Digital Commons Network^™

Future Of Criminal Justice In America, Andrew Karanikolis

Senior Honors Projects

Throughout history, a civilization’s attitudes toward the law, crime, and punishment have served as indicators of its morality and commitment to progress. What then, I wonder, will history say about the American Civilization? Might they ask why the wealthiest nation in the world also has the highest incarceration rates?

This is but one of the critical questions I was left with after my internship at the Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office. America currently houses over 2.5 million inmates in state and federal prisons across the country. Despite the noticeable decline in crime (particularly violent crime) over the past decade, prison …

Displacement Or Diffusion: A Secondary Analysis Of The Las Vegas Safe Village Initiative, Daniel Duane Swanson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Police initiatives have been implemented by many agencies in an attempt to curtail growing crime rates. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department implemented the "Safe Village Initiative" to address this issue in west Las Vegas. This deterrence based model reduced calls for service in the target area with a diffusion of benefits to the surrounding neighborhoods.

The current study will analyze two research questions pertaining to the "Safe Village Initiative". The first will assess the possibility that a displacement of crime occurred as a result of the treatment. The second research question will address whether, if no displacement occurred, there …

Peacebuilding In Northern Ireland: The Past, Present And Future, Stephen Ryan

Peace and Conflict Studies

This article explores the reasons for the slow progress being made in the Northern Ireland peace process. It examines complications that exist in dealing with the past, present, and future of the conflict between the two main communities whilst also arguing that it is hard to separate these time frames in practice. In terms of the present, some well known difficulties with the consociational approach are identified. Recent studies have also demonstrated a failure to address sectarianism at the grass-roots level and there has been a resurgence in activity by spoilers and rejectionists. When thinking about the future the two …

Development Of An Outcomes-Based Undergraduate Curriculum In Homeland Security, James D. Ramsay, Daniel A. Cutrer, Robert Raffel

Security Studies & International Affairs - Daytona Beach

As a professional discipline, homeland security is complex, dynamic, and interdisciplinary and not given to facile definition. As an academic discipline, homeland security is relatively new and growing, and its workforce aging. As such, there is an acknowledged need to develop academic homeland security programs to try and meet anticipated workforce needs. However, the lack of an accreditation system or a set of available published outcomes (or standards) have complicated efforts towards homeland security program development. At present, determining which courses to teach and which outcomes in each course to pursue must be left to anecdotal conversations, reviews of the …

Prison Reformation: A Five- Step Plan And Evidence Of Community Support, Nicole Borger

Honors College Theses

The federal prison model is one that provides better service than state prisons for offenders both during and after their incarceration. I would like to lay out a plan for the New York State prison system that amplifies the federal prison system’s small scale ideas into ones that can reach thousands of offenders as well as prove, through a research study I, along with two colleagues Colleen Kelley and Adisa Alghali, conducted called “Effect of Information Regarding Mentally Ill Offenders on Community Perception of Sentencing,” that community support can be garnered for such a plan. This five-part plan includes the …

Development Of An Outcomes-Based Undergraduate Curriculum In Homeland Security, James D. Ramsay, Daniel Cutrer, Robert Raffel

Applied Aviation Sciences - Daytona Beach

As a professional discipline, homeland security is complex, dynamic, and interdisciplinary and not given to facile definition. As an academic discipline, homeland security is relatively new and growing, and its workforce aging. As such, there is an acknowledged need to develop academic homeland security programs to try and meet anticipated workforce needs. However, the lack of an accreditation system or a set of available published outcomes (or standards) have complicated efforts towards homeland security program development. At present, determining which courses to teach and which outcomes in each course to pursue must be left to anecdotal conversations, reviews of the …

Book Reviews, Edward J. Hagerty, Daniel Masters, Mark J. Roberts, Leland Ericson

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Residency Requirements On Police As Capable Guardians, David Pritchard

Theses and Dissertations

The debate over police residency requirements dates to the advent of the modern police force in the early 19th Century. Many reasons have been put forth regarding these requirements, from effectiveness to availability to economic impact. On the other hand, opponents have argued that quality of life, employee retention, and applicant pool should be considered in the decision to have residency mandates. This study seeks to determine the effectiveness of resident police officers within the context of the Routine Activities Theory. In particular, it considered whether police officers are more capable guardians when they live in the jurisdictions where they …

