Digital Commons Network^™

Expanding Compassion Beyond The Covid-19 Pandemic, Eda Katharine Tinto, Jenny Roberts

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

Compassionate relief matters. It matters so that courts may account for tragically unforeseeable events, as when an illness or disability renders proper care impossible while a defendant remains incarcerated, or when family tragedy leaves an inmate the sole caretaker for an incapacitated partner or minor children. It matters too, as present circumstances make clear, when public-health calamities threaten inmates with literal death sentences. It matters even when no crisis looms, but simply when continued incarceration would be "greater than necessary" to achieve the ends of justice.

Driver's License Suspension For Unpaid Fines And Fees: The Movement For Reform, Joni Hirsch, Priya Sarathy Jones

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Nearly eleven million people in the United States have a suspended driver’s license for unpaid fines and fees. Laws that suspend, revoke, or prevent renewal of driver’s licenses and/or restrict driving privileges (i.e., registration holds and non-renewals) for nonpayment of traffic- and court-related debt criminalize poverty and disproportionately impact those with a lower economic status. These unproductive and harmful debt-based restrictions not only fail to increase collections of fines and fees, but also divert important public resources for law enforcement and courts away from public safety. The primary way in which these restrictions manifest themselves is through driver’s license suspensions, …

Annual Report 2019-2020, Tennessee. Department Of Labor & Workforce Development.

Annual Report

No abstract provided.

Early Wildfire Detection By Air Quality Sensors On Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Optimization And Feasibility, Doaa Rjoub

Masters Theses

“Millions of acres of forests are destroyed by wildfires every year, causing ecological, environmental, and economical losses. The recent wildfires in Australia and the Western U.S. smothered multiple states with more than fifty million acres charred by the blazes. The warmer and drier climate makes scientists expect increases in the severity and frequency of wildfires and the associated risks in the future. These inescapable crises highlight the urgent need for early detection and prevention of wildfires. This work proposed an energy management framework that integrated unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with air quality sensors for early wildfire detection and forest monitoring. …

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

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Regional Integration In South America: Mercosur As A Force For Democracy Protection, Matthew Willis

Honors Program Theses

Set against a backdrop of widespread democratization in Latin America, the foundation of the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) in 1991 represents an effort to both harmonize interstate relations and enhance the region’s collective standing on the global stage. This work takes particular interest with the principles of democracy protection enshrined within the 1998 Ushuaia Protocol on Democratic Commitment. Stable democratic function is often viewed as an end unto itself and can also promote economic and macropolitical stability within a framework of strong regional interdependence. This work will provide a literature review which merges scholarly insights on the role of hegemonic …

Lawyering In The Wake: Theorizing The Practice Of Law In The Midst Of Anti-Black Catastrophe, James Stevenson Ramsey

City University of New York Law Review

This article proposes a theory of legal practice grounded not in an uncritical adherence to the law, nor to abstract notions of liberalism or progressivism, but in the lived realities of Black people. Employing various theoretical paradigms developed by Christina Sharpe in her book In the Wake: On Blackness and Being, this article suggests that lawyers should think and act in coordination with and on behalf of those who suffer under the various regimes of anti-Blackness (what Sharpe and others refer to as the wake of chattel slavery), which are, in part, constituted by the very legal systems lawyers navigate. …

Face Masking Violations, Policing, And Covid-19 Death Rates: A Spatial Analysis In New York City Zip Codes, Tse-Chuan Yang, Seulki Kim, Stephen A. Matthews

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The use of face masks during a pandemic and compliance with state and local mandates has been a divisive issue in the United States. We document variation in face masking violation rates involving police enforcement in New York City and examine the association between police-enforced face masking violations and COVID-19-related death rates. We assemble a Zone Improvement Plan (ZIP) code–level data set from the New York City Open Data, Department of Health, and the American Community Survey (2014–2018). We use maps to demonstrate the spatial patterning of police-enforced face masking violation rates and COVID-19-related death rates. Using a Bayesian spatial …

Parents’ Perceptions On The Impact That Sros Have On School Safety, John Mayfield

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

School Resource Officers (SROs) are an essential element in school safety and an even more critical component in the field of community-orientated policing. While numerous research studies have examined SROs from many different lenses, none have examined the impact that SROs have on school safety through a parents' lens. The purpose of this quantitative nonexperimental study was to examine parents’ perceptions on the impact that SROs have on school safety through an online survey accessible to parents through SurveyMonkey. The research question's goal was to answer two fundamental questions, to examine the degree that parents support the presence of SROs …

