Digital Commons Network^™

Impact Of Prescription Opioid Access Restrictions On Alcohol-Induced Mortality In Kentucky, Changwe Park

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) are state policy tools to combat risky opioid prescribing. Since 2012, several states began to mandate PDMP use. As mandating use laws have settled down, evaluating potential adverse events becomes possible.

In this study, I focus on alcohol-induced mortality as a potential unintended consequence via substituting alcohol for prescription opioids, since alcohol and opioids are often concurrently misused as a part of pain self-management. Therefore, the aim of this study is to analyze the unintended consequences of prescription opioid access restrictions on alcohol-induced mortality.

I compare the alcohol-induced mortality among adults during pre- and post-revision …

Martin School Alumni Survey, Carl Sims

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

The Martin School of Public Policy and Administration is subject to reaccreditation from the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA) every seven years. To initiate the reaccreditation process, the Martin School must conduct a programmatic self-study that analyzes the program’s mission, governance, faculty, students, competencies, resources, and communication. The self-study is beneficial not only for the purpose of reaccreditation but also can better inform the school’s strategic planning process

To assist in providing the self-study relevant data, the Martin School can solicit information from its alumni. Alumni data can be used to establish how well the …

To What Extent Do Religious Institutions Provide A Societal Value? Is The Tax-Exempt Status Justified?, Annabel Hou

Scripps Senior Theses

Religious institutions have been tax-exempt from almost all taxes for more than two centuries. The two primary justifications used to protect this ‘status’ is the constitution and the concept that churches provide positive externalities that believers and non-believers all benefit from. This paper examines the relationship between religiosity and five socially important characteristics: high school graduation rate, a divorce rate, incidence of domestic violence, and levels of substance abuse and crime. I run multiple simple and full regressions across 207 counties in Texas. In four of the five analyses, religiosity has a strong statistically significant desirable impact. With the addition …

Historicizing Sexual Violence Against Native American Women: Colonization, Intracommunal Shifts, And Creative Forms Of Discourse, Martha Bono

Scripps Senior Theses

The sexual assault and gendered violence Native American women face has started to garner attention from politicians, newspapers, and Hollywood producers. Most of today's discourse, however, ignores history. My historical analysis reveals how sexual violence against Indigenous women has been institutionalized since the very first days of colonization, and how these institutions ensured gendered violence would endure over time. First, I analyze how gender roles within Indigenous communities, specifically the Cherokee, led to Native women's subjugation and enabled intracommunal violence. Next, I examine particular federal Indian policies that have created a complex system of jurisdictional conflict that prevents tribal governments …

Gun Control: The Gun Violence Epidemic In The U.S., Anna Koduru

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

While holding almost half of all civilian-owned guns around the globe and yet only 4.4 percent of the world’s population, the United States of America is heavily centered around gun rights due to the 2nd amendment in the U.S. Constitution. But gun violence is on the rise as deaths due to gun violence are at its highest rate in nearly 40 years. Americans are divided amongst themselves when it comes to how we must approach this issue. In order to reduce gun violence in the U.S., both Republican and Democrat leaders must come together and make bipartisan moves to implement …

Vaccination Law 101: A Guide For Children’S Lawyers, Christal Cammock, Jennifer Baum

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Today, U.S. children are typically vaccinated against 11 deadly, and formerly common, diseases: diphtheria, Hib disease, hepatitis B, measles, mumps, pertussis (whooping cough), polio, rubella, pneumococcal disease, tetanus, and varicella (chicken pox). But it wasn’t always so. Vaccines are a relatively recent development in medical history. The world’s first vaccine, for smallpox, was discovered in the late 1700s. A hundred years later, Louis Pasteur discovered the second vaccine, for rabies. By the mid-1900s, technological and medical advances drove more rapid vaccine development, and in 1963, the first measles vaccine was approved.

Before the measles vaccine became available, up to …

Arrests As Guilt, Anna Roberts

Faculty Publications

An arrest puts a halt to one’s free life and may act as prelude to a new process. That new process—prosecution—may culminate in a finding of guilt. But arrest and guilt—concepts that are factually and legally distinct—frequently seem to be fused together. This fusion appears in many of the consequences of arrest, including the use of arrests in assessing “risk,” in calculating “recidivism,” and in identifying “offenders.” An examination of this fusion elucidates obstacles to key aspects of criminal justice reform. Efforts at reform, whether focused on prosecution or defense, police or bail, require a robust understanding of the differences …

Discipline And Policing, Kate Levine

Faculty Publications

A prime focus of police-reform advocates is the transparency of police discipline. Indeed, transparency is one of, the most popular accountability solutions for a wide swath of policing problems. This Article examines the “transparency cure” as it applies to Police Disciplinary Records (“PDRs”). These records are part of an officer’s personnel file and contain reported wrongdoing from supervisors, Internal Affairs Bureaus, and Citizen Complaint Review Boards.