Positive Youth Justice: Framing Justice Interventions Using The Concepts Of Positive Youth Development, Jeffrey A. Butts, Gordon Bazemore, Aundra Saa Meroe

Publications and Research

Positive youth development could be an effective framework for designing general interventions for young offenders. Such a framework would encourage youth justice systems to focus on protective factors and risk factors, strengths, problems, and broader efforts to facilitate successful transitions to adulthood for justice-involved youth. The positive youth development approach supports youth in successfully transitioning from adolescence to early adulthood by encouraging young people to develop useful skills and competencies and build stronger connections with pro-social peers, families, and communities (Butts, Mayer, & Ruth, & Ruth, 2005). Young people engaged with trustworthy adults and peers to pursue meaningful activities and …

The Psychology Of Female Suicide Terrorism: Context And A Partial, Annotated Bibliography, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

The author examines the phenomena of female suicide in the context of terrorism, and the reasons women suicide, examining selected sources on the topic.

Onondaga County Community Indicators 2010 (Abridged Report), Syracuse University. Maxwell School. Community Benchmarks Program

Community Benchmarks Program

The 2010 Community Indicators Report highlights how Onondaga County compares to the past and to other geographic areas. This report consolidates information on the trends and issues facing county residents to generate discussion, celebrate success and stimulate interest in collecting and reporting data. The report is not exhaustive and will expand as more data become available

Taking Money: The Politics Of Asset Forfeiture In The State Of Minnesota, Chad Hedman

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Is there a reason why a particular county might use asset forfeiture more than others? Asset forfeiture, in short, is law enforcement confiscating any items used in the act of committing a crime. As many governments face more budget crunches and deficits all means of revenue will become more vital to everyday operations. Everything gets reported back to the Minnesota State Auditor, where I was able to get complete data on every county. For variables such as education, race and others I drew from numerous government websites. I wanted to see if certain variables correlated with higher incidence of forfeiture. …

Juvenile Delinquency Policy And Juvenile Crime In The American States, Jennifer Baker

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Every year each state comes out with a report on all the possible crimes that were committed and how many people were convicted for various crimes in a given state. The same goes for juveniles, as reported in the Juvenile Offenders and Victims 2006 National Report. I compiled data on the fifty states and their programs directed towards juveniles. I then compared the different crimes against the different programs to see if there was any significant difference in Crime rates between states having a specific juvenile justice program or not. I found that some of the programs did affect crime …

Immediate Aftercare Program For Survivors And Families Of Homicide Victims: The Case Of Cobb County Government, Susan B. Stern

Dissertations, Theses and Capstone Projects (Full IR Collection)

Cobb County, Georgia is a rapidly growing, upscale, suburban county in the metro-Atlanta region. However, the County lacks the ability to provide a comprehensive array of services to family members of homicide victims and other non-natural death cases. While various counseling and service programs exist in the area, there is no singular focus on the delivery of services to homicide survivors, families, and friends. Other than the general information provided to surviving family members by the Medical Examiner’s Office at the time of death, there is little to no emphasis currently placed on services to or the needs of those …

Policing With The Community, Dream Or Reality: Perspectives Of The Police Service Of Northern Ireland In West Belfast, Tom Carey

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This report is a culmination of three weeks of intensive primary research on community policing methods suggested in the Patten Report and the perspectives concerning police and policing in west Belfast held by Police officers as well as members of the community. My research question was; is the PSNI policing with the community as the Patten Report suggested in 1999? I set out to find if the active partnerships between the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the community were actually being realized. Data was collected through interviews with both the Police Service of Northern Ireland officers from the Woodbourne …

The Criminalization Of Homelessness, Sarah Mckenzie Prather

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The current study is an analysis of the problem of homelessness in American society today. It focuses on the demographic characteristics of the homeless in addition to some of the contributing factors that explain homelessness. Of particular concern is how the criminal justice system responds to homelessness, including the criminalization and stigmatization of homeless individuals and the implications of such a response. The data used in this study come from a recent survey conducted in a jail setting in a northwest city. The present study compares those who have been homeless at one time or another and those who have …

Change From The Inside Out, Miriam Messinger

New England Journal of Public Policy

In this article, I proffer that one way to build social change is to create organizations, lead, and build relationships that model and reflect the change being sought on a grander scale. Sometimes this necessitates burrowing deeper and focusing inward as a means to building sustainable change. I was engaged in this work for eight years at The City School of Boston. While The City School is a functioning, vibrant organization, I no longer work there and so will talk about the work I was a part of in the past tense.