Federal (De)Funding Of Local Police, Roger Michalski, Stephen Rushin

Faculty Articles

Across the political spectrum, politicians, commentators, and activists frequently invoke federal funding as a lever to induce changes in local police behavior. But can federal funding function as an effective policy lever at the local level? Is federal funding or the threat of defunding a sufficiently strong tool to effectuate deeply contentious policy goals over local opposition? This Essay conducts an empirical examination of federal funding for local and state police agencies in the United States. It finds that the federal government remains a relatively minor contributor to local police budgets. We find that federal funding only reaches a minority …

Validating Nde Dataset And Benchmarking Infrared Thermography For Delamination Detection In Bridge Decks, Eberechi Orie Ichi

Theses and Dissertations

We collected and developed an SDNET2021 dataset, a rare combination of annotated non-destructive evaluation (NDE) data, from five in-service bridge decks in Grand Forks as a feed for validating, benchmarking, developing, training, and testing artificial intelligence (AI) models to evaluate, monitor, and assess bridge conditions. The developed dataset, which serves as ground truth, contains sound concrete as class 1 and delaminated sub-surface concrete as classes 2 and 3. The SDNET2021 dataset consists of 488 delaminated (class 2 and 3) and 1,448 sound (class 1) Impact Echo (IE) signals, 214,943 delaminated (class 2 and 3) and 448,159 sound (class 1) Ground …

Immigration Reform In Refugee And Asylum Policy: Disentangling Immigration From The National Security Discourse, Rachel Chernov

Fordham International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Moving Beyond Thoughts And Prayers: A New And Improved Federal Assault Weapons Ban, Esther Ness

Fordham International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Anti-Carceral Futures: A Comparative Perspective Of Restorative And Transformative Justice Practices In The United States And New Zealand, Hannah Goodman

Fordham International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Of Arms And The Militia: Gun Regulation By Defining “Ordinary Military Equipment”, Edward J. Curtis

Touro Law Review

Recent mass shootings have placed pressure on Congress and state legislatures to regulate semi-automatic rifles and handguns in the interest of public safety. However, the Second Amendment provides that, “[a] well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. There is no obvious public safety exception.

Semi-automatic rifles, handguns, and other kinds of arms can be regulated more effectively by defining the “ordinary military equipment” militia members are expected to provide. This may be accomplished using the rationale employed by the United States …

Complexity Thinking And Broadband Internet Penetration In Lagos, Nigeria, James Hyacinth Akpoja

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Considering the speed at which information and knowledge can transverse nations and organizations, the importance of broadband Internet connectivity cannot be overstated. The general problem is that the Nigerian broadband Internet penetration is considerably low, at 33% compared to other parts of the world. The specific problem is that community members and leaders have the behavioral intention to allow broadband Internet infrastructure deployment (BIID) at the local community level in Lagos. The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to examine the relationship between perceived usefulness (PU), perceived benefits (PB), perceived ease of use (PEoU), and perceive security (PS), and …

From Threat To Victim: Why Stand Your Ground Laws Are Inherently Prejudiced And Do Nothing To Further Justice, Rene Perez

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

Stand Your Ground laws give jurors too much leeway in determining what constitutes a reasonable threat in defense cases.2 By removing the traditional duty to retreat, the reasonableness determination makes or breaks a case and inherently discriminates against people of color. This is because reasonableness can all too easily become a character determination instead of an objective adjudgment. Because Stand Your Ground is present at the investigator’s discretion stage, the prosecutorial discretion stage, and finally the judicial stage through jury instructions and juror bias—there is a unique platform for implicit bias to dictate how defendants are advantaged or disadvantaged in …

Social Justice And The Supreme Court: Lessons From The Past, Vicki Lens

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

This article revisits over sixty years of Supreme Court decisions that have affected the poor and racial minorities, using a novel approach that considers the synergistic relationship between different doctrinal areas rather than focusing on one area. Specifically, I appraise the Supreme Court’s doctrinal contributions from 1953 to the present across three foundational elements of social justice on behalf of the poor and people of color: the school integration cases under the Equal Protection Clause, a series of cases under the Fourth Amendment which sanctioned the police tactic of stop-and-frisk, and attempts to secure economic security for the poor through …

