Social Justice Commons^™

An Exploration Of The Available Services For Offenders With Mental Illness (Omi), Kaliah Moulton

Honors Projects

The study is an exploration of services available for offenders with mental illness (OMI) and obstacles to providing treatment. It aims to identify services and obstacles to delivering treatment for offenders with mental health and substance use disorders in Augusta and Rockingham Counties. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with representatives of local agencies. Based on the agencies interviewed, services for OMI vary across the Sequential Intercept Model, with services like Crisis Intervention Teams, Medication-Assisted Treatment, and supervisory housing. Participants reported that despite the variation in services, barriers in infrastructure due to poor funding, low staffing, and lack of housing were present. …

An Exploration Of The Available Services For Offenders With Mental Illness (Omi), Kaliah Moulton

ASPIRE 2024

The study is an exploration of services available for offenders with mental illness (OMI) and obstacles to providing treatment. It aims to identify services and obstacles to delivering treatment for offenders with mental health and substance use disorders in Augusta and Rockingham Counties. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with representatives of local agencies. Based on the agencies interviewed, services for OMI vary across the Sequential Intercept Model, with services like Crisis Intervention Teams, Medication-Assisted Treatment, and supervisory housing. Participants reported that despite the variation in services, barriers in infrastructure due to poor funding, low staffing, and lack of housing were present. …

Addressing Service Gaps For Underserved Populations Of Gender-Based Violence: Insights From A Midwestern State Needs Assessment Survey, Ziwei Qi, Annalise Loucks, Suzanna Schneider

SACAD: John Heinrichs Scholarly and Creative Activity Days

Abstract:

Understanding the prevalence and service needs of underserved populations affected by gender-based violence (GBV) is crucial, as their experiences are often underreported, and existing services frequently fall short of effectively addressing their needs. In this presentation, "underserved populations" refers to historically marginalized, underrepresented, and inadequately supported groups as victims of GBV.

The presentation examines various services, including direct forms like shelter and advocacy, and indirect approaches such as systemic interventions and policy reform. Conducted in a Midwestern state, the presentation involved insights from advocates, victim shelter staff, law enforcement, and legal professionals, totaling 41 responses. Findings reveal significant service …

Strategi Internal Lapas Dalam Mendukung Reintegrasi Warga Binaan Pemasyarakatan Terhadap Paparan Sentimen Media, Imam Suyudi

Jurnal Sosial Humaniora Terapan

Online media plays a crucial role in shaping public perceptions of social and political issues, including the assimilation program for inmates. This program aims to rehabilitate prisoners with the goal of reintegrating them into society equipped with mental, physical, skill-based, financial, and material resources. Negative media constructions can place incarcerated individuals in challenging conditions, hindering the program's intended objectives. This research aims to deepen our understanding of how online media constructs negative narratives related to assimilation programs. Utilizing qualitative research methods, particularly digital ethnography, the data reveals that mainstream media competes to flood algorithms and public feeds with similar content …

Prospective Hires: Examining Ex-Offender Stigma Effects On Employment, Amanda Neff

Justice Studies Theses

Formerly incarcerated persons face many barriers upon being released from prison–one of which is gaining employment. Obtaining a job can be difficult due to employers’ perceived employability of those who have been involved in the justice system. Organizational and personal characteristics of employers have been found in previous research to impact how likely an employer is to hire formerly incarcerated individuals. This thesis examines how stigma surrounding formerly incarcerated persons is perceived by employers through quantitatively examining employer demographics and their willingness to hire these individuals. This study used a mixed-model randomized sampling method for surveying employers in Bristol, Central …

Global Criminal Justice Practices And Public Safety, Rachel Hwang

Posters-at-the-Capitol

Popular political discourse in the U.S. assumes that more funding for law enforcement and prison facilities will make civilians safer, presumably by reducing crime and sense of disorder. However, studies have shown that the relationship between these factors may not be as straightforward. With the killing of George Floyd and increased media coverage of police brutality, existing literature focuses mainly on the relationship between police and crime in the U.S. The impact of incarceration (the result of procedural justice) on the community (for whom procedural justice exists) is less known, especially on a global scale. We argue that cycling people …

Exit Through The Giftshop: Claims-Making And The Construction Of A Countercultural Brand, Cecil Mcglynn

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Independent, online microcelebrity influencers are increasingly many people’s source of news. A popular group of these influencers, called the Alternative Influence Network (AIN) has come under scrutiny in recent years for collaborating with radical, far-right political actors to advance particular viewpoints (Lewis, 2018). While those within the AIN claim these outputs represent their freedom of speech, some researchers have voiced concern around the possibility of these influencers proliferating or even popularizing radical political ideals. Steven Crowder is among the most popular influencers in the AIN. He performs a daily show, ‘Louder with Crowder’, to his 5.8 million YouTube subscribers. In …

