Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

An Examination Of The Effects Of Workgroup Characteristics On Criminal Case Processing & Case Outcomes, Luis Torres

Dissertations

The court communities and inhabited institutions perspectives posit that courts should be examined through a lens that considers the complex and collaborative process that court actors (e.g., judges, prosecutors, and defense counsels), collectively referred to as the courtroom workgroup, engage in during case processing. However, empirical research infrequently examines such intricacies and devotes little attention to how the characteristics of workgroup members influence courtroom interactions, the efficiency they process cases, and ultimately case decisions. This omission is notable because theory asserts that the dynamics of the workgroup are at least in part driven by the characteristics of its members.

This …

Private Probation Costs, Compliance, And The Proportionality Of Punishment: Evidence From Georgia And Missouri, Beth Huebner, Sarah Shannon

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Works

Probation is the most commonly imposed correctional sanction, is often accompanied by supplementary costs, and can be operated by the state or private companies. Private probation is a unique sanction used in lower courts, most often for misdemeanor offenses, and is managed by third-party actors. We focus on documenting the process and unique costs of private probation, including the rituals of compliance and proportionality of punishment. We use data from interviews with individuals on private probation and local criminal justice officials as well as evidence from court ethnographies in Georgia and Missouri. For individuals on private probation, payment of monetary …

Reinforcing The Web Of Municipal Courts: Evidence And Implications Post-Ferguson, Beth Huebner, Andrea Giuffre

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Works

Investigations in Ferguson, Missouri, revealed that many individuals, particularly Black people, entered the criminal justice system for relatively minor offenses, missed court appearances, or failure to pay fines. Municipal courts were focused on revenue generation, which led to aggressive enforcement of municipal codes. Although subsequent reforms were passed, little is known about whether and how the legislative changes influenced the law-in-action in the municipal courts. Using data from qualitative interviews with St. Louis area residents and regional court actors, as well as court observations, this article documents the legal structure of municipal courts in the region after Ferguson. We address …

Justice By Geography: The Role Of Monetary Sanctions Across Communities, Gabriela Kirk, Kristina Thompson, Beth Huebner, Christopher Uggen, Sarah Shannon

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Works

Monetary sanctions are a ubiquitous part of court systems. Previous studies have focused largely on these sanctions at the state level or solely on large urban jurisdictions. However, court systems differ considerably across communities of varying population size, composition, and density. This article examines how differences in court structure and organizational dynamics in communities across the rural-urban continuum lead to differences in how court actors consider the role of monetary sanctions. Using interviews with court actors and ethnographic observations in communities across four states, we find that the practical and symbolic nature of monetary sanctions varied by the acquaintanceship density …

What Is Wrong With Monetary Sanctions? Directions For Policy, Practice, And Research, Brittany Friedman, Alexes Harris, Beth Huebner, Karin Martin, Becky Pettit, Sarah Shannon, Bryan Sykes

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Works

Monetary sanctions are an integral and increasingly debated feature of the American criminal legal system. Emerging research, including that featured in this volume, offers important insight into the law governing monetary sanctions, how they are levied, and how their imposition affects inequality. Monetary sanctions are assessed for a wide range of contacts with the criminal legal system ranging from felony convictions to alleged traffic violations with important variability in law and practice across states. These differences allow for the identification of features of law, policy, and practice that differentially shape access to justice and equality before the law. Common practices …

Schools On The Frontlines Of Governance: How The Convergence Of Criminal Justice And Education Shapes Adolescent Perceptions And Behavior, Jennifer O'Neill

Dissertations

Theories of legal socialization posit that individuals’ interactions with both nonlegal (e.g., teachers) and legal (e.g., police officers) authorities impact our broader orientation towards governance our compliance with rules and laws. Examining the process of legal socialization in adolescents is critical for understanding individuals’ relationships with major institutions of social control, and further, predicting delinquency. Extant literature tends to consider legal socialization in the school and in interactions with the police as distinct processes related to offending, neglecting the potential influence of school contextual factors; and yet, because the incorporation of carceral features (e.g., exclusionary discipline, restrictive security, and enhanced …

