Criminology Commons^™

Police Flight Oversight: Lapd Drone As First Responder Implementation, Nathaniel Worley

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis explores the feasibility of implementing a Drone as First Responder (DFR) program within the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), analyzing the operational, social, and financial implications compared to traditional police helicopter usage. The thesis investigates helicopter flight patterns, demographic correlations, and the potential for drones to provide a less invasive and more cost-effective aerial support system. Key findings include the use of incorrect identifying hex codes by LAPD helicopters, suggesting potential transparency issues in aerial operations. The thesis recommends DFR due to substantial cost savings and enhanced surveillance transparency and asserts that a DFR program can mitigate negative …

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 …

Bio-Spatial Policing In Theory And Practice: Examining Impacts And Resistance Through Mobilities And Children's Everyday Life, Emily Kaufman

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Despite decades of reforms and technological innovations, increasing evidence shows that state securitization disproportionately harms already racially, spatially, and socio-economically marginalized communities. My research investigates uneven impacts of state securitization, from punitive welfare programs to school surveillance to policing. Across sites, I focus on scales, voices and the everyday lived experiences often left out of scholarly discourse and sensational media. In the current climate of growing awareness and scholarship on police violence, my dissertation addresses three less-studied areas: 1) the interplay between racial, gendered, spatial, and technified police practices; 2) how these practices impact the everyday lives of those racially …

Private Security And Cctv Surveillance: A Systematic Review Of Function And Performance, Brandon C. Welsh, Eric L. Piza, Amanda L. Thomas, David P. Farrington

Publications and Research

Private security personnel play an important but largely overlooked role in the operation of CCTV surveillance to prevent crime in public and private areas. This role can take a number of forms, including active monitoring of cameras. Drawing upon a global database of CCTV evaluations (N=165), this article examines the function and performance of private security personnel as related to the effectiveness of CCTV. Findings indicate that CCTV schemes operated by private security personnel generated larger crime prevention effects than those operated by police or those using a mix of police and security personnel. Policy and research implications are discussed.

Cctv Surveillance For Crime Prevention. A 40-Year Systematic Review With Meta-Analysis, Eric L. Piza, Brandon C. Welsh, David P. Farrington, Amanda L. Thomas

Publications and Research

Research Summary: We report on the findings of an updated systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of closed-circuit television (CCTV) surveillance cameras on crime. The findings show that CCTV is associated with a significant and modest decrease in crime. The largest and most consistent effects of CCTV were observed in car parks. The results of the analysis also demonstrated evidence of significant crime reductions within other settings, particularly residential areas. CCTV schemes incorporating activemonitoring generated larger effect sizes than did passive systems. Schemes deploying multiple interventions alongside CCTV generated larger effect sizes than did schemes deploying single or no …

Psychosocial Analysis Of An Ethnography At The Cuyahoga County Public Defenders Office, Ernest M. Oleksy

The Downtown Review

Too often, social science majors become jaded with their field of study due to a misperception of the nature of many potential jobs which they are qualified for. Such discord is prevalent amongst undergraduates who strive for work in the criminal justice system. Hollywood misrepresentations become the archetypes of the aforementioned field, leaving out the necessity and ubiquity of accompanying desk work. Still other social science majors struggle to identify theoretical interpretations in praxis.

A New Mass Incarceration: Community Corrections, Carceral Geography, And Spatial Power, Iolanthe Brooks

Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark (SURJ)

In the age of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow (2010), promises to depopulate overcrowded American prisons, and a mainstream acknowledgement of mass incarceration, the American criminal justice system is anything but inert. Instead, modalities of punishment are shifting, particularly towards community-located corrections involving GPS surveillance. This paper seeks to examine this evolution of the carceral state through the marriage of two theoretical lenses: carceral geography and Foucauldian spatial power analysis. Carceral geography offers a theory of the embodied nuance of movement. Its work revolves around the three mobilities of the carceral system: movement to/from, within, and between prisons. This …

Postmodern Social Control: Dividuals And Surveillance, Ernest M. Oleksy

The Downtown Review

As a society's foundational philosophy changes, so, too, will its forms of social control. By using the works of thinkers like Deleuze and Foucault as pivot points, the dynamic nature of social interactions and the agents to mediate those actions shall be investigated. This article includes findings from archival analysis written in a journalistic prose for simplicity of consumption.

Examining The Extent And Impact Of Surveillance On Animal Rights Activists, Cassandra Boyer

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In the post-9/11 era, the USA PATRIOT Act provided law enforcement agencies broad powers to investigate citizens believed to be potential or perceived domestic terrorist threats. Preceded by the Animal Enterprise Protection Act (AEPA) of 1992, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) of 2006 delivered to these same agencies laws under which animal rights (AR) activists could be charged as domestic terrorists. Considered to be potential domestic terrorist threats under the Green Scare era, AR activists became prioritized as state-sponsored surveillance subjects.

