Digital Commons Network^™

Michigan Juvenile Waiver Law: Time For Repeal?, Debra Barnum

SPNHA Review

The sharp increase in violent juvenile crimes from 1988 to 1994 compelled Michigan and almost every other state in the United States to create harsher laws to make it easier to transfer violent juvenile offenders to the adult criminal court. Michigan’s resolution arrived with the passing of Michigan Compiled Law (MCL) 712A.2d, via Public Act 288 of 1996, which abolished the age limit for juveniles to be waived to criminal court for felony crimes. Since MCL 712A.2d was passed, violent juvenile crimes and the number of juveniles transferred to criminal court have markedly decreased. However, does MCL 712A.2d deter juveniles …

Empathy And Campus Sexual Assault (Csa) Communication: Protecting The Wellbeing And Social Equity Of College Women, Kathleen Romero

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

A review of empathy and campus sexual assault communication has implications for technical communication research. Campus sexual assault is a social problem, and consequently college campuses are legally required to publish and disseminate sexual assault communication (i.e. policies, procedures, and training) to eliminate the behavior. Empathy is significant to campus sexual assault communication, given not only the emotional nature of the topic, but also the technical information to be communicated effectively and appropriately. Given the dearth of research on empathy and campus sexual assault communication, this expansive review of the literature establishes the need for technical communication research on empathy …

Morals In The United States Of America: Are They In Their Death Throes?, John A. Cook

Communication Faculty Publications

This article explores the ethics of large complex systems in the United States of America in three major case studies: the food industry, the pharmaceutical industry and the political/governmental institutions. Using the simple Aristotelian heuristic of good sense, good character and good will, the conclusion is that ethics is not a high priority due in large part to the relentless pursuit of large sums of money at any cost.

The Republican Party, Conservatives, And The Future Of Capital Punishment, Ben Jones

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

The United States has experienced a significant decline in the death penalty during the first part of the twenty-first century, as death sentences, executions, public support, and states with capital punishment all have declined. Many recent reforms banning or placing a moratorium on executions have occurred in blue states, in line with the notion that ending the death penalty is a progressive cause. Challenging this narrative, however, is the emergence of Republican lawmakers as champions of death penalty repeal legislation in red states. This Article puts these efforts by Republican lawmakers into historical context and explains the conservative case against …

The Downstream Effects Of Bail And Pretrial Detention On Racial Disparities In Incarceration, Ellen A. Donnelly, John M. Macdonald

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Bail and pretrial detention decisions may have important consequences for racial disparities in incarceration rates. Poor minority defendants who are unable to post bail and get released from jail before trial may be more likely to plead guilty and accept longer sentences of incarceration. Racial disparities in incarceration sentences may then reflect a combination of differences in the seriousness of a defendant’s case, criminal history, and economic resources to pay bail. This study examines the extent to which bail decision-making and pretrial detention explain Black-White disparities in criminal adjudications and sentences in the Delaware courts from 2012 to 2014. Over …

Hate Crimes Against Lgbtq Communities And Persons, Rebecca A. Mattson

Law Library Faculty Works

This section focuses on scholarship surrounding hate crimes—in particular hate crimes relating to LGBTQ communities. The scholarship spans the last decade, a decade that has seen significant progress. As such, early articles discuss marriage equality and suggest that hate crimes would significantly decrease if marriage equality passed at a federal level. Other articles focus on the Hate Crimes Statistics Act, Pub. L. No. 101-275, 28 U.S.C. § 534, and suggest that Congress should enact more, better antihate crime legislation that includes sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes. After the passage of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, Pub. L. …

A Broken Windows Theory Of Sexual Assault Enforcement, Erin Sheley

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

The law of sexual assault is in conflict. Jurisdictions struggle with the conceptual shift from thinking of rape as forcible sex to a broader understanding that turns on the meaning of consent. Due to resource, evidentiary, and reporting problems there is a mismatch between the new substantive understanding of sexual assault and its actual enforcement. This has led to something of a cultural war by survivors and many women generally against the idea of “rape culture,” which runs the risk of categorizing all sexualized or gendered speech and much of male behavior as implicitly rape-supportive. This article proposes that lessons …

Virtual Shackles: Electronic Surveillance And The Adultification Of Juvenile Courts, Chaz Arnett