Lessons From The Field, Mary Nee

New England Journal of Public Policy

Organizational growth can fundamentally undermine the social-change mission of a nonprofit organization if the adaptive responses to growth are not continually checked against mission and vision. As the executive director of a U.S. nonprofit created in response to the crisis of homelessness, I have observed that this danger is particularly acute when an organization evolves from advocacy to service delivery.

Institutional Structures Of Opportunity In Refugee Resettlement: Gender, Race/Ethnicity, And Refugee Ngos, Stephanie J. Nawyn

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Previous research suggests that social welfare assistance can further subordinate already disadvantaged recipients. Refugee resettlement, essentially a social welfare program, offers a diferent perspective on how welfare assistance might exert social control. Using data gathered from 60 in-depth interviews with people working in resettlement and observations at refugee non-governmental organizations (NGOs), this paper argues that refugee NGOs provide a complex institutional opportunity structure that has the potential to reproduce the gender and racial/ethnic subordination embedded in refugee welfare policy while also providing opportunities for refugees to counteract subordinating gender and racial/ethnic relations through advocacy and cultural activities. These findings refine …

The Career Progression Of Women In State Government Agencies, Maria J. D'Agostino, Helisse Levine

Publications and Research

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the impact of the utilization of organizational practices on the career progression of women to executive positions in state-level government organizations in the USA.

Design/methodology/approach – The design included an online survey instrument sent to a purposive sample of 600 female administrative agency executives in 50 states. A standard multilinear regression model tests the predictive power of three composite explanatory utilization variables on the dependent variable, career progression of women to upper level management. The composite predictor variables are: utilization of work/family practices; utilization of diversity practices; and utilization …

Examining Violent And Property Crimes In The Provinces Of Turkey For The Years Of 2000 And 2007, Mus Ekrem

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the relationship between social, economical, and demographic variables and reported violent and property crime incidents in the provinces of Turkey between 2000 and 2007. The data on violent and property crimes comes from Turkish National Police. All other variables are secondary data gathered from open sources and Turkstat. The research is one of the first studies to examine this relationship in Turkey. The findings of the study suggest that family disruption rate and gross domestic product were significantly related to the violent crime rate while family disruption rate, gross domestic product, population, population density, and urbanization rate …

Arts-In-Corrections: A Path To Redemption, Larry Brewster

Public and Nonprofit Administration

The California Arts-in-Corrections (AI C) program is among the oldest in the nation. The Prison Arts Program (PAP), a three-year pilot program, was the precursor of Arts-in-Corrections In 1983, I found the program to be cost-effective, and in 1986 wrote about the importance of prison art programs in the Journal of American Culture. Twenty-five years later, this paper evaluates the impact Arts-in-Corrections had on the lives of men and women during and following their incarceration. A diverse group of ex-cons as measured by race, age, gender and crimes committed were interviewed, and four of them were students in AIC at …

A Critical Analysis Of The Theoretical And Empirical Literature Comparing The Effects Of Traditional Versus Community Policing On Quality Of Life And Associated Quality Of Life Issues, Rodney Polite

Graduate Student Dissertations, Theses, Capstones, and Portfolios

There are two major issues that will be addressed in this study to determine if they influence the selection of an appropriate policing strategy. The first is citizen perception of whether crime has decreased or increased in their community. The second is whether the length of time a citizen has lived in the community has an effect on their perception of crime and their attitude towards a specific policing strategy.

