the connection between the perceived credibility of a child witness and the age or gender of that witness. Participants were given a choice between two children of different ages and/or genders. The participants were asked about the believability of the identified …

Moderating Effects Of Resilience And Recovery On The Stressor-Strain Relationship Among Law Enforcement Officers, Austin Hearne

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between individual resilience, recovery from work, and the relationship between stressors and strains in a sample of police officers. I primarily plan to test whether individual resiliency and recovery moderates the relationship between law enforcement-related organizational and operational stressors and strains such as burnout, sleep disturbances and poor general well-being. I hypothesize that individual resiliency and recovery will both moderate the stressor-strain relationship, so that officers who exhibit higher resiliency and engage in appropriate recovery will experience less strain from the stressors of their occupation. Additionally, I hypothesize that recovery …

The Role Of Attention And Memory In Prospective Person Memory, Kara Nicole Moore

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

I examined the role of memory and attention in prospective person memory. Prospective person memory involves being on the lookout for a person with the goal of completing some task (i.e., contacting the authorities) upon encountering the person. Success at prospective person memory tasks in lab and field based studies is rather low (i.e., less than 10% of people report encountering the person). In the current study the prospective person memory task involved a simulated search for a missing person. I manipulated attention to the missing person and strategic monitoring, which involves being in retrieval mode and searching for cues. …

The Reflection And Reification Of Racialized Language In Popular Media, Kelly E. Wright

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

This work highlights specific lexical items that have become racialized in specific contextual applications and tests how these words are cognitively processed. This work presents the results of a visual world (Huettig et al 2011) eye-tracking study designed to determine the perception and application of racialized (Coates 2011) adjectives. To objectively select the racialized adjectives used, I developed a corpus comprised of popular media sources, designed specifically to suit my research question. I collected publications from digital media sources such as Sports Illustrated, USA Today, and Fortune by scraping articles featuring specific search terms from their websites. This experiment seeks …

Defense And Prosecuting Attorney Perceptions Of Facility Dogs In The Courtroom, Kristy Melissa Donaldson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Attorneys must obtain evidence for purporting their position on a court case. Many factors are considered when working with witness testimony such as age, development, narrative recall, and retraumatization. Research has detailed the hardship of obtaining evidence during witness testimony and the importance of support systems to help with the process. Existing research illustrates the stressors caused by the court processes, witness fear, and difficulty for attorneys to ascertain testimony. Therapeutic animals have been well researched and shown to have an important support role in many professions and situations. Additionally, much has been written regarding the use of varying types …