Volume 6, Issue 1 (2023) Criminal Justice Agents And Responsibility, Colleen Berryessa, Elizabeth Griffiths, Kaitlen Hubbard, Deena A. Isom, Kateryna Kaplun, Hiuxuan Li, Siyu Liu, Esther Nir, Heather L. Scheuerman, Rachel Schumann, Sandy Xie, Carolyn Yule

International Journal on Responsibility

This special issue of the International Journal on Responsibility (IJR) advances scholarship on the various ways responsibility infuses the roles of criminal justice agents. As the inaugural issue of my tenure as Editor-in-Chief, Volume 6 deepens our understanding of responsibility in the context of the criminal justice system, thereby fulfilling IJR’s aim and scope. Specifically, the articles highlight issues of responsibility within each component of the criminal justice system: police, courts, and corrections.

The Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On The Well-Being Of People Incarcerated In United States Prisons, Kimberly Rivera

Department of Sociology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted the population as a whole. However, the incarcerated population (which also experiences a variety of health disparities) has been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. Due to overcrowding, poor ventilation, and lack of resources, the incarcerated population already is at a heightened risk for negative health outcomes, made worse by the recent pandemic. To adapt to the rapidly changing conditions during the pandemic in 2020 and into 2022, new safety measures were implemented, but the unintended consequences associated with the implementation of these procedures have yet to be examined empirically. I conducted a qualitative content …

Experiences Of Kinship And Connection To Family For Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Young Men With Histories Of Incarceration, Shelley Joy Walker, Michael Doyle, Mark Stoové Professor, Troy Combo, Mandy Wilson

Journal of the Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet

Epidemiological approaches have brought important attention to the issues surrounding the over-incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people, and the enormous health and socio-economic disparities they face. An implicit discourse often exists within the construction of this “knowledge”, however, that situates Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in deficit terms.

Using narrative inquiry, a methodological approach congruent with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and ways of knowing, we aim to challenge this dominant discourse, via an examination of the narratives of eight Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander young men (aged 19-24 years) involved in the criminal justice …

Beyond Punishment: A Critical And Interpretive Phenomenology Of Accountability, Cameron Rasmussen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

State responses to interpersonal violence in the US have long been focused on punishment and prison. While opposition to punitive responses to interpersonal violence has been marginal, there are small but growing efforts to challenge the primacy of punishment and incarceration. In its place, different non-punitive approaches to justice have been practiced and promoted including restorative justice and transformative justice, which see accountability, not punishment, as a primary goal. Accountability has been theorized and researched largely from the perspective of survivors of harm, and there is limited research on the experiences of people who have caused harm and engaged in …

Examining Remorse In Attributions Of Focal Concerns During Sentencing: A Study Of Probation Officers, Colleen M. Berryessa

International Journal on Responsibility

This research, using interviews with probation officers in the United States (n = 151) and a constant comparative method for analysis, draws from the focal concerns framework to qualitatively model a process by which probation officers use a defendant’s remorse to attribute focal concerns in order to guide their sentencing recommendations in pre-sentencing reports. The model suggests that officers use expressions of remorse to make attributions about mitigated criminal intention (blameworthiness and notions of responsibility), reduced dangerousness and a high potential for reform (community protection), and organization-level effects for increasing caseload efficiency and using correctional resources (practical effects of …

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 …

A Vicious Cycle: How Racialised Moral Panics Simultaneously Reproduce (And Are Reproduced By) Repressive Policing Practices, Oscar D. Sharples

Culture, Society, and Praxis

Policing and moral panics exist in a mutually reinforcing, reciprocal relationship, the harmful outcomes of which are disproportionately directed towards poor communities of colour. This paper will draw on two examples of moral panics: those surrounding Islamic terrorism and Black crime, in order to illustrate the harm that this reinforcing relationship can cause. This harm manifests itself in increasingly restrictive antiterrorism laws, Prevent initiatives, racial profiling, and internal surveillance within the Muslim community; as well as the policies of Joint Enterprise, Knife Crime Prevention Orders (KCPOs), and the strengthening of the school-to-prison pipeline, which disproportionally target Black youth. With reference …

The Relationship Between Social Mobilization, Crime, And Crime Control: A Longitudinal Analysis Of 900 Cities In The U.S. Between 1964-1995, Erin R. Coleman