Prison Rape Elimination Act, 2003: Individual Factors For Victimization And Offending, Bailey Saldana

Theses

The Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 was passed in order to provide a set of guidelines for reporting and reacting to prison rapes (PREA, 2020). This project uses secondary data from the Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities to identify factors associated with prison rape victimization. Rates of institutional violence have not decreased as have the rates of violence outside of institutions (Wooldredge, 2020; Morgan & Truman, 2020). One area of institutional violence research that is lacking is prison rape research. As more research is done on prison rape victimization, this project extends on this body …

[Preprint] University Of Missouri-St. Louis Comprehensive Safe Schools Initiative (Umsl Cssi), Finn-Aage Esbensen, Stephanie Wiley, Timothy Mccuddy, Elaine Doherty, Lee Slocum, Terrance Taylor, Kyle Thomas, Matt Vogel

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Works

This resource has not been published by the U.S. Department of Justice. This resource is being made publically available through the Office of Justice Programs’ National Criminal Justice Reference Service.

Dual Disadvantage: An Examination Of Racial Disparities In Victim And Suspect Criminal Justice Treatment, Paige Vaughn

Dissertations

During the past several decades, American criminal justice legal systems appear to have been over-punishing Black individuals as perpetrators of crime, and neglecting them as violent crime victims, perpetuating disparities that simultaneously repress and alienate Black citizens. Such complex processes of racial inequality are difficult to capture in studies that focus on single criminal justice stages and limited sets of variables. After presenting a working conceptualization of case processing that can be used across criminal justice systems, the current study uses data from the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office, and U.S. Census to assess racial …

The Effect Upon State Crime Rates Of The Legalization Of Recreational Marijuana In California, Robert Boxerman

Theses

This work examines criminal effects of the legalization of recreational marijuana in the state of California in 2016. While multiple states have legalized marijuana for recreational purposes, there is little empirical evidence to determine the criminal effect, if any, of introducing marijuana products into the legal market. The research analyzes crime rates pre and post legalization. Crime rates from the years 1990-2018 are taken from the California Attorney General Office “Crime in California” annual report, and consist of FBI Part I offenses: murder and non-negligent homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft, larceny-theft, and arson. Misdemeanor drug arrests, …

Race Differences In Youths’ Attitudes Towards Arming Teachers: Investigating The Role Of Procedural Justice, Faraneh Shamserad

Theses

Over the course of the last two decades, anxiety over school shootings has continued to influence school safety reform. Due to prominent news coverage and growing fear over school shootings, school securitization in American public schools has expanded to include the arming of schoolteachers. While supporters advocate for the need to arm schoolteachers, little is known about the level of support the policy receives from the very people it is intended to protect - students. Although research examining students’ perceptions of school security is scant, existing research suggests that target-hardening measures may be counterproductive and that there are racial differences …

The Broad Scope And Variation Of Monetary Sanctions: Evidence From Eight States, Sarah Shannon, Beth Huebner, Alexes Harris, Karin Martin, Mary Patillo, Becky Pettit, Bryan Sykes, Christopher Uggen

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Works

Monetary sanctions have long been a part of the U.S. criminal justice system but have received increasing attention from the public as well as legal scholars and social science research in recent years. This essay describes initial findings from the Multi-State Study of Monetary Sanctions, a multi-method study designed to build on the prior research on legal financial obligations (LFOs) by examining the multi-tiered systems of monetary sanctions operating within eight states representing key regions of the United States (California, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Texas and Washington). Our research explores the constantly changing legal environment and documents how …

Changes In Enforcement Of Low-Level And Felony Offenses Post-Ferguson: An Analysis Of Arrests In St. Louis, Missouri, Lee Slocum, Claire Greene, Beth Huebner, Richard Rosenfeld

