Digital Commons Network^™

California’S Proposition 47: The Safe Neighborhoods And Schools Act, Edith Garcia Fong

Master's Projects

Proposition 47 made drastic changes to California’s criminal justice system. Critics and proponents of the measure have made sweeping claims about its impact on crime trends and the criminal justice system, in general. However, many of these claims are based on assumptions and are not based on actual data and research. Given the fact that California’s prison population is still subject to court oversight, it is essential that the effectiveness of Proposition 47 as a solution to this issue be evaluated. If the state hopes to maintain compliance with the court-mandated prison population caps, it must ensure to exhaust all …

“Disbelieving Black Women To Death”; The “Double Jeopardy”: Racism And Sexism Affects Black Women’S Access To And Quality Of Care During Pregnancy, Birth, And Postpartum, Madeline St. Clair

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

This paper explores possible reasons why Black women in the United States experience a higher maternal mortality rate than their white counterparts. Using books, articles, journals, documentaries, personal experiences and stories of Black women and mothers, I argue that barriers from the societal to the individual level create health and medical disparities for Black mothers in pregnancy, during delivery, and the postpartum period. The paper concludes with a multifaceted solution and call to action.

Youth Employment And Work Readiness: An Outcome Evaluation Of The County Of Santa Clara Intern & Earn Program, Kimlien Le

Master's Projects

The purpose of this research was to conduct an outcome evaluation of the County of Santa Clara Intern & Earn summer internship program, evaluating the impact of the program on the youth participants’ perception of their work readiness, as measured by their understanding of employer expectations, ability to communicate professionally, knowledge of career options, and their educational aspirations for future career advancement.

By placing low-income youth in subsidized summer employment programs that provide early work experiences with public agencies, nonprofit organizations, and private businesses; disadvantaged youth are given the opportunity to access skills development and employer networks, increase family earnings, …

How Does Grading Schools Impact Florida’S Teachers And Students? The Need For A New Approach To School Accountability, Luke Aubry Kupscznk

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

In 1999, Florida began grading schools on an A to F scale. These grades constituted part of the A+ package of policies advanced by Governor Bush’s administration. Schools then earned grades based on student standardized test scores. These changes followed a decade of increasing dismay over the trajectory of American education and preceded national moves towards test-based accountability for students and schools. While many researchers have investigated the effects of high-stakes testing on students, few have looked at the impacts of school-level accountability on non-test outcomes. This study considers the impacts of receiving a failing-grade on variables other than test …

Equity-Based Resource And Service Allocation For The City Of San José’S Department Of Parks, Recreation And Neighborhood Services, Patrick Córdova

Master's Projects

The purpose of this research is to examine the literature and public agency practice to understand how public agencies are using equity to allocate funding for services to provide an adequate level of service to stakeholders based on need. The research question is, based on existing research and other governmental agency models, how can the City of San José’s Department of Parks, Recreation, and Neighborhood Services (PRNS) develop guidelines to allocate its resources within an equity-based framework?

Operational Procedures For Releasing Police Records: A Process Evaluation Of California Law Enforcement Agencies’ Implementation Of Senate Bill 1421, Bianca Madrid

Master's Projects

This research intends to explain how law enforcement agencies in California have implemented operational procedures to comply with the CPRA pursuant to SB 1421 requirements. Because SB 1421 vastly expanded the CPRA, demand for law enforcement record requests has significantly increased in volume. Also, due to key components of SB 1421 which lack clarity in defining specific terminology, each law enforcement agency had to develop its own interpretation of how to implement requirements set forth by the statute. Law enforcement agencies have implemented new requirements to reflect the changes in SB 1421 by establishing working protocols for compliance, developing standard …

Extreme Ideologies, Situational Factors, And Terrorists’ Target Selection, Evan Mudgett

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the current study is to examine how ideology and situational factors shape terrorist target selection in the United States. While a growing number of studies have examined target selection by terrorists, the current study is the first to consider how combinations of factors present situated opportunities for terrorists to select particular types of targets as opposed to others. Guided by the situational crime prevention approach, this study relies on data from the American Terrorism Study (ATS) to measure attributes of incidents perpetrated by far-right and Islamic extremists and target selection. The outcomes of interest include government versus …

Restorative Justice Practices: Addressing The Eleven Percent, Marshal Galvan Jr.