This Article argues that making PDRs public is worthy of skeptical examination. It problematizes the notion that transparency is a worthy end goal for those who desire to see police-reform in general. Transparency is …

Passive Avoidance, Anita S. Krishnakumar

Faculty Publications

In its nascent years, the Roberts Court quickly developed a reputation—and drew sharp criticism—for using the canon of constitutional avoidance to rewrite statutes in controversial, high-profile cases. In recent years, however, the Court seems to have taken a new turn, quietly creating exceptions or reading in statutory conditions in order to evade potentially serious constitutional problems without expressly discussing the constitutional issue or invoking the avoidance canon. In fact, the avoidance canon seems largely, and conspicuously, missing from many cases decided during the Court’s most recent Terms, playing a significant role in justifying the Court’s construction in only one majority …

Lead Us Not Into Temptation: A Response To Barbara Fedders’S “Opioid Policing”, Anna Roberts

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In “Opioid Policing,” Barbara Fedders contributes to the law review literature the first joint scholarly analysis of two drug policing innovations: Seattle’s Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program and the Angel Initiative, which originated in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Even while welcoming the innovation and inspiration of these programs, she remains clear-eyed about the need to scrutinize their potential downsides. Her work is crucially timed. While still just a few years old, LEAD has been replicated many times and appears likely to be replicated still further—and to be written about much more. Inspired by Fedders’s call for a balanced take, this …

Corporations As Semi-States, Jay Butler

Faculty Publications

When Ebola came to West Africa in 2014, Liberia could not cope. The State’s already fragile public health infrastructure was largely ineffective in responding to the illness and preventing its spread. And, the World Health Organization’s support was slow and stilted. By contrast, Firestone, a tire company that operates a vast rubber plantation in Liberia and runs its own hospital for 80,000 employees, family dependents, and persons in neighboring localities, responded to the virus much more effectively.

This Article uses Firestone’s Ebola response as an entry point to study a phenomenon too frequently overlooked. Many for-profit firms that maintain operations …

Firearm Risk Regression Analysis For Law Enforcement Officer Firearm Usage Utilizing Factors In The M-Pulse And Mmpi-2rf, Jesse Stout

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine to what extent the 4 M-PULSE scale scores (interpersonal difficulties, unprofessional conduct, discharge of weapon, and inappropriate use of weapon) account for variance in the MMPI-2RF (aggression and antisocial) subscales scores. Archival data was provided by a private business that conducts these screenings for multiple law enforcement organizations (local and state). Law enforcement candidates (N = 127) were evaluated by a private business during the prehiring psychological screening process using the M-PULSE and MMPI-2RF to assess their risk factors for employment as law enforcement officers. Using Social Learning theory as the …

Transgender And Gender Nonconforming Individuals' Perceptions Of The Criminal Justice System, Delisa Shundra Hamilton

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

This study explored the perceptions and lived experiences of 10 transgender and gender nonconforming individuals who had interacted with the various sectors of the criminal justice system (i.e., law enforcement, the prison system, and the court system). The focus of this phenomenological qualitative study was providing insight into how sexual orientation and gender identity influenced transgender and gender nonconforming individuals' experiences and perceptions of the criminal justice system. Procedural justice theory guided this study by providing an understanding of how the behavior of the actors in the criminal justice system shaped the cooperation or resistance of transgender and gender nonconforming …

Nature Of Stressors On Female Law Enforcement Academy Recruits, Sandra Patricia Dillard

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

A problem in law enforcement academy training is that female recruits endure more stressors than male recruits endure. This can lead to fewer females opting for careers as law enforcement officers. The purpose of this study was to explore the unique stressors on female recruits when they are held to the same standards as males. The feminist theory was used as the theoretical framework for this study to depict how stress is perceived for the female. The first research question examined how outside stressors affected female trainees. The second research question examined how job-€related stressors affected female trainees. In-€depth, semistructured …

Police Officers' Perceptions Of Spirituality For Managing Occupational Stress And Job Performance, Licole Robinson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Police officers are exposed to occupational stressors that can negatively affect their job performance. Spirituality has received scholarly attention as a potential therapeutic strategy to assist individuals working under stressful conditions. Research indicated that police culture often overlooks the spiritual well-being of police officers. Much of the police literature on stress and spirituality has been examined using quantitative methods of inquiry. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore police officers' perceptions regarding the use of spirituality to manage occupational stress and job performance. Fry's spiritual leadership theory provided the framework for the study. Semistructured interviews with a …

Exploring The Health Implications Of Mixed-Income Communities: Avondale, Cincinnati, Oh, Sherise Mckinney

Faculty Scholarship

This site profile is part of a series that spotlights mixed-income community transformations that emphasize health and wellness in their strategic interventions. The Mixed-Income Strategic Alliance produced these profiles to better understand the health implications of creating thriving and inclusive communities with a socioeconomically and racially diverse population. This site profile, which focuses on Avondale, was developed through interviews with local stakeholders as well as a review of publicly-available and internal documents.

