Criminal Law Commons^™

Exploring The Factors That Influence Female Offending In The U.S. And Mexico, Dana Villasenor

CMC Senior Theses

Hollywood has painted a picture of the criminal woman as a sexy, sneaky, and often psychotic female fatale. This is because men run Hollywood. Much like movies, research on why women offend had historically focused on men as their stellar. However, towards the turn of the century and with the disproportionate rise in female incarceration, literature caught up to the fact that women and men do not experience the same socialization, standards, or reality and, therefore, have different reasons for and ways of offending. This research explores those reasons for women in the U.S. and Mexico and paints the picture …

Fifth-Dimensional Warfare And National Security In Canada: Situating Microdeviation Theory Within C-59: An Act Respecting National Security Matters, Hayden Slight

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In an era of rapid technological change, the growing threat environment in the cyber dimension will continue to influence how a sovereign nation contends with attacks that can occur from any corner of the world. The growing adaptation and expansion of technology belonging to the Internet of Things (IoT) and the increasing prevalence of social media (Facebook, Twitter) has also influenced the spreading of attack surfaces that can become victim to exploitation by motivated parties including foreign states and terrorist groups. Against this backdrop, Canada’s own efforts to modernize and reinforce its own national security agencies resulted in the developing …

Analyzing Wrongful Convictions Beyond The Traditional Canonical List Of Errors, For Enduring Structural And Sociological Attributes, (Juveniles, Racism, Adversary System, Policing Policies), Leona D. Jochnowitz, Tonya Kendall

Touro Law Review

Researchers identify possible structural causes for wrongful convictions: racism, justice system culture, adversary system, plea bargaining, media, juvenile and mentally impaired accused, and wars on drugs and crime. They indicate that unless the root causes of conviction error are identified, the routine explanations of error (e.g., eyewitness identifications; false confessions) will continue to re-occur. Identifying structural problems may help to prevent future wrongful convictions. The research involves the coding of archival data from the Innocence Project for seventeen cases, including the one for the Central Park Five exonerees. The data were coded by Hartwick College and Northern Vermont University students …

The Economic Case For Rewards Over Imprisonment, Brian D. Galle

Indiana Law Journal

There seems to be a growing social consensus that the United States imprisons far too many people for far too long. But reform efforts have slowed in the face of a challenging question: How can we reduce reliance on prisons while still discouraging crime, particularly violent crime? Through the 1970s, social scientists believed the answer was an array of what I will call preventive benefits: drug and mental health treatment, housing, and even unconditional cash payments. But early evaluations of these programs failed to find much evidence that they were successful, confirming a then-developing economic theory that predicted the programs …

Comparing The Violent Crime Trends In Select States To The National Trends To Determine Differences Between Crimes, States, And Regions, Alexandra N. Kremer

The Downtown Review

Violent crimes include crimes such as murder, rape, robbery, and assault. The FBI in the UCR breaks these down into Type I, crimes against the person, and Type II, property crimes, offenses. The FBI also divides the country into four regions: West, South, Northeast, and Midwest. Each of these regions are examined, through the use of two states from each, here. Their overall violent crime rates and trends, and their specific Type I offensive rates and trends, are examined against the national data and against each other. Several theories are used to explain the potential causes of the differences in …

Skinning The Cat: How Mandatory Psychiatric Evaluations For Animal Cruelty Offenders Can Prevent Future Violence, Ashley Kunz

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

In 2017, the Texas legislature amended Texas Penal Code § 42.092, which governs acts of cruelty against non-livestock animals. The statute in its current form makes torturing, killing, or seriously injuring a non-livestock animal a third degree felony, while less serious offenses carry either a state jail felony or a Class A misdemeanor charge.

