Digital Commons Network^™

Jurisprudence Of Problem-Solving Courts: A Study Of Structure, Success, And Sociological Theory, Lauren M. Boos

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In response to the failures of mass incarceration and its disproportionate impact on marginalized communities, Problem-Solving Courts (PSCs) have emerged as alternatives to traditional prosecution. These courts employ therapeutic-informed and rehabilitative practices aimed at addressing the root causes of criminal behavior. While widely regarded as more effective than traditional courts, PSCs have developed largely without a formal theoretical foundation. This is notable given their alignment with Sociological Jurisprudence (SJ) and Therapeutic Jurisprudence (TJ), which view the legal system as a vehicle for promoting individual and community well-being.

Despite being celebrated as therapeutic innovations, PSCs often embody these principles unevenly. Using …

Where's The Second Chance? Compounded Stigma And Other Factors Impacting Ex-Prisoner Employment, Eileen Baldry, Joe Graffam, Lesley Hardcastle, Simone Rowe, Leanne Dowse, Margaret Giles, Jane Mcgillivray

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Ex-prisoners with meaningful employment are less likely to return to prison; however, ex-prisoners have the highest unemployment rates of any marginalised group. This article draws on the voices of former prisoners who are seeking employment through government-funded employment agencies in Australia and staff working in these agencies. Revealed themes of employment service providers’ practices, employer attitudes, navigating stigma, ongoing surveillance, and advocacy and support were analysed in the context of theories of integration, resisting re-offending (desistance), discrimination, and stigma. We unpack the way different forms of stigma and discrimination lock marginalised groups of criminalised people into unemployment.

Police Abuse In America And The Search For Remedy, Howard Ryan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The dissertation contends that, despite many diligent efforts—from mass protests to a presidential task force—America is not yet on path to remedying its outsized patterns of police abuse. The abuse problem is broadly characterized herein through a “triad” of over-enforcement, excessive force, and racial discrimination. The Washington Post’s “Fatal Force” database, covering the years 2015 through 2024, is offered as a bellwether of American progress in addressing its police abuse; and, it is observed, the nation’s yearly count of fatal police shootings of civilians has been increasing, rather than decreasing.

To help make sense of our lack of national progress, …

Welfare States And Imprisonment Rates: Revisiting The Study Of Public Assistance And Punishment In The United States, Stefan Ivanov

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

In the past fifty years, the United States has seen significant changes in both the criminal legal system and the welfare state. The incarceration rate surged by 475% from 1972 to 2007, driven by state-level decisions about criminal legal policy and disproportionately affecting Black Americans. Simultaneously, welfare programs became less generous, especially for those deemed “undeserving.” A long line of social science scholarship emphasizes that these two major social institutions—the welfare state and the carceral state—must be considered as complementary and alternative methods of managing marginalized groups. Quantitative research often confirms these claims, finding a durable inverse relationship between welfare …

The Impact Of Adverse Childhood Experiences On Juvenile Delinquency, Abigail Holmquist

Dissertations, Theses, and Projects

Abstract

Youth that have been exposed to Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are at a much higher risk of delinquent acts and involvement in the juvenile legal system. This study includes discussion on two studies of ACEs, conducted by Felitti et al. (2019) and Cronholm et al. (2015), reviews the impact of ACEs on juvenile delinquency in certain demographics, and includes case examples of how I have seen ACEs impact previous clients I had on my caseload. Discussion includes examples of how Social Control Theory and General Strain Theory apply to the relationship of ACEs and juvenile delinquency. Future research recommendations …

Testing Routine Activity Theory: Behavioural Pathways Linking Temperature To Crime, Christopher Thomas, Jinuk Jeong, Kevin T. Wolff

Publications and Research

This study examines direct observations of outdoor routine activities to investigate the pathways through which temperatures shape crime. Daily administrative records of crime, weather, and outdoor activity were assembled from 2015 to 2019 in New York City. Mediation analysis (with bootstrapped standard errors) reveals that alterations in routine activities account for a statistically significant, yet modest, proportion of temperature’s relationship with homicides, shootings, assaults, larceny, and public consumption violations. The comparable mediation effects across violent and nonviolent crimes support routine activity theory as an explanatory framework for understanding temperature's impact on crime. The measures introduced here offer a novel approach …

Famous Last Words: A Study Of Faith In Texas Death Row Inmates, Mariah Podwika

Honors Program Theses and Research Projects

Historically, final statements of condemned individuals prior to execution have shown a pattern of the presence of some type of religious sentiment. However, the justification and reasoning behind religious remarks still remains elusive given the finality of the event. The State of Texas is unique given the state provides a substantial amount of information pertaining to final statements due to the recording process of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ). Similar to rituals of recording condemned individuals’ last statements from the fourteenth century, prison wardens in Texas give the condemned an opportunity to share their last words, which are …

How The Media Turns Serial Killers Into Celebrities, Abigail I. Wiker

ALL - Honors Theses

Serial killers are subjects of widespread news media coverage. News Media portrays these serial killers in a positive light instead of focusing on the facts of the case. This study explores how news media turn serial killers into celebrities by qualitatively analyzing news media articles on LexisNexis. Understanding how the media portrays serial killers in media can help prevent making serial killers into celebrities and stop revictimizing the families of the victims.