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

In recent years, there has been a groundswell of attention directed at problems within the American criminal justice system, led in part by Michelle Alexander’s groundbreaking book, The New Jim Crow, and most recently through the efforts of the Black Lives Matter movement. This increased focus on the harms of over-incarceration and net-widening, has had the benefit of introducing to the public other practices utilized in the criminal justice system, such as the widespread use of ankle monitors to track the location of defendants and released offenders. Yet, despite this greater attention, legal scholarship has only recently begun to grapple …

Parental Prisoners: The Incarcerated Mother's Constitutional Right To Parent, Emily Halter

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

The United States prison population has grown at alarming and unprecedented rates in recent decades, with certain states imprisoning more individuals than entire countries. Recently, the number of incarcerated women has climbed faster than that of men. The high rate of female incarceration has devastating effects on society, as many women are mothers and primary caregivers. Furthermore, every year, a number of mothers give birth in prison. When this happens, the mother’s family and loved ones are often not permitted to be present. The mother gives birth in a room with only medical personnel and prison guards. She then generally …

Reduced Culpability Without Reduced Punishment: A Case For Why Lead Poisoning Should Be Considered A Mitigating Factor In Criminal Sentencing, Eleanor Kittilstad

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

The water crisis in Flint, Michigan, where residents discovered dangerous levels of lead in their water supply in 2015, has continued to unfold over the past three years and has brought the damaging effects of lead exposure to national attention. When developing children are exposed to even low levels of lead, they are at risk of developing cognitive impairments—disorders that cause aggressive behavior and diminished intellectual functioning. This Comment seeks to bring criminal law into the conversation about lead exposure and its damaging effects. Researchers have found that children exposed to lead have a higher risk of engaging in criminal …

Pdxscholar Annual Report 2017, Karen Bjork, Sherry Buchanan, David Coate, Bertrand Robinson, Stacey Schlatter

Library Faculty and Staff Publications and Presentations

This report details the seventh year of operation for PDXScholar, Portland State University's institutional repository, as well as the growth of Portland State University Library's publishing services. The report covers the period between January 1, 2017 and December 31, 2017.

Autonomy Isn't Everything: Some Cautionary Notes On Mccoy V. Louisiana, W. Bradley Wendel

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The Supreme Court’s May 2018 decision in McCoy v. Louisiana has been hailed as a decisive statement of the priority of the value of a criminal defendant’s autonomy over the fairness and reliability interests that also inform both the Sixth Amendment and the ethical obligations of defense counsel. It also appears to be a victory for the vision of client-centered representation and the humanistic value of the inherent dignity of the accused. However the decision is susceptible to being read too broadly in ways that harm certain categories of defendants. This paper offers a couple of cautionary notes, in response …

Convictions Of Innocent People With Intellectual Disability, Sheri Johnson, John H. Blume, Amelia Courtney Hritz

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court held that executing individuals with intellectual disability violates the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause of the Eighth Amendment. In addition to concerns over culpability and deterrence, the Court’s judgment in Atkins was informed by the heightened “risk of wrongful execution” faced by persons with intellectual disability. This essay explores that question both anecdotally and quantitatively, hoping to illuminate the causes of wrongful conviction of persons with intellectual disability. We provide examples from our experiences in the Cornell Death Penalty Clinic and cases brought to our attention by defense attorneys. We also present data …

The Resurgence Of American Nativism In The Early-Twentieth Century And Its Effects On Industrial Hemp Production In The United States, Roman King

Master's Theses or Doctor of Nursing Practice

Congress passed the Marihuana Tax Act on August 2, 1937, which officially made it illegal to handle any form of Cannabis sativa L. without adhering to mandatory taxes and registration forms. The American cultivation of industrial hemp (fibrous, non-psychoactive C. sativa L.), became non-existent by 1958 due to the strict penalties associated with the 1937 Tax Act. Industrial hemp served as a staple of American life from the arrival of the first English colonists in North America up until the textile conquest of King Cotton in the early-nineteenth century. Despite the rise of cotton and the importation of cheap foreign …

The Psychopath's Worldview: How Psychopathy Affects Attitudes Towards Others, Arianne Fisher

Master's Theses or Doctor of Nursing Practice

Psychopathy has been related to overall negative perceptions of others in past research, but the reason for these negative attitudes is unclear. The current study investigated the relationship between psychopathy and attitudes toward others and attempted to explain these negative attitudes by testing empathy and early maladaptive schemas as mediators and social dominance orientation as a moderator for this relationship. There were 191 participants in the current study; participants first read a short story and took a scale assessing attitudes toward the characters; then, they completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, the SDO7, the Young Schema Questionnaire-SF, and the Levenson Self-Report …

