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But Is It Good: The Need To Measure, Assess, And Report On Court-Connected Adr, Nancy A. Welsh

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

We know that very few civil matters reach disposition through trial-but what do we really know about how civil cases DO reach disposition? What number of civil cases reach disposition through settlement? What number of civil cases reach settlement through court-connected "alternative" dispute resolution (ADR)? Do we know enough about the results of court-connected ADR to be able to detect potential patterns of systemic discrimination? This Article examines what we know from federal and state court systems' public reporting and finds: 1) only a minority of federal district courts and state court systems report regarding dispositions through settlement; 2) there …

A Case For Diversionary Restorative Justice In Cases Involving The Embezzlement Of Funds From Small Businesses, Amanda Cooper

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

In 2015, John Tschol, the owner of a small advising business in Bloomington, Minnesota, thought that he had a wonderful work life. His business was successful-enough to make a modest profit-and his employees were loyal, hard workers, who had been with him for years. Then he found out that his bookkeeper, Laura Scholz, had been embezzling funds, stealing more than $317,000 over two years.

The Initiative Process And Policy Innovation In The American States, Scott J. Lacombe, Frederick J. Boehmke

Government: Faculty Publications

We utilize a new policy adoption database with over 500 policies to test whether the initiative process influences the timing of policy adoption. Prior studies have produced both supportive andnullfindings of theeffect ofthe initiative, but typically examine policies one policy or a single composite score at a time. Theoretical accounts suggest that the initiative process should have heterogeneous effects on policy outcomes depending on the configuration of public and governmentpreferences. By pooling hundreds of policies weare able toestimate the average effect of the initiative process on state policy adoption more systematically while also evaluating variation in its effect. We find …

Tort Theory, Private Attorneys General, And State Action: From Mass Torts To Texas S.B. 8, John C.P. Goldberg, Benjamin C. Zipursky

Faculty Scholarship

Late twentieth-century tort theory was dominated by scholars who regarded tort law as primarily a means employed by government to deter anti-social conduct. On this model, tort plaintiffs are cast as private attorneys general whose lawsuits promote safety. Tort theorists today better appreciate that this approach obscures crucial respects in which tort law is private law–law that empowers persons who have been wronged to redress the wrongs done to them. But in practice there is a continued failure to perceive the ways in which the deterrence model has shaped and distorted views of tort law, as evidenced by the terms …

Is There A "Mulatto Escape Hatch" Out Of Racism?: A Reflection On Multiracial Exceptionalism During A Time Of #Blacklivesmatter, Tanya K. Hernandez

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Racial Architecture Of Criminal Justice, I. Bennett Capers

Faculty Scholarship

One of the pleasures of contributing to symposia—especially symposia where each contribution is brief—is the ability to engage in new explorations, test new ideas, and offer new provocations. I do that now in this essay about race, architecture, and criminal justice. I begin by discussing how race is imbricated in the architecture of courthouses, the quintessential place of supposed justice. I then take race and architecture a step further. If we think of architecture expansively—Lawrence Lessig’s definition of architecture as “the physical world as we find it” comes to mind—then it becomes clear that race is also imbricated in the …

Future Sex, I. Bennett Capers

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Nsu College Of Psychology Graduate Student Catalog 2021–2022, Nova Southeastern University

College of Psychological Services / College of Psychology Postgraduate Student and Course Catalogs

No abstract provided.

Deadly “Toxins”: A National Empirical Study Of Racial Bias And Future Dangerousness Determinations, G. Ben Cohen, Justin D. Levinson, Koichi Hioki

Akron Law Faculty Publications

Since the beginning of the modern Death Penalty Era, one of the most important—and fraught—areas of capital punishment has been the so-called “future dangerousness” determination, a threshold inquiry that literally rests the defendant’s life or death on jurors’ predictions of the future. An overwhelming majority of capital executions have occurred in jurisdictions that embrace the perceived legitimacy of the future dangerousness inquiry, despite its obvious flaws and potential connection to the age-old racial disparities that continue to plague capital punishment. This Article presents, and empirically tests, the hypothesis that jurors’ future dangerousness assessments cannot be separated from their racial and …

Rhetoric & Nostalgia In Criminal Justice Reform (Symposium), Michael Gentithes

Akron Law Faculty Publications

Activists for criminal justice reform must think both broadly and equitably. There is little doubt that overpolicing in some communities contributed to mass incarceration and widespread distrust of officers, which in turn limited officers' ability to solve crimes in all neighborhoods. But calls to defund focus too narrowly on overpolicing alone. Ending any interaction between government investigators and people of color is not a panacea for the myriad injustices in our system of criminal adjudication. It may leave the victims of crime in low-income neighborhoods to either accept their plight or resort to self-help, an avenue that leads to disastrous …