Exploring The Interactive Effects Of Officer, Subject, And Encounter Factors On Police Use Of Force Outcomes, Jeremy David Barnum

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Police use of force incidents are highly complex events that can be characterized by factors pertaining to the officers, subjects, and immediate encounter. These factors and the dynamic interrelationships between them encompass the situational context of use of force and have been widely studied in the criminological literature (Bolger, 2015). However, extant research has almost exclusively focused on identifying the main effects of situational factors on use of force with little consideration of how effects may vary across specific situational contexts. This limits our understanding of police use of force and complicates efforts to develop policy or training that ensures …

The Disconnect Between Spanish-Speaking Communities And Law Enforcement And The Detrimental Effect It Has On Both, Belma Kurpejovic

Honors Theses

The increase of Latino communities in mid-sized and smaller cities, along with the impact of language competency and lack of programs for law enforcement, has been sufficiently explored, yet issues persist. This study examines the disconnect between Spanish-speaking communities and law enforcement, which has created significant distrust and communication issues. Examining these communities is important because there is still a need to mend these relationships. This study explores the effects of this divide and how to help fix it. Information obtained from law enforcement officers at the Chattanooga Police Department, highlights key issues, including the lack of community-based policing, cultural …

The Relationship Between Police Stress And Officer Misconduct, Leobardo Lopez-Cristobal

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Recent high-profile and controversial police-related incidents have sparked an intensified public discourse on police misconduct. This has resulted in increasing calls for greater accountability and transparency within U.S. police agencies. Much of the existing research on police misconduct centers around two competing explanations: the "bad apples" perspective, which attributes misconduct to individual officers, and the "bad barrels" perspective, which points to systemic or organizational factors (Rojek, Decker, & Wagner, 2015). However, one factor that has been underexplored in the literature is the role of police stress in influencing deviant police behavior. Previous studies suggest a potential link between police-related stress …

Understanding The Factors Associated With The Targeting Of Prison Gangs By Specialized Gang Units (Sgus) In The United States, Bruno Aldair Zapata

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Specialized gang units (SGUs) are prominent in police departments in the United States with their sole purpose to respond to gang activity across the country. SGUs vary in the types of gangs they target, resources available, officer composition, and the types of enforcement activities they use. SGUs have encountered various controversies such as exaggerating the gang problem in the media, for distorted intelligence in their gang databases, and for racial stereotyping and harassment among Hispanics in particular. Research regarding SGUs is limited in general, but even fewer studies exist on the targeting efforts of prison gangs by SGUs. Prison gang …

Narratives Of Resilience: The Power Of Creative Expression And Community Support During Familial Incarceration, Alana Alexander

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Existing literature stresses that the far-reaching effects of mass incarceration extend beyond prison walls, profoundly shaping familial experiences. Despite this, families remain consistently overlooked in criminal justice discourse, leading to heightened stress and diminished resilience. This thesis is a program review of a community-based program, referred to here as the Storytelling, Creativity, and Care (SCC) program, to protect the confidentiality of its participants and activities. The SCC program integrates neuroscience and narrative theory to explore how storytelling influences cultural perceptions, shapes lived experiences, and supports psychological and physiological healing. Additionally, this work investigates the socio-political narratives that perpetuate stigma and …

The Impact Of Adverse Childhood Experiences On Later Desistance Among Serious Juvenile Offenders From A Broken Family Composition, Olivia Franklin

Master's Theses

The current study aimed to contribute to the overall knowledge of desistance patterns among juveniles by exploring them among serious juvenile offenders who come from a broken home. Utilizing the Pathways to Desistance (PTD) dataset, this study used logistic regression to examine the impact of family composition on later desistance while controlling for various adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) one might experience. Two research questions guide this study: (1) Does family composition (i.e., “broken homes”) impact later desistance among serious adolescent offenders, while controlling for important criminological predictors (i.e., self-control and antisocial peer influence)? (2) Is the quality of one’s home …

Nature Vs. Nurture In Albuquerque: What Breaking Bad And Better Call Saul Teach Us About How We Talk About Criminals, Max Romanowski

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul focus on the criminal transformation of their two main characters, Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk). While quite similar on the surface, Walter and Jimmy’s narratives represent two different criminal transitions, evoking the classic nature vs nurture conversation. Both of these shows bring the conversation to the idea of inevitability. The nature vs. nurture argument is a popular one because it acts as a teaching tool for how we think and talk about criminal behavior. At first, it follows that since criminality was in Walter White’s nature the whole time, his …

Co-Producing Learning Space In A Prison-University Partnership, Ross E. Little

Journal of Prison Education Research

This article explores a classroom co-produced by learners serving prison sentences, undergraduate criminology students and a pair of lecturer-facilitators. This space, in a high security prison for men serving life sentences (‘HMP Lifer’), provides a good example of ethical praxis and moral sight working in combination to mitigate against moral and ethical blindness. It is a mechanism by which pedagogical concerns, and some human-centred ones, can be realised in an unconventional context.