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This paper analyzes, assesses, and introduces the importance of a “Needs Assessment” that can potentially record the effectiveness of the Victim Offender Reconciliation Program (VORP) practices with its youth offenders. VORP is a program within the purview of the Restorative Justice Partners, INC. organization. The functions of this program works closely with the probation department of Monterey County, along with various community partners; its practices are funneled through a restorative justice lens. Current data will show that 89% of youth offenders who have successfully completed the VORP program and are closed compliant do not reoffend, meanwhile the other 11% recidivates …

Attrition In A Holistic Job Skills Training Program: A Qualitative Study, Jeaniece Silas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Today thousands of individuals and families are unemployed or underemployed and are seeking ways to combat poverty and become employed. One way that individuals seek to gain employment is by attending job skills training and adult education programs. However, there are barriers that hinder those individuals from successfully completing the programs. The purpose of this study is to explore the experience of applicants of a nonprofit job skills training program called FaithWorks and explore the reasons why applicants were not able to continue and, or complete the program. This study was conducted, through qualitative interviewing of four participants (N=4) utilizing …

Texas Region Two Crossover Youth Practice Model Proposed Pilot Study, Erin Snider

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT The term crossover youth refers to children who have been abused or neglected, participated in delinquent behavior, and are involved in the child welfare and juvenile justice system. The purpose of this study was to gain information about the current crossover youth population within Texas Region Two, who could potentially benefit from the Crossover Youth Practice Model (CYPM).This proposed pilot study advocates for the implementation of the CYPM in Abilene, Texas, which is one of the counties in Region Two and a place that has not yet enacted protocols and specific services for the crossover youth population. This was …

Analyses Of Prosecutorial Power And Discretion In Mississippi: Evaluating Proposals To Address Misconduct And Abuse, Lucy Pruitt

Honors Theses

This thesis seeks to create a policy proposal in order to address incidences of prosecutorial misconduct and abuse of discretion in the Mississippi criminal justice system. To do so, the author has summarized and analyzed seven criminal cases in which defendants have become victims of prosecutorial misconduct in order to shed light on the lack of prosecutorial accountability in the state’s criminal justice system. In an attempt to solve the problem, the author has developed a novel grading rubric in order to objectively and systematically analyze and evaluate previously proposed policy recommendations by legal experts and justice organizations. The successes …

A City On The Front Lines Of An Epidemic: The Opioid Crisis In Las Vegas, Elia Del Carmen Solano-Patricio

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

Advanced Undergraduate Winner

While addiction to opioids kills more Americans every year, the purpose of this report is to assess the extent of the problem in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, and to propound ways in which local policy can help. A geospatial analysis of opioid demand nationally, regionally, and locally explains how the epidemic is diffusing, where divides exist in terms of access to treatment, and the differential effects of opioids driving this crisis. By tracking opioid-related prescriptions, hospital admissions, and deaths, the results show that opioid demand in the Las Vegas metro has decreased but remains well above …

Model Penanggulangan Terorisme Di Indonesia: Studi Kasus Efektifitas Sinergitas Militer Dan Kepolisian Di Poso Tahun 2016, Agus Kartomo, Arthur Josias Simon Runturambi

Jurnal Kajian Stratejik Ketahanan Nasional

Counter-terrorism is responsibility among citizen in the “Sishankamrata” doctrine. The police and military are the main elements in “Sishankamrata”. The first purpose of this study is to analyze how best practiced democratic countries to deal with terrorism, the second goal is to test how effective the synergy of the police and military in counter-terrorism. Operation Tinombala is as a case study which law enforcement operation against terrorism in Poso in 2016. This research uses qualitative methods and primary data collected from interviews to Tinombala’s members, secondary data is collected from books and open source news. The results showed that in …

Non-Traditional Church Involvement As A Life-Course Turning Point: Qualitative Interviews With Religious Offenders, William Hunter Holt

Dissertations

This research project conducted and then analyzed qualitative interviews from former and current addicts and criminal offenders who are voluntarily participating in the Christian faith at the same non-traditional, Protestant church. An abridged case study of this church is also provided for background and context. Life-course theory and grounded theory are utilized.

Both the offenders and this church were chosen in an attempt to better understand how the offenders’ involvement at this house of worship, along with their faith in general, have impacted them. Obtaining the perspectives of the offender is essential for three reasons. First, qualitative research conducted in …

Indigenous Communities Versus Oil Companies: Identifying Trends In Tactics And Success Of Indigenous-Led Anti-Petroleum Movements In The Ecuadorian Amazon, Ella V. H. Carlson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In roughly the last 50 years, the Ecuadorian Amazon has become the epicenter of petroleum production in Ecuador. As oil companies attempt to exploit more and more of the rainforest, they have encroached on indigenous lands, leading to violations of indigenous rights through environmental destruction. As their territories have been invaded, indigenous groups throughout the Amazon have formed movements large and small in resistance to petroleum activities. Scholars have studied select campaigns in the past, but the literature lacks a comparative review of the characteristics of those movements. This paper compiles histories of seven campaigns against petroleum in the Ecuadorian …