"And They Took My Milk!", I. Bennett Capers

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Law School As A White Space, I. Bennett Capers

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Beyond The Second Sidewalk: A Study Of Collective Efficacy At Institutions Of Higher Education And Surrounding Communities, Rebecca Decesare

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Social disorganization theory (Shaw 1942; 1969) suggests that communities with greater racial heterogeneity, residential mobility, and low socioeconomic status will be less organized, thereby less able to collectively repel criminal behavior. These characteristics describe many institutions of higher education (IHEs), so we should expect that IHEs would have higher crime rates than neighboring areas with greater social organization. However, recent explorations of social disorganization have considered the mitigating concept of collective efficacy. This research suggests that the characteristics of social control, social cohesion, and trust present in communities will mitigate crime (Sampson 1997). These community characteristics also describe many IHEs. …

Trademarks As Surveillance Transparency, Amanda Levendowski

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

We know very little about the technologies that watch us. From cell site simulators to predictive policing algorithms, the lack of transparency around surveillance technologies makes it difficult for the public to engage in meaningful oversight. Legal scholars have critiqued various corporate and law enforcement justifications for surveillance opacity, including contract and intellectual property law. But the public needs a free, public, and easily accessible source of information about corporate technologies that might be used to watch us. To date, the literature has overlooked a free, extensive, and easily accessible source of information about surveillance technologies hidden in plain sight: …

“Basic Stuff I Should Know About My Kids, I Don’T Know”: Incarcerated Mothers’ Perception Of Incarceration’S Effects On Mother-Child Relationships, Narissa Haakmat

Online Theses and Dissertations

Tougher sentencing policies have resulted in a dramatic increase in the jail and prison populations in the United States over the past few decades. The number of women who are spending time behind bars have vastly increased as a result of this. Despite increased interest in this area of research, a variety of questions remain as to how women experience incarceration. Most women who are incarcerated are mothers, but few criminologists have explored how imprisonment affects motherhood and mothers’ perception of the mother-child relationship during incarceration. The research presented here contributes to this body of literature by exploring the effects …

Forgotten In Local Jails: A Carceral System Created To Fail Women., Hayley Jackey

Online Theses and Dissertations

The United States has seen an influx of incarcerated women since the 1980s with a 750% increase between 1980 and 2017. There is a substantial amount of literature about how women experience prison and the unique challenges they face as they reenter society such as motherhood, previous abuse, mental health, and housing. Conclusions drawn suggest that the current structure fails to prepare women for a society that denounces women who have been incarcerated. What is less known is how this research translates to the jail environment. For reasons to be discussed, it is likely that local jails are even less …

Effective Strategies For Recruiting African American Males Into Teacher Education Programs, Fredrick Wellington Snodgrass

Online Theses and Dissertations

In today’s society, the teaching workforce should be more diverse. However, it still consists of majority white females. From a survey reported by Education Week in 2017-2018, the teaching workforce consisted of 79.2% white teachers. The same data reported that the teaching workforce consists of 7% African-Americans (Will, 2020). From that 7% of African-Americans, African-American males consists of 2% of the teaching workforce (Bell, 2017). Some school districts are seeking to attract more minority teachers to reflect their student demographics. In 2018, data reported from statista.com shows the following student demographics in K-12 public schools across the U.S.: 47% White, …

The Examination Of Attendance Support Teams In Urban Middle Schools, John Christopher Young

Online Theses and Dissertations

The research study was conducted to analyze effect of an attendance support team in urban middle schools. The study utilized a six-month time window using students in three middle schools that accumulated five unexcused absences. The attendance support team was comprised of a school social worker, a family resource student support coordinator, a district-level director of pupil personnel, and a court-designated worker from family court. The function of this team was to share attendance policies, requirements, and mitigate barriers through system support to increase regular attendance for students. The research was analyzed to measure the effect on gender, grade level, …

Understanding The Experiences Of Black Boys In Suburban Schools: An Examination Of Social Influences On Identity, Achievement And School Relationships, Tyrone L. Weeks

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The achievement of Black boys in public schools continues to be a major focus of concern for educators and researchers. Consequently, educators and researchers have looked to issues of engagement and identity as key variables relative to achievement. Numerous theories point to adverse environmental factors contributing to the achievement disparities affecting Black boys in schools, but limited research has sought to elevate the voices of Black boys to understand how they identify with schools, as well as the social factors that contribute to their social and academic identities. In this qualitative research, focus groups were used to engage with Black …

Erasing Evidence Of Historic Injustice: The Cannabis Criminal Records Expungement Paradox, Julie E. Steiner

Faculty Scholarship

Cannabis prohibition and its subsequent enforcement have yielded an epic societal tragedy. The decision to criminalize cannabis was a paradigm-shifting moment in legal history because it converted lawful medicinal or intoxicant seeking conduct into criminal activity, inviting government intrusion into matters previously self-controlled.