There are two areas to the discussion. Firstly, the effects of incorporating students from outside the prison into the classroom space, such as enhanced proximity, the reduction of …

The Militarization Of Policing In The United States, Grace Simpson

The Mid-Southern Journal of Criminal Justice

The increased use of police violence and the threat thereof has become a widely publicized issue. Particularly, the use of violence against minorities, especially Black individuals, is becoming more widely criticized by the public, scholars, and activists. This identification of policing violence relates to the militarization of policing, wherein the adoption of military equipment and tactics have contributed to increased violent targeting of minority communities. Policing agencies have increasingly turned these military weapons against civilians to maintain social control. Namely, militarism in policing has historical roots in violent racialized policing targeting Black communities. The current analysis critically examines the development …

Perceptions Of Police: Justice-Impacted And Non-Impacted Opinions, Taylor Williamson

The Mid-Southern Journal of Criminal Justice

The purpose of this paper is to examine what affects individual’s perceptions of the police through a review of the literature. Because the police work directly with their community, opinions that their communities hold of the police can affect their ability to perform their job effectively. Particular focus is given to justice-impacted persons. A justice-impacted person is an individual who is at risk for incarceration, has been incarcerated, or has had family members incarcerated. It is advantageous to survey justice-impacted persons regarding their perceptions of the police because they have had direct contact with the police. This contrasts with general …

Digital Accessibility And Missing Information: An Examination Of Intimate Partner Violence Shelter Websites, Leslie-Dawn Quick, Ph.D., Radscheda R. Nobles, Ph.D.

The Mid-Southern Journal of Criminal Justice

This paper is an examination of intimate partner violence shelter websites identified by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV) across six states to include North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio. A sample of 217 websites were identified through the NCADV and analyzed with focus on what information they contained. There is significant variability between website content. Most shelter websites provide crisis hotline information, operating information or that they operate 24/7, but basic information like the cost of the shelter or if transportation is provided is not always available. This paper makes recommendations to shelters to provide …

The Rise And Fall Of Caribbean Piracy: A Socio-Technical Analysis Of The War Of Spanish Succession, Maritime Innovation, And Edward Randolf’S Policy, Dominique M. Salinski

Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History

This paper argues that the mode and historical context in which piracy ascended in the Caribbean after the War of the Spanish Succession, as well as the historical interrelation between maritime technology and pirate tactics, coalesced into a diachronic Damocles Sword that resulted in the downfall of piracy in the Golden Age. Sanctioning piratical enterprises as a subconventional maritime strategy displayed a geopolitical reliance on piracy by great powers. However, the depraved treatment conventional sailors received across all major European navies generated a social stratum that eventually bore the Golden Age of Piracy, while simultaneously contributing significantly to British naval …

Torture And Its Sequelae Among Prostituted Women In The United States, Melissa Farley, M. Alexis Kennedy

Criminal Justice Faculty Research

Background: Extreme violence and psychological abuse have been extensively documented and are pervasive in prostitution. Survivors of prostitution report high levels of posttraumatic stress disorder, dissociation, depression, and self-loathing. These are the same sequelae reported by torture survivors.

Objective: Severe forms of violence have been categorized as torture by experts. The authors note that torture is commonly suffered during prostitution and should be appropriately named.

Method: Using standardized measures and including a new measure of torture, we interviewed 45 women in the United States about their torture experiences in prostitution and their symptoms of PTSD, dissociation, childhood trauma, health status …

Childhood Adversity's Impact On Criminal Behavior, Isobel Marie Avento

Theses and Dissertations

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), such as abuse, neglect, and family criminal history, have been identified as potential risk factors for negative physical, psychological, and behavioral health outcomes. Emerging literature suggests that ACEs are also among the primary factors leading to delinquency and adult criminal behavior. However, there is limited applied research that provides practitioners with appropriate insight to intervene when ACEs are identified among juvenile delinquents to reduce recidivism risk. This study adds to the existing literature by examining how cumulative ACEs shape criminal behavior of individuals from the onset until its desistance over the span of twenty years. Using …

Studying Police Crime, Philip M. Stinson

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Invited presentation given at the 2024 NIJ National Research Conference on September 17, 2024 in Pittsburgh, PA. Part of the "Justice Starts with Accountability: NIJ Research on Eradicating Police Crime and Misconduct" panel. Sponsored by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice.

