Digital Commons Network^™

The Specific Deterrent Effects Of Criminal Sanctions For Intimate Partner Violence: A Meta-Analysis, Joel H. Garner, Christopher D. Maxwell, Jina Lee

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

A dozen systematic reviews published since 1978 have sought to clarify the complexities of deterrence theory. These reviews emphasize the general deterrent effects of police presence, arrest, and incarceration on rates of homicide and other serious crimes, such as assault, rape, and burglary. These reviews provide less attention to specific deterrence processes and to the deterrent impacts of intermediate sanctions, such as prosecution or conviction; none of these reviews incorporate any of the research on criminal sanctions for intimate partner violence. To address these limitations, this research uses meta-analytic methods to assess the specific deterrent effects of three post-arrest criminal …

Constitutional Pandemic Surveillance, Matthew B. Kugler, Mariana Oliver

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

How do people view governmental pandemic surveillance? And how can their views inform courts considering the constitutionality of digital monitoring programs aimed at containing the spread of a highly contagious diseases? We measure the perceived intrusiveness of pandemic surveillance through two nationally representative surveys of Americans. Our results show that even at the height of a pandemic people find surveillance for public health to be more intrusive than surveillance for traditional law enforcement purposes. To account for these strong privacy concerns, we propose safeguards that we believe would make cell phone location tracking and other similar digital monitoring regimes constitutionally …

Examining Risk Factors Of Juvenile Delinquency And The Predictive Validity Of A Juvenile Risk Assessment Instrument Across Urban And Rural Communities, Kelly Vannan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Juvenile delinquency among the nation's youth is an ongoing concern. An essential task of juvenile justice workers is to identify and measure risk factors that impact a youth's likelihood of recidivating. The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice (FDJJ) utilizes the Positive Achievement Change Tool (PACT) to assess the risk for recidivism among all juveniles referred to the system. The current study examined how youths' level and types of risk, as well as the ability of the PACT to predict the odds of reoffending and the time to reoffend, vary across urban and rural communities. This study drew upon theories of …

Neither “Post-War” Nor Post-Pregnancy Paranoia: How America’S War On Drugs Continues To Perpetuate Disparate Incarceration Outcomes For Pregnant, Substance-Involved Offenders, Becca S. Zimmerman

Pitzer Senior Theses

This thesis investigates the unique interactions between pregnancy, substance involvement, and race as they relate to the War on Drugs and the hyper-incarceration of women. Using ordinary least square regression analyses and data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates, I examine if (and how) pregnancy status, drug use, race, and their interactions influence two length of incarceration outcomes: sentence length and amount of time spent in jail between arrest and imprisonment. The results collectively indicate that pregnancy decreases length of incarceration outcomes for those offenders who are not substance-involved but not evenhandedly -- benefitting white …

Exposure To Parental Conflict And Anxiety In Justice-Involved Youth, Logan B. Ewing

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The purpose of this study was to explore the link between exposure to domestic violence (DV) and the presence of symptoms of anxiety in a population of justice-involved juveniles. The categories of DV were broken down into verbal abuse and physical abuse, along with a third category of juveniles that witnessed both forms of abuse within their households. This study compared the prevalence of anxiety in juveniles when faced with the different instances of DV through the use of data collected from a longitudinal study conducted by the Pathways to Desistance Project. The goal of the study was to further …

Defending Constitutional Rights In Imbalanced Courtrooms, Esther Nir, Siyu Liu

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Safeguarding Fourth Amendment protections is critical to preserving individual privacy rights and fostering positive perceptions of police legitimacy within communities. Maintaining an effective accountability structure for police stops, searches, and seizures is a necessary step toward achieving these objectives. In this article, we use qualitative interviews and survey data with defense attorneys to explore—from a court community perspective— their use of discretion to uphold the Exclusionary Rule through bringing suppression motions. Data demonstrate that power dynamics within the court community lead defense attorneys to conclude that litigating rights violations is often a futile effort that interferes with favorable case outcomes …

Annual Report 2021, Nebraska Center For Justice Research

Reports

The Nebraska Center for Justice Research (NCJR) was established in 2014 with a mission to develop and sustain criminal justice research capacity internal to the State of Nebraska. Our goal is to assist the Legislature, justice agencies, practitioners, foundations, and stakeholders with research and evaluation to reduce recidivism, promote the use of evidence-based practices, and improve public safety. This annual report summarizes the activities and financial status of NCJR in its second year.