While a step in the right direction, Texas law is not comprehensive in that it fails to address a significant aspect of animal cruelty offenses: mental illness. For over fifteen years, Texas Family Code § 54.0407 has required psychiatric counseling for juveniles convicted of cruelty to …

Decoding Guilty Minds: How Jurors Attribute Knowledge And Guilt, Owen D. Jones, Matthew R. Ginther, Francis X. Shen, Richard J. Bonnie, Morris B. Hoffman, Kenneth W. Simons

Owen Jones

A central tenet of Anglo-American penal law is that in order for an actor to be found criminally liable, a proscribed act must be accompanied by a guilty mind. While it is easy to understand the importance of this principle in theory, in practice it requires jurors and judges to decide what a person was thinking months or years earlier at the time of the alleged offense, either about the results of his conduct or about some elemental fact (such as whether the briefcase he is carrying contains drugs). Despite the central importance of this task in the administration of …

Economics, Behavioral Biology, And Law, Owen D. Jones, Erin O'Hara O'Connor, Jeffrey Evans Stake

Owen Jones

The article first compares economics and behavioral biology, examining the assumptions, core concepts, methodological tenets, and emphases of the two fields. Building on this, the article then compares the applied interdisciplinary fields of law and economics, on one hand, with law and behavioral biology, on the other - highlighting not only the most important similarities, but also the most important differences.

The article subsequently explores ways that biological perspectives on human behavior may prove useful, by improving economic models and the behavioral insights they generate. The article concludes that although there are important differences between the two fields, the overlaps …

Creating The Best: A Two-Prong Policy Approach To Improve The Quality Of Future Certified Ohio Peace Officers, Amy English

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

This qualitative client applied study explained and explored a two-fold approach that could be used to implement policy changes that will aid small Ohio police departments in commissioning intellectually developed and psychologically suited individuals for employment in law enforcement. Several issues needed to be addressed in order to accomplish these policy changes. Criminological theories were correlated to deviant behaviors of criminally charged Ohio police officers. Past legislated police reform acts were addressed. Past studies of police officer higher education were analyzed. Finally, the implementation factors for psychological evaluations as a police academy pre-enrollment requirement were identified. This study, based on …

Issues Of Practical Implementation Of The Principles Of Criminal Law In The Law-Making And Law-Enforcement Practice Of The Republic Of Belarus, V Marchuk

ProAcademy

In the p ro p o s e d article, the a u th o r considers issues o f p ra c tic a l im plem entation o f the p rin ciple s o f c rim in a l la w in the la w m a kin g a n d law -e nfo rcem e n t p ra c tic e o f the R epublic o f Belarus. O n the basis o f separate results o f c rim in o lo g ic a l expertise, the a rticle shows …

Criminology (Gsu, Clayton), Scott Jacques, Andrea Allen

Criminal Justice and Law Grants Collections

This Grants Collection for Criminology was created under a Round Nine ALG Textbook Transformation Grant.

Affordable Learning Georgia Grants Collections are intended to provide faculty with the frameworks to quickly implement or revise the same materials as a Textbook Transformation Grants team, along with the aims and lessons learned from project teams during the implementation process.

Documents are in .pdf format, with a separate .docx (Word) version available for download. Each collection contains the following materials:

• Linked Syllabus
• Initial Proposal
• Final Report

The Effects Of Body-Worn Cameras On Police Activity And Police-Citizen Encounters: A Randomized Controlled Trial, Anthony A. Braga, William H. Sousa, James R. Coldren, Jr., Denise Rodriguez

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Many have suggested that placing body-worn cameras (BWCs) on police officers improves the civility of police-citizen encounters and enhances citizen perceptions of police transparency and legitimacy. In response, many police departments have adopted this technology to address public concerns over the quality of policing in their communities. The existing program evaluation evidence on the intended and unintended consequences of outfitting police officers with BWCs is still developing, however. This study reports the findings of a randomized controlled trial involving more than 400 police officers in Las Vegas, Nevada. We find that officers equipped with body-worn cameras generated fewer complaints and …

Decoding Guilty Minds: How Jurors Attribute Knowledge And Guilt, Owen D. Jones, Matthew R. Ginther, Francis X. Shen, Richard J. Bonnie, Morris B. Hoffman, Kenneth W. Simons

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

A central tenet of Anglo-American penal law is that in order for an actor to be found criminally liable, a proscribed act must be accompanied by a guilty mind. While it is easy to understand the importance of this principle in theory, in practice it requires jurors and judges to decide what a person was thinking months or years earlier at the time of the alleged offense, either about the results of his conduct or about some elemental fact (such as whether the briefcase he is carrying contains drugs). Despite the central importance of this task in the administration of …