A Tj Approach To Mental Disability Rights Research: On Sexual Autonomy And Sexual Offending, Michael L. Perlin, Heather Ellis Cucolo, Alison Lynch

Articles & Chapters

We believe it is impossible to understand the development and the power of therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ) without acknowledging that its roots in mental disability law have continued to expand and flourish over the decades, and that there is no other substantive area of the law in which every aspect – substantive and procedural, civil and criminal, statutory and constitutional. domestic and international – has been weighed and evaluated using a TJ lens. In this chapter, we consider how those roots have shaped the last three decades of research and the implications of what has developed. We look carefully at two …

Stakeholder Input To The Development Of The Santa Clara County Lgbtq-Focused Shelter: A Process And Policy Analysis, Anthony Montalvo

Master's Projects

Due to elevated homelessness and growing hate crimes, an LGBTQ-focused shelter was developed and implemented by Office of Supportive Housing (OSH), along with the OLGBTQ (Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer). The following research investigated whether the process to design the LGBTQ-focused shelter program in Santa Clara county took the necessary steps to ensure that the program represents the community it intends to serve. Using process evaluation to identify the problem and proposed solutions, and policy analysis to examine the alternative solutions, the research answered the question: Did the approved design of the LGBTQ-focused shelter represent the stakeholder planning …

Together With Tosha Newsletter, Winter 2019, Tennessee. Department Of Labor & Workforce Development.

TOSHA Newsletter

No abstract provided.

No.77 An Order Establishing The Governor's Juvenile Justice Reform Implementation Council, Bill Haslam

Executive Orders

No abstract provided.

Office Of Criminal Justice Programs Annual Report Fy 2017/2018, Tennessee. Department Finance & Administration.

Office of Criminal Justice Programs

No abstract provided.

Tennessee's Economy 2018 Reference Guide, Tennessee. Department Of Labor & Workforce Development.

Tennessee's Economy

No abstract provided.

Swat Operations Unmanned Vehicle, John K. Zelina, Tyler Meadows, Ryan Cook, Mathew Fellows

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

During SWAT operations, it is common to have a barricaded suspect who may be armed and a serious threat to SWAT team personnel. In these cases, sending a robot into harm's way to assess the situation as opposed to an operator has become the standard. The purpose of this of this research was to design and develop an unmanned system for the City of Akron's SWAT Team that can be injected into these scenarios to improve outcomes and mitigate risk to SWAT operators.

Not In My Graveyard: Citizenship, Memory, And Identity In The Wake Of The Boston Marathon Bombing, Osman Balkan

Political Science Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Barnette And Masterpiece Cakeshop: Some Unanswered Questions, Abner S. Greene

Faculty Scholarship

This symposium piece addresses three issues stemming from the Court’s Masterpiece Cakeshop case and that case’s relationship to West Virginia v. Barnette. First, it discusses the relationship between claims for exemption from laws of general applicability and as-applied claims. Second, it addresses the issue most discussed in the Cakeshop briefs and oral argument, but not ultimately resolved by the Court: what counts as compelled speech in the setting of provision of services such as custom-made wedding cakes? Third, it intervenes in the fascinating sidebar between Justice Kagan and Justice Gorsuch regarding the state commission’s refusal to sanction bakers who wouldn’t …

The Dilemma Of Localism In An Era Of Polarization, Nestor M. Davidson

Faculty Scholarship

Localism, the discourse of local legal power and state-local relations, has returned to the center of national attention, driven by gridlock at the federal level and sharply rising political and cultural conflicts between cities and their states. In recent years, states have aggressively sought to constrain, eliminate, and even criminalize local policy discretion across an array of policy domains. Cities and their advocates have just as aggressively fought back—in litigation, in the po- litical arena, and in popular discourse.

Advocacy for resurgent local empowerment is raising anew what has long been the central dilemma of localism: how can a vertical …

Congress And The Independence Of Federal Law Enforcement, Andrew Kent

Faculty Scholarship

Not since the Nixon presidency has the issue of the professional neutrality and independence of federal law enforcement from White House interference or misuse been such a pressing issue. This Article describes the problem, details Congress’s important role in responding to it during the 1970s, and makes specific recommendations for Congress today. As important background, this Article recounts the abuses of the Hoover era at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), and the ways the Nixon White House sought to both impede and corrupt the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the FBI. It then describes what an engaged Congress looked …

Damagewise Program Implementation Pays Off For Indiana, Daniel L. Brassard, Deborah Horton, Darcy M. Bullock

JTRP Affiliated Reports

No abstract provided.

Don’T Mention Dark Tourism: An Irish Perspective, Emilie-Kate O'Mahony

Theses

This study investigates dark tourism in the Irish context with international supporting research. Dark tourism is connected to sites of death, the macabre and suffering and there are many sites in Ireland that fit this description. Examples include prisons, famine sites, graveyards, sites of terrorist attacks and many more. In this document the term dark tourism is thoroughly researched via secondary sources to provide a foundation of understanding. By including this academic research from journals and books, the researcher is provided with the background information necessary to understand the importance of dark tourism and to identify gaps in knowledge suitable …

A Second Step Act For The States (And Counties And Cities), John F. Pfaff

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.