Legality In Contemporary Chinese Politics, Taisu Zhang, Tom Ginsburg

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

The picture of Chinese law that many Western scholars and commentators portray is an increasingly bleak one: since the mid-2000s, China has been retreating from legal reform back into unchecked authoritarianism. This article argues that, much to the contrary, Chinese politics have in fact become substantially more law-oriented over the past five years. The Chinese Communist Party under Xi Jinping has indeed centralized power and control to an almost unprecedented extent, but it has done this in a highly legalistic way, empowering courts against other state and Party entities, insisting on legal professionalism, and bringing political powers that were formerly …

School Personnel’S Knowledge And Perception Of School Refusal Behavior, Joshua M. Foy

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

This study examined the knowledge of school personnel regarding risk and protective factors, the four-function model, assessment, and treatment of school refusal behavior. This study also explored the perceptions of school personnel regarding the understanding of school refusal behavior as an emotional condition versus its being delinquent behavior and the climate of understanding at their work setting. Two hundred, ninety-six mental health and non-mental professionals who currently work in school settings across the United States participated in this study by completing an online survey pertaining to this topic. Results indicate that mental health professionals demonstrated a higher level of knowledge …

§5.19 Client Identity; Fee Arrangements, Christopher B. Mueller, Laird Kirkpatrick, Liesa Richter

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This article addresses the question of whether the attorney-client privilege covers the identity of the client and fee arrangements with the client. It discusses five recurring patterns where this issue arises and the holdings of courts in those situations.

Missouri Shows The True Meaning Of The “Show-Me” State – Missouri’S Unfounded Hesitation To Enact A Prescription Drug Monitoring Program, Emma Masse

Missouri Law Review

No abstract provided.

Desistance From Crime Of Serious Juvenile Offenders: Examining The Social And Individual Differences, Lisa Dunkley

Theses and Dissertations--Early Childhood, Special Education, and Counselor Education

There is an overrepresentation of youths with disabilities in the juvenile justice system. As a result, each year thousands of juvenile offenders despite of the seriousness of the crimes committed, are released from incarceration with the hopes of living a successful life in society. Despite progressive research on identifying factors associated with desistance, it is still unclear what factors contribute to desistance for serious juvenile offenders and especially those with disabilities. The current study investigated the individual differences (e.g., moral disengagement, motivation to succeed and impulse control) and social factors (e.g., employment, education and maternal warmth) that are important in …

The Relationship Between Executive Functioning And Treatment Outcomes Among Juvenile Sex Offenders, Sarah Decker

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

In 2006, youth 17 years of age and younger accounted for almost 20% of arrests for sexual offenses (Becker, 2007). Critical challenges exist to improve treatment for juvenile sex offenders, including identifying additional risk factors and developing treatment that is specifically tailored to the individual. Research has indicated the majority of juvenile sex offenders have difficulties in their executive-functioning abilities (Blanchard, Cantor, Robichaud, & Christensen, 2005). These deficits may contribute to higher risk potential and recidivism among juvenile sex offenders. Whether low levels of executive functioning influence risk of sexual or criminal offending/re-offending is unknown. The present study sought to …

Caged In: The Devastating Harms Of Solitary Confinement On Prisoners With Physical Disabilities, Jamelia Morgan

Faculty Articles and Papers

This article draws from interviews with currently and formerly incarcerated people with disabilities, disability rights advocates, prisoners' rights advocates, medical experts, legal scholars, and correctional officials, and examines the conditions of confinement, harms, and challenges facing prisoners with physical disabilities in solitary confinement. In addition, this article fills some of the gaps in data and where possible builds on existing data to provide a snapshot into (1) the number of people with physical disabilities; (2) the number of prisoners with physical disabilities in solitary confinement; and (3) the volume of grievances filed by prisoners with disabilities in ten state prison …

The New Law Of The Child, Anne Dailey, Laura A. Rosenbury

Faculty Articles and Papers

This Article sets forth a new paradigm for describing, understanding, and shaping children's relationship to law. The existing legal regime, which we term the "authorities framework;' focuses too narrowly on state and parental control over children, reducing children's interests to those of dependency and the attainment of autonomy. In place of this limited focus, we envision a "new law of the child" that promotes a broader range of children's present and future interests, including children's interests in parental relationships and nonparental relationships with children and other adults; exposure to new ideas; expressions of identity; personal integrity and privacy; and participation …

Personality And Mental Health Support Effects On Occupational Trauma And Posttraumatic Growth In Police Officers, Jennifer Leigh Wills

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate relationships between occupational trauma exposure, work environment stress, personality traits, posttraumatic stress, and posttraumatic growth in police officers.