Debt Bondage: How Private Collection Agencies Keep The Formerly Incarcerated Tethered To The Criminal Justice System, Bryan L. Adamson

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

This Article examines the constitutionality of statutes which allow courts to transfer outstanding legal financial obligations to private debt collection agencies. In Washington State, the clerk of courts can transfer the legal financial obligation of a formerly incarcerated person if he or she is only thirty days late making a payment. Upon transfer, the debt collection agencies can assess a “collection fee” of up to 50% of the first $100.000 of the unpaid legal financial obligation, and up to 35% of the unpaid debt over $100,000. This fee becomes part of the LFO debt imposed at sentencing, and like that …

Advocacy Coalition Framework Lens On Pressing Healthcare Issues, Garrett S. Goodwin

Student Publications

In deciding how to interpret and understand public policy, many experts use theories and frameworks to justify their reasoning. One of the most common avenue of viewing policy involves the advocacy coalition framework based on its broad applicability. This popular framework consists of banding like-minded individuals together into a coalition to advance the narrative by creating acceptable policies for their group. These coalitions normally include a wide range of professional backgrounds from interest groups, elected officials, researchers in academia. These groups utilize special events to influence subfields consisting of actors who decide the solutions for policy problems. Subfields normally are …

The Policies Of The Catholic Church Sex Abuse Scandal Analyzed Through Punctuated Equilibrium Theory, Multiple Streams Theory, And Diffusion Theory, Camille T. Traczek

Student Publications

The discovery of sexual abuse of children at the hands of Catholic Church priests resulted in extensive state policy suggestions, such as statute of limitations reform. To best understand the processes and factors that influenced the creation of such policies, Punctuated Equilibrium Theory, Multiple Streams Theory, and Diffusion Theory are applied in this paper. Punctuated Equilibrium Theory demonstrates how several large-scale public exposés of abuse generated enough attention to result in policy change. Multiple Streams Theory shows how awareness of sexual abuse within the Catholic church, continuous debate over proposed policies, and the opportunity for change can result in the …

Mhpaea & Marble Cake: Parity & The Forgotten Frame Of Federalism, Taleed El-Sabawi

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No abstract provided.

Resentencing Of Juvenile Lifers: The Philadelphia Experience, Tarika Daftary Kapur, Tina Zottoli

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

We examined the Philadelphia District Attorney Office’s approach to juvenile lifer resentencing, which began in 2017 under the administration of District Attorney Seth Williams and has continued under the administration of District Attorney Larry Krasner. For cases resentenced as of December 31st, 2019, we describe similarities and differences between the Williams and Krasner administrations in decision making and sentence length reductions, and we report on the recidivism rate and estimated cost savings for Pennsylvania as a result of release.

Opioid Agonist Therapy During Hospitalization Within The Veterans Health Administration: A Pragmatic Retrospective Cohort Analysis, Kelsey C. Priest, Travis I. Lovejoy, Honora Englander, Sarah Shull, Dennis Mccarty

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background

Hospitalization of patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) is increasing, yet little is known about opioid agonist therapy (OAT: methadone and buprenorphine) administration during admission.

Objective

Describe and examine patient- and hospital-level characteristics associated with OAT receipt during hospitalization in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA).

Participants

A total of 12,407 unique patients, ≥ 18 years old, with an OUD-related ICD-10 diagnosis within 12 months prior to or during index hospitalization in fiscal year 2017 from 109 VHA hospitals in the continental U.S.

Main Measure

OAT received during hospitalization.

Key Results

Few admissions received OAT (n = 1914; 15%) …

Across Racial Lines: Three Accounts Of Transforming Urban Institutions After A Natural Disaster, James Carter, Nolan Rollins, Gregory Rusovich

New England Journal of Public Policy

At 1:30 p.m. on August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina grazed the mostly evacuated city of New Orleans, reserving its most devastating force for coastal Mississippi, just to the east. During the next two days, the federal levees protecting the city failed in multiple places. Sixteen hundred people died in the metropolitan area. Residences and businesses in 80 percent of the city went underwater. Public officials warned residents and business owners that they might not be able to return for two to three months. The scope of devastation in certain parts of the city made ever returning questionable for many residents. …

Rising From Katrina’S Ashes But Still In Crisis: Public Defense In New Orleans, Derwyn Bunton