The Next Surges Are Here: What Can American Governments Lawfully Do In Response To The Ongoing Covid-19 Pandemic?, Jeff Thaler

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

Redefining Healthcare To Address Racial Health Disparities & Inequities, Abdur Rahman Amin

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

Growing Burdens On Abortion Rights: An Individual Freedom During Covid-19 And Changing Judicial Interpretation, John Simpson

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

Do The Police Protect And Serve All People In The United States?: A Survey Of The Problems Within Modern Policing And Solutions To Ensure The Police Protect And Serve Us All, Bianca Velez

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

Vital Relief: Montana Tribes' $200 Million Path To Alleviate The Pandemic, 2021, University Of Montana--Missoula. School Of Journalism. Native News Honors Project

Native News Honors Project, 1992-2026

An annual publication that is reported, photographed, edited, and designed by students in the University of Montana’s School of Journalism.

Promising Little Things To Strengthen Social Connections, Caitlin Coyle, Setarreh Massihzadegan

Center for Social and Demographic Research on Aging Publications

Unlike “best practices”, promising practices only require the successful implementation of a program or activity and some level of information that suggests a positive outcome for participants. One key advantage of using promising practices is that they can be adapted and there is flexibility in implementation styles and environments. As well, starting with a promising practice can help solve community problems, and save the trouble of reinventing the wheel. If someone has already found an effective way to resolve an issue or advance the cause, it makes sense to use it. The intention of this document is to alert those …

Crossing The Rubicon: Understanding Key Complexities Of Contemporary U.S. Immigration Law, Robert Steinbuch

South Carolina Journal of International Law and Business

No abstract provided.

Diversity In Automation: How Are Different Legal Regimes Looking To Regulate Users Of Automated Vehicles?, Lucas Barnard

South Carolina Journal of International Law and Business

No abstract provided.

Military Combat Veterans, Sentencing Reform, And Problem-Solving Courts, Andrea Sivanich

Theses and Dissertations

Military veterans involved with the criminal justice system may have unique behavioral health and physical needs, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or traumatic brain injury (TBI), and could benefit from sentence mitigation that emphasizes rehabilitation. This research is related to sentencing reform and how it may support problem-solving court sentencing, as a subset of community-based treatment options within the criminal justice system. This research is important in that it attempts to determine whether the law distinguishes veteran offenders, as a specific population, from other offenders with treatment needs. To do that, this dissertation examines the role of legal texts in …

Legal Marijuana Disperser Owners' Lived Experiences About Accessing Banking Services, Jonathan Travis James

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Marijuana reform has created a question of the potential market size of the legal marijuana industry on a local, state, or national level. The problem is that having no banking services has forced legal marijuana dispensaries to be cash-only businesses and created an increased risk of theft. The lack of normal banking services has also affected the ability to manage money earned from operations. This hermeneutic phenomenological study was grounded by the conceptual framework of the motivations of humans and humans' need to feel safe. The participants of this study were owners and operators in the legal marijuana industry of …

Reduced Recidivism In Drug Offenders By Treatment Involving Motivational Interviewing, Meleeka Clary

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractIncarcerated substance users frequently recidivate because of a lack of substance treatment; it was not known whether motivational interviewing (MI) significantly reduces recidivism among substance users. The purpose of this quantitative study was to evaluate the effectiveness of MI as a treatment method for reducing recidivism among incarcerated individuals with substance use disorders. Social cognitive and extrinsic motivation theories served as the theoretical foundation for the study. Motivation is an important factor in offender engagement with treatment and has been linked to improved treatment outcomes. The research questions asked whether the availability of MI in detention facilities was significantly related …

The Role Of Organizational Socialization On The Ethical Orientation Of Male Police Officers, Megan Marie Bessey

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

A gap in literature exists surrounding years of service, training, and ethical attitudes within the law enforcement industry. The proposed hypothesis was that years of service in law enforcement and hours of in-service training were interactively related to an officer's ethical attitudes as related to ethical orientation. The purpose of this study was to examine organizational socialization within the law enforcement profession, specifically as demonstrated through the interaction effects of factors relating to ethical orientation and scores measured by the Ethics Position Questionnaire of male Northern Kentucky and Southern Oregon police officers. The major theoretical propositions for this study came …