The Consensus Myth In Criminal Justice Reform, Benjamin Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

It has become popular to identify a “bipartisan consensus” on criminal justice reform, but how deep is that consensus, actually? This article argues that the purported consensus is largely illusory. Despite shared reformist vocabulary, the consensus rests on distinct critiques that identify different flaws and justify distinct policy solutions. The underlying disagreements transcend traditional left/right political divides and speak to deeper disputes about the state and the role of criminal law in society. The article offers a typology of the two prevailing, but fundamentally distinct, critiques of the system: (1) the quantitative approach (what I call the “over” frame); and …

Rethinking The Boundaries Of "Criminal Justice", Benjamin Levin

Publications

This review of The New Criminal Justice Thinking (Sharon Dolovich & Alexandra Natapoff, eds.) tracks the shifting and uncertain contours of “criminal justice” as an object of study and critique.

Specifically, I trace two themes in the book:

(1) the uncertain boundaries of the “criminal justice system” as a web of laws, actors, and institutions; and

(2) the uncertain boundaries of “criminal justice thinking” as a universe of interdisciplinary scholarship, policy discourse, and public engagement.

I argue that these two themes speak to critically important questions about the nature of criminal justice scholarship and reform efforts. Without a firm understanding …

The Consensus Myth In Criminal Justice Reform, Benjamin Levin

Publications

It has become popular to identify a “consensus” on criminal justice reform, but how deep is that consensus, actually? This Article argues that the purported consensus is much more limited than it initially appears. Despite shared reformist vocabulary, the consensus rests on distinct critiques that identify different flaws and justify distinct policy solutions. The underlying disagreements transcend traditional left/right political divides and speak to deeper disputes about the state and the role of criminal law in society.

The Article maps two prevailing, but fundamentally distinct, critiques of criminal law: (1) the quantitative approach (what I call the “over” frame); and …

Rethinking The Boundaries Of “Criminal Justice", Benjamin Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

This review of The New Criminal Justice Thinking (Sharon Dolovich & Alexandra Natapoff, eds.) tracks the shifting and uncertain contours of “criminal justice” as an object of study and critique. Specifically, I trace two themes in the book: (1) the uncertain boundaries of the “criminal justice system” as a web of laws, actors, and institutions; and (2) the uncertain boundaries of “criminal justice thinking” as a universe of interdisciplinary scholarship, policy discourse, and public engagement. I argue that these two themes speak to critically important questions about the nature of criminal justice scholarship and reform efforts. Without a firm understanding …

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

Teresa A. Miller

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 …

New Uri Journal Explores Sexual Exploitation, G. Wayne Miller, Donna M. Hughes Dr.

Donna M. Hughes

Ideology, Race, And The Death Penalty: "Lies, Damn Lies, And Statistics" In Advocacy Research, Anthony Walsh, Virginia Hatch

Journal of Ideology

We use the literature on race in death penalty to illustrate the hold that ideology has on researchers and journalists alike when a social issue is charged with emotional content. We note particularly how statistical evidence become misinterpreted in ways that support a particular ideology, either because of innumeracy or because—subconsciously or otherwise—one’s ideology precludes a critical analysis. We note that because white defendants are now proportionately more likely to receive the death penalty and to be executed than black defendants that the argument has shifted from a defendant-based to a victim-based one. We examine studies based on identical data …

Knowing Defense, Janet Moore, Andrew L.B. Davies

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

The field of empirical research on public defense is in an early stage of development. Yet the field is also diverse, as a growing community of researchers applies training in disciplines ranging from law and criminology to economics and social psychology. These facts invite reflection on baseline questions about the field that may inform future work. For example, what factors shape our research agendas? What data, methods, and theories are in play? Do these new research agendas align with the research priorities of public defenders and the communities they serve? Should they do so? To begin exploring such questions, this …

The Territorial Principle In Penal Law: An Attempted Justification, Patrick J. Fitzgerald

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

In The Wasteland Of Your Mind: Criminology, Scientific Discovieries And The Criminal Process, Michael L. Perlin, Alison Lynch

Articles & Chapters

This paper addresses a remarkably-underconsidered topic: the potential impact of scientific discoveries and an increased understanding of the biology of human behavior on sentencing decisions in the criminal justice system, specifically, the way that sentencing has the capacity to rely on scientific evidence (such as brain imaging) as a mitigating factor (or perhaps, in the mind of some, as an aggravating factor) in determining punishment.