"It Is Not Necessary For Eagles To Be Crows": Book Review, Neil Fulton

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The American K-12 School Violence Incident: A Brief Study, Gordon A. Crews, Garrison A. Crews

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

The authors give an overview of a research project that examined in detail 106 characteristics of 78 school violence incidents that occurred in the United States between 1979 and 2011. The result is an extensive overview of the location, date, and time of school violence incidents; the school environment in which violence occurred; the school violence incident itself; the characteristics of the perpetrators involved; characteristics of weapons used; and injuries incurred. The authors pose to the reader six major findings of the characteristics of K-12 school violence incidents in the United States which they argue must be considered as we …

Nsu Abraham S. Fischler College Of Education And School Of Criminal Justice (Fce&Scj) Graduate Catalog And Student Handbook 2021–2022, Nova Southeastern University

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice College Archive

No abstract provided.

Mental Distress Calls: Should Police Be Frontline Responders?, Audrey Suwarno

Capstone Showcase

Due to an over-reliance on law enforcement, police officers have become frontline responders to individuals suffering with mental illness, despite not being properly trained to handle such situations. Many studies have addressed officers’ feelings of incompetence and lack of preparedness when faced with an individual in distress. Without proper training, police tend to resort to force against individuals in mental distress, which can escalate the situation even further. This paper serves to analyze the excessive use of force that is commonly used amongst police officers during mental distress calls, as well as its potentially dangerous and fatal outcomes for individuals …

Standing Between The Past And The Future, How Defense Attorneys Use Stigma Management Techniques In Presenting Their Closing Arguments In Capital Sentencing Procedures: A Content Analysis, Abdulrahmane Abdul-Aziz

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

In the penalty-phase of a capital case, defense attorneys face a difficult task in managing the identity of their now convicted client. They must present a coherent narrative that combats the prosecution’s case and engenders leniency from the jury. The closing argument given by the defense attorney(s) provides a unique opportunity to analyze and understand the general use of stigma management techniques and their applicability to capital cases. Using content analysis, 18 Transcripts from Texas capital cases from 2005 to 2015 were analyzed against the relevant techniques of neutralization (Sykes & Matza, 1957): appeal to a higher loyalty, appeal to …

Law Enforcement Organization Relationships With Prosecutors, Daniel C. Richman

Faculty Scholarship

Although police departments and prosecutor’s o􀁽ces must closely collaborate, their organizational roles and networks, and the distinctive perspectives of their personnel, will inevitably and regularly lead to forceful dialogue and disruptive friction. Such friction can occasionally undermine thoughtful deliberation about public safety, the rule of law, and community values. Viewed more broadly, however, these interactions promote just such deliberation, which will become even healthier when the dialogue breaks out of the closed world of criminal justice bureaucracies and includes the public to which these bureaucracies are ultimately responsible. This chapter explores such organizational interactions and their value.

Covid-19 In Correctional Settings: How Has The Covid-19 Pandemic Impacted Prison Policies And Conditions?, Marissa Tepper

Capstone Showcase

Due to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), the public has been advised to isolate and quarantine from one another. These social distancing practices have also been applied to institutions such as schools, universities, businesses, and even prisons. Within prisons, officials have been working with the medical community to determine the best course of action to contain the spread of the virus. The current proposed policies for prisons to contain COVID-19 are decarceration or medical isolation. However, in the medical community, there is some concern with implementing medical isolation in prisons. Under supervision of the prison officials, medical isolation could become …

A Gender And Race Theoretical And Probabilistic Analysis Of The Recent Title Ix Policy Changes, Jordan Wellington

Scripps Senior Theses

On May 6th, 2020, after extensive public comment and review, the Department of Education published the final rule for the new Title IX regulations, which took effect in schools on August 14th. Title IX is the nearly fifty year old piece of the Education Amendments that prohibits sexual discrimination in federally funded schools. Several of these changes, such as the inclusion of live hearings and cross examination of witnesses, have been widely criticized by victims’ rights advocates for potentially retraumatizing victims of sexual assault and discouraging students from pursuing a Title IX claim. While the impact of the new regulations …

Child Exposure To Intimate Partner Violence In The Latin American Region, Gabriel Alvarado