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Works

As a result of several highly publicized incidents of police killing unarmed Black suspects, many contend that American police are in the midst of a crisis. Police have faced high levels of public scrutiny that some argue has stifled police activities and led to spikes in violent crime. This phenomenon—coined in the aftermath of the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri—has become widely known as the Ferguson Effect. This study uses seven years of data and time series analysis to assess whether the events in Ferguson were associated with a reduction in arrests for felonies and low-level offenses …

“Using Crowd-Sourced Data To Explore Police-Related-Deaths In The United States (2000–2017): The Case Of Fatal Encounters”, David Klinger, Brian Finch, Audrey Beck, D Burghart, Richard Johnson, Kyla Thomas

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Works

Objectives: We evaluated the Fatal Encounters (FE) database as an open-source surveillance system for tracking police-related deaths (PRDs). Methods: We compared the coverage of FE data to several known government sources of police-related deaths and police homicide data. We also replicated incident selection from a recent review of the National Violent Death Reporting System. Results: FE collected data on n = 23,578 PRDs from 2000–2017. A pilot study and ongoing data integration suggest greater coverage than extant data sets. Advantages of the FE data include circumstance of death specificity, incident geo-locations, identification of involved police-agencies, and near immediate availability of …

Who Experiences Violent Victimization And Who Accesses Services? Findings From The National Crime Victimization Survey For Expanding Our Reach, Heather Warnken, Janet Lauritsen

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Изменения В Правоохранительных Действиях При Незначительных И Тяжких Преступлениях После Событий В Фергюсоне: Анализ Задержаний В Г. Сент-Луис Штата Миссур, Lee Slocum, Claire Greene, Beth Huebner, Richard Rosenfeld

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Works

Цель: изучение изменений вправоохранительных действиях при незначительных итяжких преступлениях вг. Сент-Луис штата Миссури после событий вг. Фергюсоне, получивших широкий общественный резонанс.Методы: диалектический подход кпознанию социальных явлений сиспользованием основанных на нем общенаучных (анализ, синтез, индукция) ичастнонаучных (формально-юридический, системный, сравнительно-правовой, социологический) методов познания.Результаты: распространено мнение, что американская полиция оказалась вкризисном положении врезультате ряда случаев убийства полицейскими безоружных чернокожих подозреваемых, получивших широкий общественный резонанс. Полиция оказалась вцентре внимания общества, что, по мнению ряда лиц, затруднило правоохранительную деятельность ипривело кросту насильственных преступлений. Это явление стало широко известно как «эффект

English Version can be found at: https://irl.umsl.edu/ccj-faculty/5/

Aggregate-Level Lead Exposure, Gun Violence, Homicide, And Rape, Brian Boutwell, Erik Nelson, Zhengmin Qian, Michael Vaughn, John Wright, John Wright, Kevin Beaver, Kevin Beaver, J. Barnes, Melissa Petkovsek, Roger Lewis, Mario Schootman, Richard Rosenfeld

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Works

Context An increasing body of research has linked the geographic distribution of lead with various indicators of criminal and antisocial behavior. Objective The current study, using data from an ongoing project related to lead exposure in St. Louis City, MO, analyzed the association between aggregate blood lead levels and specific indicators violent crime within the city. Design Ecological study. Setting St. Louis, Missouri. Exposure measure Blood lead levels. Main outcome measure Official reports of violent crimes were categorized as 1) crimes involving a firearm (yes/no), 2) assault crimes (with or without a firearm), 3) robbery crimes (with or without a …

The Effectiveness Of Treatment As Policy For Sex Offenders, Brooke Mayfield

Dissertations

The public’s perception of individuals who commit sexual offenses is much different than for other types of offenders. This can be seen in the passing of legislation targeting interventions specific to this population as a way to protect the public and reduce recidivism. In some states, sex offenders are required to participate in treatment as a condition for early release from prison. The impact of this policy is not well understood, and mandatory treatment is growing in popularity. This dissertation explores the impact of mandatory treatment for individuals incarcerated for sexual offenses on their recidivism over time. Missouri statute establishes …