This thesis seeks to determine the extent of surveillance on AR activists as well as its impact in …

A Dark Reflection Of Society: Analyzing Cultural Representations Of State Control In Black Mirror, Carl Russell Huber

Online Theses and Dissertations

Recognizing the importance of visual criminology and media studies in contemporary academic criminal justice studies, I attempt to contribute to the field by analyzing three themes found in Channel 4’s Black Mirror in relation to cultural fears of state control and the progression of technology. The themes, including state power and coercion, the spectacle of punishment, and panoptic surveillance, are placed in a popular criminological framework in order to examine the attitudes and beliefs of the culture in which they were produced and for whom they are intended. I conclude that Black Mirror provides a social commentary on the themes …

Cops And Cells : Theorizing And Assessing The Implications Of Smartphone Surveillance For Policing, Sean Patrick Roche

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In the United States, police officers are empowered to use force, and are often people’s first point of contact with the criminal justice system. Significantly, in the last decade, the majority of American citizens have acquired smartphone technology, which allows them to document and broadcast police behavior on a scale never before seen. Several high-profile police use of force incidents have been captured on video, and the resulting public outcries suggest that this technology now presents exceptional challenges to the maintenance of police legitimacy. Foucault (1977) argues that power in modern society is achieved by surveillance systems that work to …

Based On Actual Events: Surveillance, Fear And Crime Control In Found-Footage Horror Films, Cassandra Persaud

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In recent years, found-footage horror films have reappeared with increasing popularity, leading to its recognition as the current horror subgenre du jour. Its amateur style of filmmaking has allowed the subgenre to explore public concerns around the growth of technology, the use of surveillance, and crime control. Found-footage horror films offer a unique platform for analysis as they are framed around presenting the ‘footage’ in the film as factual or reality. In this research study, themes and narratives around the use of surveillance and the production of the docile body in found-footage horror films were examined. The study involved an …

The Nonexceptionalism Thesis: How Post-9/11 Criminal Justice Measures Fit In Broader Criminal Justice, Francesca Laguardia

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Contrary to the assumption that ‘‘9/11 changed everything,’’ post-2001 criminal justice practices in the area of terrorism show a surprising consistency with pre-2001 criminal justice practices. This article relies on an analysis of over 300 terrorism prosecutions between 2001 and 2010, as well as twenty full trial transcripts, content-coding, and traditional legal analysis, to show the continuity of criminal justice over this time in regard to some of the most controversial supposed developments. This continuity belies the common assumption that current extreme policies and limitations on the due process are a panicked response to the terror attacks of 2001. On …

The Nonexceptionalism Thesis: How Post-9/11 Criminal Justice Measures Fit In Broader Criminal Justice, Francesca Laguardia

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Contrary to the assumption that ‘‘9/11 changed everything,’’ post-2001 criminal justice practices in the area of terrorism show a surprising consistency with pre-2001 criminal justice practices. This article relies on an analysis of over 300 terrorism prosecutions between 2001 and 2010, as well as twenty full trial transcripts, content coding, and traditional legal analysis, to show the continuity of criminal justice over this time in regard to some of the most controversial supposed developments. This continuity belies the common assumption that current extreme policies and limitations on due process are a panicked response to the terror attacks of 2001. To …

#Therighttoremainsilent: Police Department Adoption And Deployment Of Social Media, 2010-~2015, Paul Geary

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Police have a complex myriad of ever-changing responsibilities and fluid expectations from the public, and traditional media has performed a largely ambivalent self-appointed oversight and agenda-setting function vis-à-vis police for decades. But in the last five years, the second wave of the first new mass communications medium since the 1940s, social media, has democratized both that oversight function as well as traditional media's agenda-setting ability. Meanwhile, police have been characterized as slow to adapt to change and to adopt new practices in response to a changing world. This work analyzed police agency social media adoption and explained the rate at …

Surveillance In Chicago: Growing, But For What Purpose?, Rajiv Shah

Rajiv Shah

Chicago is now one of the leading cities in the world in using surveillance technology. This growth began in 2003 when cameras were used to fight street level crime. Since then, Chicago’s camera network has grown to over 25,000 units, along with the use of a variety of new technologies. This chapter explains this growth and how it affects policing.

Legal Tails: Policing American Cities Through Animals, Irus Braverman

Contributions to Books

Published as Chapter 8 in Policing Cities: Urban Securitization and Regulation in a 21st Century World, Randy K. Lippert & Kevin Walby, eds.