Historically, each policing strategy, although at times labeled differently (professional policing, team policing, neighborhood policing, zero-tolerance policing), has evolved and adapted based on various dynamics within police organizations and the …

The International Implications Of Quality-Of-Life Policing As Practiced In New York City, Bruce D. Johnson, Andrew Golub, James E. Mccabe

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

The New York City Police Department (NYPD) has made enforcement of laws against disorder and quality-of-life offenses a central part of its policing strategy. Concomitantly, New York City (NYC) experienced a renaissance in orderliness, cleanliness, tourism, real estate value, and crime reduction, although other problems such as poverty, unemployment, drug abuse, racial tensions, and homelessness persist. This paper examines quality-of-life policing practices in NYC, describes the philosophical underpinnings, explores the critical response to the program, and presents lessons of potential relevance to other policing organizations in the USA and around the world.

Integrating Theory, Practice And Policy The Technical Efficiency And Productivity Of Florida's Circuit Courts, Joseph A. Ferrandino

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 1998, Florida voters approved Article V, Revision 7, which changed the funding mechanism of the state circuit court system from a county/state mix to state responsibility. The change was implemented as planned in the 2004/05 fiscal year. Although increased efficiency was a key goal of Revision 7, to date no published studies exist on the impacts of Revision 7 on circuit or system efficiency and/or productivity. This work analyzes Revision 7, integrating the larger debate of increasing judgeships or improving efficiency. The study is a full performance analysis of the Florida circuit courts from 1993 through 2008 that can …

The Contextual Impact Of Income Inequality On Social Capital And Adverse Social Outcomes, Jeannie Schiff

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

An interdisciplinary approach to policy and governance recognizes that many social welfare problems are interrelated, and policy-makers have long recognized a need to address the root causes of these problems. There is much evidence that income inequality is one of these root causes but research suggesting the effect of income inequality is mediated by social capital has complicated the relationship, as have theories of causality that take different approaches. This study takes an ecological approach to these issues to test the relationship between income inequality, social capital and selected adverse outcomes proposed by the relative income hypothesis. The relative income …

Are They Ready For Their Close-Up? Civil Servants And Their Portrayal In Contemporary American Cinema, Michelle C. Pautz, Laura Roselle

Political Science Faculty Publications

Norma Desmond famously says in Billy Wilder’s Sunset Blvd. (1950), “All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my closeup.”1 Since then, this phrase has been uttered countless times to ensure the camera does not start rolling until everyone is ready. But all are not afforded the opportunity to get ready and civil servants fall squarely into this category. We know that government bureaucrats are among those individuals that Americans love to hate and attacks on the civil service come from a plethora of sources.2 And because of the ability of film (as well as other narrative forms) to influence perceptions …

Student Attitudes Towards Campus Law Enforcement Exploring Issues Of Confidence And Utilization, Vivian J. Ortiz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The assessment of citizen attitudes has, in recent decades, become standard practice within the criminal justice system. However, in assessing the criminal justice system, most research has gathered data on the attitudes and perceptions of specific populations within society (i.e. older citizens) and has not really focused on younger age groups, or more specifically, students enrolled in colleges and universities. The present study examined attitudes of college students in the areas of confidence and utilization of campus police. Utilizing a non-random convenience sample of undergraduate and graduate students (N=393) at a large four-year research institution, participants completed a 21-item survey …

Challenges For Human, Social, Cultural, And Behavioral Modeling, S. K. Numrich, Andreas Tolk

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Faculty Publications

Today's military focus has moved away from the force-on-force battlefield of the past century and into the domain of irregular warfare and its companion security, stability, transition and reconstruction missions. With that change in focus has come a need to examine the operational environment from a wider perspective, one that includes the whole range of human experiences and circumstances. As the set of factors and list of players expands, the need for reliable modeling and simulation increases, if for no other reason than to help the human decision maker make sense of this expanded decision space. However, to do this, …

Expanded Learning Opportunities Updated Fund Mapping 2010, Teri Perkins, Nancy Shank, Jeff Cole

University of Nebraska Public Policy Center: Publications

In January 2008, Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman hosted the Governor’s Summit for Expanded Learning Opportunities. The Summit explored collaborative efforts of schools and community leaders to create expanded learning opportunities for Nebraska’s children and youth. Following the event, Governor Heineman asked the Nebraska Children and Families Foundation and the Nebraska Community Learning Centers Network to map funding for expanded learning opportunities in Nebraska.

Fund mapping ties into the long term goal of the Nebraska Children and Families Foundation and the Nebraska Community Learning Centers Network to promote greater efficiencies through increased coordination, advocate for additional support for projects that meet …