Cyber Victimization In The Healthcare Industry: Analyzing Offender Motivations And Target Characteristics Through Routine Activities Theory (Rat) And Cyber-Routine Activities Theory (Cyber-Rat), Yashna Praveen, Mijin Kim, Kyung-Shick Choi

International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime

The integration of computer technology in healthcare has revolutionized patient care but has also introduced significant cyber risks. Despite the healthcare sector being a primary target for cyber-attacks, research on the dynamics of these threats and practical solutions remains limited. Understanding the complexities of cyberattacks in this sector is critical, as the impact extends beyond financial losses to directly affect patient care and the protection of sensitive information. This paper applies Routine Activities Theory (RAT) and Cyber Routine Activities Theory (C-RAT) to analyze high-tech cyber victimization case studies in healthcare. The analysis explores the motivations behind these attacks and identifies …

Understanding The Use Of Artificial Intelligence In Cybercrime, Sinyong Choi, Thomas Dearden, Katalin Parti

International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime

Artificial intelligence is one of the newest innovations that offenders also exploit to satisfy their criminal desires. Although understanding cybercrimes associated with this relatively new technology is essential in developing proper preventive measures, little has been done to examine this area. Therefore, this paper provides an overview of the articles featured in the special issue of the International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence and Cybercrime, ranging from deepfake in the metaverse to social engineering attacks. This issue includes articles that were presented by the winners of the student paper competition at the 2024 International White Hat Conference.

Investigating The Intersection Of Ai And Cybercrime: Risks, Trends, And Countermeasures, Sanaika Shetty, Kyung-Shick Choi, Insun Park

International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime

No abstract provided.

Integrated Model Of Cybercrime Dynamics: A Comprehensive Framework For Understanding Offending And Victimization In The Digital Realm, Troy Smith Phd

International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime

This article introduces the Integrated Model of Cybercrime Dynamics (IMCD), a novel theoretical framework for examining the complex interplay between individual characteristics, online behavior, environmental factors, and outcomes related to cybercrime offending and victimization. The model incorporates key concepts from existing theories, empirical evidence, and interdisciplinary perspectives to provide a comprehensive framework. In contrast to traditional criminological theories, the proposed model integrates concepts from multiple disciplines to offer a holistic framework that captures the complexity of cybercrime and specifically caters for the uniqueness of cyberspace. The article will provide a detailed overview of the conceptual model, its theoretical underpinnings drawing …

Procedural Justice In Prison: Examining Female Inmates’ Experiences, Perceptions, And Interactions With Correctional Officers, Michael E. Antonio, Selena R. Price, Cassandra L. Reyes

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Correctional staff behavior can impact inmates’ perceptions of procedural justice and facilitate incidents of prison misconduct and violence. This analysis showed findings gathered from 136 female inmates incarcerated in a state correctional system. This exploratory analysis examined inmates’ self-reported responses about direct experiences, perceptions, and interactions with correctional officers. Findings from 19 Likert-scale items highlighted inmates’ encounters with correctional officers, however, results shown here focused on findings uncovered from a content analysis performed on inmates’ written comments to an open-ended item. The emerging themes portrayed correctional officers as disrespectful, indifferent, misusing authority, and dehumanizing."

Lessons Learned From An Undergraduate Criminal Justice Internship: The Student Experience, Nancy Blank, Robin S. Goldberg-Glen, Lori Simons, Nicole Scharfetter, Denna Grande

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Internships play a crucial role in the educational and professional training of students. This article presents a qualitative evaluation of the benefits and challenges of an undergraduate internship through an examination of self-reflective journals completed by 20 seniors majoring in criminal justice. Findings were organized into five major themes: knowledge acquisition, professional development, personal development, affective development, and awareness of the realities of the criminal justice system. The most frequently cited benefits included increased learning, the ability to apply coursework to the internship experience, and improved career readiness. Challenges included exposure to field experiences that led to feeling sad and …

Criminology And Criminal Justice Researchers’ Experiences And Challenges With Institutional Review Boards, Elaine Gunnison, Jacqueline B. Helfgott

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Conducting research in criminology and criminal justice settings brings unique challenges involving human subjects. Prior research has examined the quality and effectiveness of Institutional Review Boards (IRB). However, research on the experiences of criminology and criminal justice researchers when interfacing with their IRBs is scant. This study seeks to fill this gap through the exploration of experiences criminology and criminal justice researchers have had with IRBs. Focus groups were conducted with 13 researchers who were members of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences and the American Society of Criminology. Results revealed that participants experienced challenges centering around specific themes …