McNair Scholars Manuscripts

Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is a major public health issue that harms thousands of families and communities across the globe. Unlike other forms of violence or criminal behavior, IPV is often concealed within the privacy of one's household, where the public cannot witness the occurrence of spousal abuse. Typically, more women are victims in an intimate relationship than men are based on recent research. However, there is a lack of research that investigates the vulnerability of a child who is exposed to IPV. This systematic literature review relates to the analysis and investigation of children exposed to IPV in Latin …

Immigration Offenses Throughout Federal Sentencing: An Analysis Of The Impact Of Political Affiliation Among Districts, Robin Hood

All Master's Theses

Immigration has remained one of the most controversial political debates throughout the United States. Research has yet to fully examine the effects of political affiliation of federal districts on sentencing outcomes for specific immigration offenses. To fill the gaps in research, this study compares political affiliation of federal districts among immigration offenses to determine variations in sentencing outcomes. Data included Presidential and House of Representative votes for the 2016 election and Monitoring of Federal Sentencing for the fiscal years of 2015-2016. Analysis includes case processing/legal variables, defendant characteristics, and political affiliation. To analyze political affiliation, a binary logistic regression was …

Twelve Angry Men: A Twenty-First Century Reflection Of Race, Art, And Incarceration, Mackenzie A. Gross

Honors Theses

Twelve Angry Men: A Twenty-First Century Reflection of Race, Art and Incarceration is a Comparative and Digital Humanities Honors Thesis concentrating on Africana Studies, theatre, sociology and legal studies to demonstrate the importance of investing in incarcerated communities through theatre and education.

In Chapter I, I critique the loss of identity attached to incarceration, and introduce the foundation for Black bodies individuals being discriminated against in the prosecution system. I analyze the “Punishment vs Progress” mentality, and introduce current educational programs in place in prisons. I elaborate on the details of our production, as well as the makeup of actors. …

Transitioning To Legalization Of Cannabis In Washington State: Regulations’ Impacts On Commodification, Metabolism, & Labor Practices, Rob Loewen

All Master's Theses

This thesis provides an ethnographically grounded analysis of how existing regulations shape the legal recreational cannabis industry in Washington State. I examine the processes involved from seed to sale, including cultivation, processing, quality-control testing, and distribution of recreational cannabis. The goal of this research is to provide a greater understanding of how existing regulations were formed and how they shape social relations within the industry. This study seeks to answer the question: “How are the processes of production within the recreational cannabis industry, along with its labor force and its consumers, impacted by societal perceptions about cannabis, encapsulated within state …

From The Legal Literature: Is Progressive Prosecution Possible?, Francesca Laguardia

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

No abstract provided.

The Trouble With Numbers: Difficult Decision Making In Identifying Right-Wing Terrorism Cases. An Investigative Look At Open Source Social Scientific And Legal Data, Daniela Peterka-Benton, Francesca Laguardia

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Terrorism research has gained much traction since the 9/11 attacks, but some sub genres of terrorism, such as right-wing terrorism, have remained under-studied areas. Unsurprisingly data sources to study these phenomena are scarce and frequently face unique data collection obstacles. This paper explores five major, social-scientific terrorism databases in regards to data on right-wing terrorist events. The paper also provides an in-depth examination of the utilization of criminal legal proceedings to research right-wing terrorist acts. Lastly, legal case databases are introduced and discussed to show the lack of available court information and case proceedings in regards to right-wing terrorism.

From The Legal Literature: Covid And The Criminal Law, Francesca Laguardia

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Policing In An Era Of Sousveillance: A Randomised Controlled Trial Examining The Influence Of Video Footage On Perceptions Of Legitimacy, Megan Mohler, Christopher M. Campbell, Kelsey S. Henderson, Brian Renauer

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications and Presentations

Controversial incidents of police-citizen interactions, coupled with advancements in internet media technology has created a new dynamic of how public perceptions of the police might be influenced. This paper reports results of an experiment examining how videos of police-citizen interactions found on social media platforms might influence civilian perceptions of legitimacy and procedural justice. Using 173 randomly assigned participants and a pre/post-test design, we compare perceptual effects of positive, negative, and neutral depictions of police-citizen interactions. Results indicate all media had an effect on perceptions of legitimacy, with negative content yielding the largest effects, significantly diminishing global perceptions of legitimacy, …