“I don’t worry about the four-legged animals,” Officer Armatys tells me as I scramble to catch up when he enters a backyard with a fierce-looking dog. “It’s the two-legged animals I am concerned about.” I interviewed Officer Armatys twice, first in his office in the Erie County’s Society for the Protection of Animals (ESPCA) and, a few months later, on a ride-along during a routine workday. Based on these encounters and numerous others with members of the …

A Study Of Surveillance And Privacy Rights, Jesse T. Kittle Mr.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study it to research the role and public perception of security surveillance on a university campus. The research measured variables such as age, gender, class standing political affiliation, and one's residence whether on campus or off campus. This study is focused on how students view security surveillance, and whether they see security surveillance as an important tool for the safety of the public or a threat to privacy. A student survey was administered to undergraduate students asking how they felt about crime on campus and whether crime was a problem that could be solved by security …

Location And Tracking Of Mobile Devices: Überveillance Stalks The Streets, Katina Michael, Roger Clarke

Professor Katina Michael

During the last decade, location-tracking and monitoring applications have proliferated, in mobile cellular and wireless data networks, and through self-reporting by applications running in smartphones that are equipped with onboard global positioning system (GPS) chipsets. It is now possible to locate a smartphone-user's location not merely to a cell, but to a small area within it. Innovators have been quick to capitalise on these location-based technologies for commercial purposes, and have gained access to a great deal of sensitive personal data in the process. In addition, law enforcement utilise these technologies, can do so inexpensively and hence can track many …

Glogging Your Every Move, Lisa Wachsmuth, Katina Michael

Professor Katina Michael

"It is one thing to lug technologies around, another thing to wear them, and even more intrusive to bear them... But that's the direction in which we're headed."

"I think we're entering an era of person-view systems which will show things on ground level and will be increasingly relayed to others via social media.

"We've got people wearing recording devices on their fingers, in their caps or sunglasses - there are huge legal and ethical implications here."

Indian Millennials: Are Microchip Implants A More Secure Technology For Identification And Access Control?, Christine Perakslis, Katina Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

This mixed methods study with a sequential explanatory strategy explored qualitatively the statistically significant quantitative findings relative to Indian respondents’ perceptions about RFID (radio frequency identification) transponders implanted into the human body. In the first analysis phase of the study, there was a significant chi-square analysis reported (χ2 = 56.64, df = 3, p = .000) relative to the perception of small business owners (N = 453) that implanted chips are a more secure form of identification and/or access control in organizations and the respondents’ country of residence. Countries under study included Australia, India, the UK and US. The country …

Converging And Coexisting Systems Towards Smart Surveillance, Katina Michael, Mg Michael

Professor Katina Michael

Tracking and monitoring people as they operate within their personal networks benefits service providers and their constituents but involves hidden risks and costs.

Automatic identification technologies, CCTV cameras, pervasive and mobile networks, wearable computing, location-based services and social networks have traditionally served distinct purposes. However, we have observed patterns of integration, convergence and coexistence among all these innovations within the information and communication technology industry.1For example, ‘location-based social networking’ can draw on a smart phone's capacity to identify a user uniquely, locate him within 1–2m and share this information across his social network in real time. The resulting ability to …

Human Rights, Regulation, And National Security, Katina Michael, Simon Bronitt

Professor Katina Michael

Law disciplines technology, though it does so in a partial and incomplete way as reflected in the old adage that technology outstrips the capacity of law to regulate it. The rise of new technologies poses a significant threat to human rights – the pervasive use of CCTV (and now mobile CCTV), telecommunications interception, and low-cost audio-visual recording and tracking devices (some of these discreetly wearable), extend the power of the state and corporations significantly to intrude into the lives of citizens.

Location Privacy Under Dire Threat As Uberveillance Stalks The Streets, Katina Michael, Roger Clarke

Associate Professor Katina Michael

Location tracking and monitoring applications have proliferated with the arrival of smart phones that are equipped with onboard global positioning system (GPS) chipsets. It is now possible to locate a smart phone user down to 10 metres of accuracy on average. Innovators have been quick to capitalise on this emerging market by introducing novel pedestrian tracking technologies which can denote the geographic path of a mobile user. At the same time there is contention by law enforcement personnel over the need for a warrant process to track an individual in a public space. This paper considers the future of location …

The Fall-Out From Emerging Technologies: On Matters Of Surveillance, Social Networks And Suicide, M.G. Michael, Katina Michael

M. G. Michael

No abstract provided.

The Fall-Out From Emerging Technologies: On Matters Of Surveillance, Social Networks And Suicide, M.G. Michael, Katina Michael

Professor Katina Michael

No abstract provided.