Sociology ETDs

This dissertation explores the longitudinal relationships between social mobilization, crime, and crime control. The dataset used to explore these relationships combine Uniform Crime Report (UCR) data on crimes known to the police and crime clearances by arrest with decennial census data and data on reported social mobilization events reported in the New York Times between 1964-1995. The data include information from all these sources for over 900 cities in the U.S. Analyses model violent and property crime counts, and well as clearance by arrest rates in the month after the social mobilization events. Results show that social mobilization is often …

Beyond Carceral "Solutions": Using Transformative Human Rights Education In Domestic Violence Prevention, Alli E. Rios

Master's Projects and Capstones

Domestic violence is a choice a person makes to gain and exert absolute power and control over another person. Unfortunately, the predominant structure for addressing domestic violence - the criminal justice system - is rife with problematic social and structural constructs, like patriarchy, white supremacy, and neoliberalism, which are themselves rooted in issues of power and control (Acheson, 2022). The influence of these factors, which are largely defined by exploitative hierarchies, helps to explain why domestic violence remains prevalent. To more effectively address and prevent domestic violence, research suggests that comprehensive policy and curricular reform are necessary on multiple levels …

The Evolving Role Of Women In The Sinaloa Cartel: An Analysis Of The Relationship Between Drug Trafficking Organizations, Female Agency, And Economic Mobility, Catherine Page, Kennady Leigh Hertz

Honors Theses

Exploring the role of women in Mexican drug trafficking organizations is a topic that has gained significant traction in the past 30 years. Despite the increase of literature on the topic, few papers theorize as to why women participate. This product sought to explore the various reasons why women participate in Mexican drug trafficking organizations, either willingly, or against their wishes. We hypothesized that women join drug trafficking organizations for two primary reasons: a) they are coerced by male figures in their life, and b.) they participate willingly in an effort to gain economic mobility. To test our hypothesis, we …

Dynamic Risk Trajectories, Community Context, And Juvenile Recidivism, Kevin T. Wolff, Michael T. Baglivio, Jonathan Intravia

Publications and Research

Purpose

While the implementation of risk assessment has expanded, the extent to which there are different trajectories of risk/protective factors among adjudicated youth during supervision in the community remains unanswered. The goal of the current study is to identify the distinct trajectories in dynamic risk and protective factors among youth on probation and assess whether different patterns in risk over time are associated with continued offending.

Method

Group-based trajectory modeling is used to identify distinct trajectories across multiple domains of risk/need. The individual- and neighborhood-level factors associated with these trajectories are then explored, prior to examining their relationship to continued …

Alternative Approaches To Police Interventions When Responding To Mental Health Crises Incidents, Karen Rivera Apolinar

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Purpose: This study explored mental health workers perspectives on alternative approaches in responding to mental health crises.

The study was carried out in Southern California, in collaboration with mental health workers who currently work or previously have worked in mental health crisis. It adopted a post-positivists paradigm and data was gathered through individual interviews with mental health workers who have direct experience with mental health crisis response in the community and with the police. The twenty participants in the study were men and women working in the mental health field, and of various backgrounds, licensures, and ages.

The study found …

A Remembrance Project: The Lynching Of Brack Kinley And Luther Durrett, Addison Rogers

Undergraduate Theses

From 1882 to 1968, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) estimates that 4,743 lynching’s occurred in the U.S. While other organizations report a slightly different number, the harsh reality of terror and violence remains the same. These violent acts of murder were used as a mechanism by white mobs to promote terror and enforce control upon the black community. Despite the presence of terror and violence in our current society, little is taught about such history and the people who were murdered. Instead of an emphasis on the actual history and the lives lost, the emphasis …

The Quest To End Human Trafficking: An Educational And Practical Guide For Everyone Who Wants To Help Break The Bonds And Assist Survivors, Dennis W. Mccarty

Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security, and Cybersecurity Faculty Scholarship

People often assume that only legislators and law enforcement personnel can take meaningful steps to fight human trafficking, one of the most lucrative transnational crimes in the world. This inquiry sought to assess the validity of that belief. The study was informed by the author’s experience as a college instructor of human trafficking and the inspiration he drew from the range and quality of his students’ projects.