To Shoot Or Not To Shoot: An Analysis Of Police Officers' Deadly Force Decision-Making Processes, Jordan Clare Pickering

Dissertations

How police officers exercise their unique power to use deadly force continues to be a topic of interest among academics and, due to recent events, has moved to the forefront of public policy concerns. A number of scholars have proposed theories as to how police officers make the decision to use deadly force, but arguably the most comprehensive deadly force decision-making framework was put forth by Arnold Binder and Peter Scharf three and a half decades ago (1980; Scharf and Binder, 1983). They posit that officers’ decision-making processes during an encounter that either includes police use of deadly force, or …

Race, Neighborhood Context, And Drug Enforcement: A Mixed-Method Analysis Of Racial Disparities In Drug Arrests, Shytierra Gaston

Dissertations

Black-white racial disparities in drug arrests are large and longstanding in the U.S. criminal justice system, as black Americans are arrested for drug offenses at a rate nearly five times the rate of white Americans. Because drug offending data mostly show that blacks are no more likely than whites to use or sell drugs, racial disparities in drug arrests appear to be attributable to factors other than drug offending. This dissertation assesses whether neighborhood contextual factors can explain racial disparities in drug arrests across St. Louis neighborhoods between 2009 and 2013. Using mixed methods, the quantitative and qualitative components test …

Expanding Coercive Mobility Theory: Women's Forms Of Capital And Neighborhood Social Control, Jaclyn Marie Cwick

Dissertations

This dissertation proposes a gendered theory of coercive mobility, synthesized from the collateral consequences of incarceration, along with coercive mobility theory and literature on forms of capital. Previous work has shown that the removal of residents due to mass incarceration contributes to disruptions in neighboring relationships and therefore, impedes the community’s ability to prevent crime, commonly referred to as informal social control. This involuntary mobility due to prison admissions and returns, known as coercive mobility, has focused almost entirely on the collateral consequences to the incarcerated, a predominantly male population. However, those who remain in the community, primarily women, also …

Loss, Hope, And Redemption: The Consequences Of Methamphetamine Use In A Sample Of Incarcerated Women, Mikhial Vincent Gunderman

Dissertations

This dissertation examines the consequences of methamphetamine use in a sample of 40 incarcerated women who were court-ordered to participate in a correctional drug and alcohol treatment program in Missouri. Using interview data from this sample, I examine their perceptions of the consequences of their methamphetamine use. The negative consequences I focus on include experiences of violence, damage to interpersonal relationships, and more personal consequences related to health, employment, housing, and the criminal justice system. In this pursuit, I explore the following research questions: 1) What is the relationship between the accumulation of negative consequences and continued and/or increased involvement …

Talk And Deterrence In Drug Markets, Timothy Dickinson

Dissertations

Despite a wealth of conceptual and empirical examinations, key processes occurring during each of the primary stages of deterrence remain poorly specified. Little is known about how potential offenders form their perceptions of rules or threats, and the relationship between these perceptions and fear has only received moderate attention. In addition, many questions remain regarding how offenders eliminate or reshape punishments after violating rules. In this dissertation I examine how various forms of talk shape these processes. More specifically, I investigate how gossip influences offenders’ perceptions of rules or threats, how humor and threats and promises moderate the fear stemming …

The Role Of Violence Within And Across Self-Identified Gang Youth, J. Michael Vecchio

Dissertations

Whether actual (i.e., direct and vicarious victimization) or anticipated (i.e., fear of crime and perceived risk of victimization) violence, gang youth commonly discuss violence in terms of having an important role in both their gang experiences and daily lives. In particular, violence can play an important role within the specific stages of the gang experience – 1) joining, 2) active membership, and 3) leaving. This includes the importance of protection from violence as a common motivator for joining, the utility of violence as a means of building cohesion between active gang members, as well as the importance of exposure to …