Scope of the study: A cross sectional mixed method research study design with longitudinal component was utilized. The sample consisted of 109 police officers in approximately 13 police agencies from multiple communities ranging from small rural departments to major city and statewide agencies.

Instruments used: The California Psychological Inventory 434 (CPI-434); the Police Stress Questionnaire-Operational; the Police Stress Questionnaire-Organizational; the Critical Incident History Questionnaire; the Posttraumatic Checklist for the DSM-5; the Centrality of …

A Cartographic Workflow Manual For Endangered Species Conservation, Martin P. Viereckl

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In response to global consumer demand for rare and exotic wildlife products, poaching of endangered species has become pervasive around the world (Eliason 1999). Despite the enactment of CITES, and other international efforts to protect vulnerable species from overexploitation, the global market for illegal wildlife products is estimated as high as $20-billion a year industry (Wyler 2008). Within important wildlife habitat sites, law enforcement struggle to curb rampant poaching that threatens the ultimate survival of many endangered species (Jachmann 2008; Rowcliffe 2004). Law-enforcement agencies responsible for protecting wildlife from poachers often lack geospatial tools that could greatly improve the effectiveness …

Intimate Partner Violence: A Systematic Literature Review, Shailynn Shipley

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Intimate partner violence (IPV) and domestic violence have devastating effects on the health and well-being of people exposed to abuse. It is known that up to 75% of IPV episodes occur after a woman leaves her abuser, and women who seek help are most likely to suffer aggravated assaults or murder when trying to leave an abusive relationship (Cook & Nash, 2017). IPV screening has been well-studied as evidenced by the prolific research literature, however a synthesis of primary care actions that support the safety and well-being of women experiencing IPV is lacking. This systematic review compares traditional primary care …

2018 Faculty Accomplishments Reception, University Of Richmond

Faculty Accomplishments Reception Programs

Program for the 2018 Faculty Accomplishments Reception

In Honor of University of Richmond Faculty Contributions to Scholarship, Research and Creative Work, January 2017 - December 2017

March 30, 2018, 3:00 - 4:30 p.m.
Boatwright Memorial Library, Research & Collaborative Study Area, First Floor

Owning Our Implicit Attitudes: Responsibility, Resentment, And The Whole Self, Wesley Whitaker

CMC Senior Theses

Are implicit biases something we can rightly be held responsible for, and if so, how? A variety of social and cognitive psychological studies have documented the existence of wide-ranging implicit biases for over 30 years. These implicit biases can best be described as negative mental attitudes that operate immediately and unconsciously in response to specific stimuli. The first chapter of this thesis surveys the psychological literature, as well as presents findings of real-world experiments into racial biases. I then present the dominant model of implicit attitudes as mere associations, followed by evidence that at least some implicit attitudes take on …

Victim-Group Legitimacy: An Argument For Extending Our Understanding Of Legitimacy After Crisis, Cody Blake Wilson

International Crisis and Risk Communication Conference

Organizational legitimacy has been useful approach to studying relationship management in crisis. This presentation suggests an expansion of organizational legitimacy theory: victim-group legitimacy. Multiple recent cases of crisis involving historically marginalized groups (HMGs) suggest that organizations may not be fully prepared to respond to crises involving HMGs. Recent cases also suggest that publics now routinely see modern crises as chapters within larger marginalization narratives. Victim-group legitimacy acts as a framework for evaluating, interpreting, and responding to not only the crisis at hand, but the historical crisis between an organization and HMGs.

Explaining Variance In Crime Rates Among Florida Counties, Philip M. Dispirito

Honors Undergraduate Theses

What explains the variance in crime rates among Florida counties? Bivariate regression found that clearance rate had a statistically significant negative relationship with crime rate, and that the following variables had a statistically significant positive association with crime rate: law enforcement funding, population density, Hispanic population percent, the percent of males in the 18-39 range, and the percent of immigrants. It seems probable that law enforcement funding is actually dependent on crime rate rather than causing increases in crime rate: counties with higher crime rates likely spend more money on law enforcement to combat crime. To deal with significant multicollinearity, …