The methodology included examining the strategies that governmental and non-governmental organizations are using to fight trafficking and assist survivors. It also considered the work of individual activists and service providers such as social …

Female Perpetrators Of Ritually Motivated Pedicide And Mutilation Of Children, Chima Agazue

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Ritually motivated pedicide is among contemporary Africa’s most severe crimes against children. Most of these crimes involve brutal acts of violence or mutilation of the victim. While men are most often the perpetrators of violent crimes, ritually motivated pedicide and mutilation equally attract women. The role of women in these crimes is not restricted to the less violent aspects of the crimes; instead, they also extend to the most brutal elements, often involving mutilation, decapitation or outright murder of the victim. This article explored the involvement of women in these crimes that target children for mutilation and pedicide. The article …

Addressing The Recidivism Challenge In San Diego County: Learning From Lived Experience Approaches, Andrew Blum, Alfredo Malaret Baldo

Kroc IPJ Research and Resources

The problem is as old as the justice system itself—how to reduce the chance that an individual reoffends after they commit an offense and become involved with the justice system. This challenge of reducing recidivism remains critical. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, there are over 120,000 individuals in state prisons in California. Another 380,000 cycle through jails in California every year. In 2021, roughly 25,000 individuals were released from prison in California each year. This is the scope of the challenge.

In San Diego County, a wide variety of agencies and organizations are working to address the recidivism challenge. …

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 …

Exploring Facilitators, Barriers And Concerns Of Police Using Social Media When Investigating Missing Children, Eleanor Howlings, Reka Solymosi

International Journal of Missing Persons

Missing person investigations involve the collection of information to ensure the person is located as fast as possible, minimising their exposure to harms. Social media is a valuable source of information in police investigations both to learn about the missing person, and to appeal for information to the public. To ensure social media is used safely and effectively, we must understand the concerns and experiences of investigating officers. In this pilot study, we analysed interviews from 8 experts who investigate missing children to identify the facilitators and barriers of using social media. We also identified concerns raised by officers around …

Shared Responsibility: Conceptualising How A Public Health Approach May Enhance Police Response To Missing Persons, Katie Gambier-Ross, Joe Apps Dr, Sarah Wayland Dr

International Journal of Missing Persons

When a person is reported missing there are substantial costs for the individual, their family and society. This paper conceptualises the experience of missing persons episodes, through a public health approach. This then allows police, stakeholders and the community to engage in discussions about who is vulnerable to going missing by intervening in a way that addresses risk. Historically, a missing persons episode involves an absence, typically followed by police involvement in consultation with next of kin with establishing the whereabouts of the missing person being the primary focus. Yet, the risk factors of going missing relate more to the …

Hentai And The Pornification Of Childhood: How The Porn Industry Just Made The Case For Regulation, Gail Dines, Mandy Sanchez

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

One of the most popular genres of online pornography today is hentai, sexualized animation, and cartoons in the style of Japanese anime. Data from Pornhub, the world’s best-known pornography website, as well as a recent report from a British regulatory agency and our research, show that much of hentai appeals to children and depicts child-like characters engaged in sexual violence. In almost every instance, this violence targets female characters. Hentai, we show, encourages adults to see minors, especially girls, as legitimate targets of sexual violence. Until the day when these depictions of sexual violence are eradicated, we call for three …

Finding Forensic Evidence In The Operating System's Graphical User Interface, Edward X. Wilson Mr.

LSU Master's Theses

A branch of cyber security known as memory forensics focuses on extracting meaningful evidence from system memory. This analysis is often referred to as volatile memory analysis, and is generally performed on memory captures acquired from target systems. Inside of a memory capture is the complete state of a system under investigation, including the contents of currently running as well as previously executed applications. Analysis of this data can reveal a significant amount of activity that occurred on a system since the last reboot. For this research, the Windows operating system is targeted. In particular, the graphical user interface component …

Underrepresentation Of Black Participants In Drug Court: Reasons Reported For Non-Admission In Six Jurisdictions, Kathryn J. Genthon

Theses and Dissertations

Despite the beneficial impacts of drug court participation, access to these programs may not be equitable across racial groups. The reasons behind racial disparities in access to these programs are not well-documented in the current literature. This study investigates disparities in access to drug court and the possible reasons they occur. Chi-square tests are used to assess for disparities in admissions between Black and White individuals referred to drug court. Additional statistical analyses addressed the association of sex and age with admission to provide a broader picture of the impact of a variety of demographic characteristics on admission to drug …

Prison Libraries, Intellectual Freedom And Social Justice In Nigeria, Olusegun Adebayo Opesanwo, Oluyomi Abidemi Awofeso Phd

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This paper deployed a systematic review to examine prison libraries and intellectual freedom towards attaining social justice in Nigeria. Information resources used cover the periods of 2010 and 2020 to articulate the necessary development in prison libraries, intellectual freedom and social justice in Nigeria. Search engines such as Google scholar, Semantic Scholar, and RefSeek were used to retrieve information and through different queries yielded several results but very few of them were selected to fit in the study due to limited studies directed to address the focus of this study particularly in the Nigeria scenario. Information obtained were subjected to …