Veracious Verdicts: An Expansion Of Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory In Jury Decision-Making Using Attribution Theory, Jade E. Larson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As a pillar in our judicial system, the courts utilize almost ten million citizens each year for jury service. As a result, the courts are faced with issues of inconsistency and unpredictability. This study aims to examine some factors that significantly influence jury decision-making by investigating cognitive experiential self-theory (CEST) as a jury decision-making model, unified with attribution theory to better predict verdict outcomes. An online survey was distributed to 121 participants. The respondents were asked to read a civil trial case presentation; they were then randomly divided into two conditions (high and low unrelated detail eyewitness testimony). The testimonies …

The Robber Wants To Be Punished, Uri Weiss

Touro Law Review

It is a commonly held intuition that increasing punishment leads to less crime. Let us move our glance from the punishment for the crime itself to the punishment for the attempt to commit a crime, or to the punishment for the threat to carry it out. We argue that the greater the punishment for the attempted robbery, i.e., for the threat, "give me your money or else," the greater the number of robberies and threats there will be. The punishment for the threat makes the withdrawal from it more expensive for the criminal, making the relative cost of committing the …

Decarceration And Default Mental States, Benjamin Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Essay, presented at “Guilty Minds: A Virtual Conference on Mens Rea and Criminal Justice Reform” at ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, examines the politics of federal mens rea reform legislation. I argue that current mens rea policy debates reflect an overly narrow vision of criminal justice reform. Therefore, I suggest an alternative frame through which to view mens rea reform efforts—a frame that resonates with radical structural critiques that have gained ground among activists and academics. Common arguments for and against mens rea reform reflect a belief that the problem with the criminal system is one of …

By Any Means: A Philosophical Frame For Rulemaking Reform In Criminal Law, Trevor George Gardner

Scholarship@WashULaw

Equitable crime policy and equity in the process of crime policymaking stand as the two goals most important to criminal-justice reform advocates. It would be a strategic mistake, however, to consider the two of equal importance. Crime-policy reform should be considered the first-order principle of the crime-policy reform movement. Fairness in the crime-policymaking process, while key to the pursuit of democratic ideals, is best understood as a secondary consideration. Put simply, the prioritization of fair process risks stifling the crime-policy reform movement by tethering the policy ends of the movement (namely, minimalism in criminal administration) to a pre-ordained means.

The Future Of Supreme Court Reform, Daniel Epps, Ganesh Sitaraman

Scholarship@WashULaw

For a brief moment in the fall of 2020, structural reform of the Supreme Court seemed like a tangible possibility. After the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September, some prominent Democratic politicians and liberal commentators warmed to the idea of expanding the Court to respond to Republicans’ rush to confirm a nominee before the election, despite their refusal four years prior to confirm Judge Merrick Garland on the ground that it was an election year. Though Democratic candidate Joe Biden won the Presidency in November, Democrats lost seats in the House and have a majority in the Senate …

Checks And Balances In The Criminal Law, Daniel Epps

Scholarship@WashULaw

The separation of powers is considered essential in the criminal law, where liberty and even life are at stake. Yet the reasons for separating criminal powers are surprisingly opaque, and “the separation of powers” is often used to refer to distinct, and sometimes contradictory, concepts.

This Article reexamines the justifications for the separation of powers in criminal law. It asks what is important about separating criminal powers and what values such separation serves. It concludes that in criminal justice, the traditional Madisonian approach of separating powers between functionally differentiated political institutions—legislature, executive, and judiciary—bears no necessary connection to important values …

The Efficacy Of Recovering Latent Fingerprints From Fired Cartridge Cases By Way Of Cyanoacrylate Fuming Combined With Basic Yellow Dye Staining, Lily Mantz

Master of Science in Forensic Science Directed Research Projects

This experiment attempted to tackle the long-standing struggle to consistently recover latent fingerprints from fired cartridges. With an emphasis on realistic handling of high volume of samples combined with Cyanoacrylate fuming followed by Basic Yellow dye staining, a total of 740 cartridges were examined. These included fired and unfired brass and nickel case 9mm Luger and 40 S&W cartridges. The cartridges were divided into five different groups; each were treated differently prior to cyanoacrylate fuming and dye staining, which was conducted in the same manner for the groups. The groups included the positive and negative controls, loaded, cycled, and fired. …