Such a new method of evaluating criminality, we argue, can be beneficial not only for the defendant, but also for the attorneys and judge involved in the case. If used properly, it may help to …

Visualizing Abolition: Two Graphic Novels And A Critical Approach To Mass Incarceration For The Composition Classroom, Michael Sutcliffe

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

This article outlines two graphic novels and an accompanying activity designed to unpack complicated intersections between racism, poverty, and (d)evolving criminal-legal policy. Over 2 million adults are held in U.S. prison facilities, and several million more are under custodial supervision, and it has become clearly unsustainable. In the last decade, there has been a shift in media conversations about criminality, yet only a few suggest decreasing our reliance upon incarceration. In meaningfully different ways, the two novels trace the development of incarceration from its roots in slavery to its contemporary anti-democratic iteration and offer an underpublicized alternative.

Critical and community …

Sox On Fish: A New Harm Of Overcriminalization, Todd Haugh

Northwestern University Law Review

The harms of overcriminalization are usually thought of in a particular way—that the proliferation of criminal laws leads to increasing and inconsistent criminal enforcement and adjudication. For example, an offender commits an unethical or illegal act and, because of the overwhelming breadth and depth of the criminal law, becomes subject to too much prosecutorial discretion or faces disparate enforcement or punishment. But there is an additional, possibly more pernicious, harm of overcriminalization. Drawing from the fields of criminology and behavioral ethics, this Essay makes the case that overcriminalization actually increases the commission of criminal acts themselves, particularly by white-collar offenders. …

Response To Commentators, Michelle Dempsey

Michelle Madden Dempsey

This short essay responds to commentators who generously contributed to Criminal Law & Philosophy’s symposium on my book, PROSECUTING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE (Oxford University Press 2009)

The Language Of Mens Rea, Kenneth Simons, Matthew R. Ginther, Francis X. Shen, Richard J. Bonnie

Faculty Scholarship

This article answers two key questions. First: Do jurors understand and apply the criminal mental state categories the way that the widely influential Model Penal Code (MPC) assumes? Second: If not, what can be done about it?

Decriminalizing Victims Of Sex Trafficking, Michelle Madden Dempsey

Michelle Madden Dempsey

Despite the United States’ commitment to decriminalizing victims of sex trafficking and the obvious injustice of subjecting these victims to criminal penalties, the majority of jurisdictions throughout the U.S. continue to treat sex trafficking victims as criminals. This paper argues that the criminal law must abandon this practice. Part one presents a brief account of definitional and conceptual debates regarding what counts as sex trafficking. Part two explains why we must decriminalize victims of sex trafficking. Part three outlines four methods of decriminalizing sex trafficking victims, and defends what has come to be known as the “Nordic model” as the …

Online Mental Disability Law Education, A Disability Rights Tribunal, And The Creation Of An Asian Disability Law Database: Their Impact On Research, Training And Teaching Of Law, Criminology Criminal Justice In Asia, Michael L. Perlin, Heather Ellis Cucolo, Yoshikazu Ikehara

Articles & Chapters

Two professors at New York Law School (NYLS) and the director of the Tokyo Advocacy Law Office are engaged in initiatives with the potential to have major influences on the study of law, criminology, and criminal justice: the creation of a Disability Rights Tribunal for Asia and the Pacific (DRTAP), and expansion of NYLS’s online mental disability law program (OMDLP) to include numerous Asian venues.

DRTAP seeks to create a sub-regional body (a Commission and eventually a Court) to hear violations of the UN’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This will explicitly inspire scholarship about issues such …

Gender And Sentencing: Single Moms, Battered Women, And Other Sex-Based Anomalies In The Gender-Free World Of The Federal Sentencing Guidelines, Myrna S. Raeder

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.