Racial-Ethnic Differences In Rape And Sexual Assault Victimization: A Pooled Analysis Of Ncvs Data, 1994-2010, Ekaterina Archakova Gorislavsky

Dissertations

There are only a handful of studies of racial and ethnic differences in rape victimization at the national level, and many important questions remain unanswered. The current study responds to existing gaps in knowledge and uses pooled data from the National Crime Victimization Survey for 1994-2010 to answer the following five research questions for the three mutually exclusive racial-ethnic subcategories of women in the United States, including Non-Hispanic White, Non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic/Latina females: 1) What is the general productivity of NCVS screener questions relevant with respect to rape and sexual assault? 2) Do females from some racial-ethnic categories need …

The Amplification Of Deviance Following Police Contact: An Examination Of Individual And Neighborhood Factors Among A Sample Of Youth, Stephanie Ann Wiley

Dissertations

Research indicates that police contact has many negative ramifications. Individuals who are stopped or arrested have fewer educational and employment opportunities, more deviant identities and attitudes, increased involvement with delinquent peers, and higher levels of delinquency. Less is known about whether these adverse consequences are universal or if they are more prevalent among some segments of the population. In this dissertation I draw on labeling theory to explore the effects of police contact for a sample of juveniles. According to labeling theory and its extensions, official labels such as those associated with police contact should lead to delinquency through three …

Redemption Or Condemnation? A Long-Term Follow-Up Of The Desistance Patterns Of Sex Offenders, Kimberly Raye Kras

Dissertations

Desistance is one of most important topics in criminology. Why some offenders stop offending and why others continue has been long been a question with far-reaching theoretical and empirical implications. Despite the extensive literature on desistance, most of the research examines offenders as a single group, an approach which might overlook differences between individuals by offense type. One offender group that has not been investigated in depth is sex offenders. Sex offenders are an important group to study because they present concerns to public safety and are the subject of much legislation and criminal justice policy. A substantial amount of …

How Do Specialized Units Affect The Outputs Of Police Organizations?: Investigating The Effect Of Community Policing Units On Community Policing Activities In Local Police Departments, Hyon Namgung

Dissertations

A review of modern police history shows the trend of increased division of labor within police agencies. However, police organizations are often criticized for creating specialized police units when they are faced with specific problems or are not effectively tackling local problems. Other challenges from within the profession include potential inter-unit conflicts or indifference of officers from other units that may hinder program implementation by specialized units. The present study looked into the changing characteristics of specialized units within police departments between 2000 and 2007. This research also examined whether creation of specialized community policing units (CP Units) influences the …

Lightning Strikes Twice: An Examination Of The Political Factors Associated With State-Level Death Sentences And Executions In The United States, 1930-2012, Ethan Christopher Amidon

Dissertations

Over the course of the last 50 years, scholars have emphasized the role that political processes play in shaping the nature of capital punishment practices. Empirical studies that have examined the relationship between political factors and capital punishment have attributed variation in the imposition of death sentences and the execution of offenders across jurisdictions in the United States to the politicization of criminal justice policies and practices and the shift in public sentiment towards more punitive ideologies that began in the 1970s. Even though historians have argued that capital punishment practices have always been shaped by political considerations, empirical research …

Bias Crime And Minority Threat, Michele Stacey

Dissertations

Beginning in the 1980s, the term hate crime became part of the research canon of criminologists across the United States. Researchers have examined the characteristics of hate crime victims, offenders, and offenses. However, little is known about the context of hate crime, and more specifically about the ways that the changing demographics of the United States have contributed to hate crime. The dissertation examines the relationship between these demographic shifts and the trend in hate crime from 2000 to 2007 through the use of population averaged panel models. These models assess changes over time and across place in the number …