New England Journal of Public Policy

New Orleans’ nickname “Big Easy” was based on the “anything goes” perception of the city. Feeding this perception was a sense of lawlessness, that New Orleans was a place where the rules changed depending on who you were and who you knew. So when Hurricane Katrina hit the city in August 2005 and tossed everything around—flooding mansions and missions, damaging the Superdome and supermarkets—the storm challenged old perceptions and presented unique challenges. Katrina made at least one thing clear: New Orleans could no longer wait for change, pretend nothing happened, or look back. The city’s survival depended on its ability …

Legal Origins And Evolution Of Local Ethics Reform In New Orleans, David A. Marcello

New England Journal of Public Policy

The Office of Inspector General came first, and like many another reform in city government, it was born as a campaign commitment. When I met with state senator Marc H. Morial in September 1993 to discuss the issues component of his campaign for mayor, ideas poured out of him for an hour and a half, and I took copious notes. “We need an Inspector General,” he said, “and we need Charter Revision”—the two ideas linked from this first campaign convening. When he was elected mayor six months later and inaugurated in May 1994, charter reform became an early and important …

The New Orleans Criminal Legal System: A Flowing River, William C. Snowden

New England Journal of Public Policy

Ask anyone from New Orleans and they will tell you the city has not been the same since the storm. Although the city has persevered through many storms and hurricanes in its three-hundred-year history, this particular storm—Hurricane Katrina—is notorious for the transformation it brought to New Orleans in the years that followed.

The makeup, culture, and rhythm of New Orleans have changed, but so too have the various systems that give the city its tempo—particularly the criminal legal system. Hurricane Katrina was a disaster that revealed deficiencies, abnormalities, and injustices in the New Orleans criminal legal system. Some responses to …

Community Demand For Change And Accountability: A History Of Court Watch Nola, New Orleans’ Community Courtwatching Program, Simone Levine

New England Journal of Public Policy

The criminal justice system, like any other system, is run by insiders: prosecutors, judges, deputy sheriffs, police, clerks, private defense, and public defenders. But system outsiders—victims, witnesses, criminal defendants, and the community in general—have the power to demand respect from that same system and to demand that the system work for them. System insiders have no monopoly on the knowledge and the power to shape the criminal justice system.

Katrina And The Philanthropic Landscape In New Orleans, Ludovico Feoli

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article explores the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the philanthropic landscape in New Orleans, drawing on the perspective of participants in the field—staff and board members of community, local, and national foundations and key nonprofits—who were surveyed or interviewed for this purpose. It does not offer a definitive statement about the disaster as it pertains to philanthropy; nor does it consider the crucial leadership role of the many individuals involved in the recovery process, even though that role often intercepted with the philanthropic sector. Instead, it seeks to identify general trends that emerge from a qualitative assessment of the …

The New New Orleans, Gregory Rusovich

New England Journal of Public Policy

The Business Council of New Orleans and the River Region was formed in 1985 by the iconic chairman and CEO of Freeport McMoRan, Jim Bob Moffett. The core mission of the Business Council during its thirty-four years has been to improve the region’s business climate, enhancing the quality of life for the community, working to effect principled reform, and simply striving to make New Orleans a safer and better place to live, work, and raise a family. It consists of CEOs and owners of primarily the largest businesses and employers in the city and has ranged in total membership from …

Reconnecting The Broken Post-Katrina New Orleans Criminal Justice System, Graymond Martin

New England Journal of Public Policy

When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and the levees protecting the city gave way in August 2005, an already struggling and weakened criminal justice system collapsed in spectacular fashion.

Damage within New Orleans extended far beyond the loss of physical infrastructure. The city’s population was depleted by more than half. For those who remained or returned within the first year, spirits were crushed, uncertainty abounded, and the hard work of restoration was riddled by anxiety, conflict, opportunism, and battles for precious resources.

Longtime judge Leon Cannizzaro Jr., appalled at the near-complete dysfunction of the local criminal justice system, entered and …

Slaying Two Sacred Cows: One Group’S Part In Helping New Orleans Reform, Rebuild, And Renew, Ruthie Frierson

New England Journal of Public Policy

Citizens for One Greater New Orleans was a volunteer group of women that exemplified the surge of citizen activism that flourished in New Orleans after Katrina. Alarmed by their realization that local government was too dysfunctional to direct a successful comeback, citizens mobilized and charged at two seemingly untouchable local institutions they deemed ripe for reform, the ineffectual levee board and the notoriously biased board of tax assessors. Using skills honed through years of volunteer work, they mobilized public opinion, lobbied reluctant state lawmakers, and finally achieved success through the passage of constitutional amendments in two separate statewide referendum elections. …