Scholars increasingly recognize that prohibition was built upon a decades-long, false, media-driven narrative that “marijuana” was one of society’s worst menacing enemies. Using overtly racist propaganda, the narrative successfully captured the audience, fomenting public anxiety and unfairly demonizing cannabis and its users. This misinformation campaign ultimately led to its current status as prohibited under the federal Controlled …

The Trap Chronicles, Vol. 1, How U.S. Housing Policy Impairs Criminal Justice Reform, Lahny Silva

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Third Reconstruction, Rebecca Zietlow

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Decarceration And Default Mental States, Benjamin Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Essay, presented at “Guilty Minds: A Virtual Conference on Mens Rea and Criminal Justice Reform” at ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, examines the politics of federal mens rea reform legislation. I argue that current mens rea policy debates reflect an overly narrow vision of criminal justice reform. Therefore, I suggest an alternative frame through which to view mens rea reform efforts—a frame that resonates with radical structural critiques that have gained ground among activists and academics. Common arguments for and against mens rea reform reflect a belief that the problem with the criminal system is one of …

An Examination Of How Teacher Tenure And Job Satisfaction Affect Student Achievement, Robert Farris

Theses and Dissertations

This applied dissertation was designed to examine the correlation between teacher job satisfaction, job retention, tenure and its effect on student achievement and the adjusted cohort graduation rate. This study involved the use of a sequential exploratory qualitative design as a pragmatic philosophical approach to examining the correlation. The researcher utilized three distinct datasets: The OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2018; The National Center for Educational Statistics, Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate; and the Ohio Department of Education, Ohio Teacher Evaluation System.

An analysis of the data revealed that statistically significant themes emerged among the datasets for the job …

Employee Perceptions Related To Specific Work Processes Within The Crime Control Model Known As The Stratified Model, Robert William Steinkraus

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to measure employee perceptions of satisfaction as they relate to specific work processes and products within the Stratified Model. The Stratified Model is a crime-reduction model that was developed and gradually implemented first within the Port St. Lucie Police Department between 2004-2011. The full implementation of this crime-reduction model occurred in 2012. The Port St. Lucie Police department has since achieved greater reductions of the overall crime rate than other cities in Florida consisting of similar populations. In 2019, Port St. Lucie had the 7th largest population in Florida.

Currently, it is unknown how …

By Any Means: A Philosophical Frame For Rulemaking Reform In Criminal Law, Trevor George Gardner

Scholarship@WashULaw

Equitable crime policy and equity in the process of crime policymaking stand as the two goals most important to criminal-justice reform advocates. It would be a strategic mistake, however, to consider the two of equal importance. Crime-policy reform should be considered the first-order principle of the crime-policy reform movement. Fairness in the crime-policymaking process, while key to the pursuit of democratic ideals, is best understood as a secondary consideration. Put simply, the prioritization of fair process risks stifling the crime-policy reform movement by tethering the policy ends of the movement (namely, minimalism in criminal administration) to a pre-ordained means.

The Future Of Supreme Court Reform, Daniel Epps, Ganesh Sitaraman

Scholarship@WashULaw

For a brief moment in the fall of 2020, structural reform of the Supreme Court seemed like a tangible possibility. After the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September, some prominent Democratic politicians and liberal commentators warmed to the idea of expanding the Court to respond to Republicans’ rush to confirm a nominee before the election, despite their refusal four years prior to confirm Judge Merrick Garland on the ground that it was an election year. Though Democratic candidate Joe Biden won the Presidency in November, Democrats lost seats in the House and have a majority in the Senate …

Checks And Balances In The Criminal Law, Daniel Epps

Scholarship@WashULaw

The separation of powers is considered essential in the criminal law, where liberty and even life are at stake. Yet the reasons for separating criminal powers are surprisingly opaque, and “the separation of powers” is often used to refer to distinct, and sometimes contradictory, concepts.

This Article reexamines the justifications for the separation of powers in criminal law. It asks what is important about separating criminal powers and what values such separation serves. It concludes that in criminal justice, the traditional Madisonian approach of separating powers between functionally differentiated political institutions—legislature, executive, and judiciary—bears no necessary connection to important values …

"Newtrality": A Contemporary Alternative To Race-Neutral Pedagogy, Ada K. Wilson, Esq., Dr. Timothy J. Fair, Michael G. Morrison, Ii, Esq.

Campbell Law Review

This Article presents the findings of an interdisciplinary search for an alternative to race-neutral pedagogy. Ultimately, “Motivated Awareness” and “Inclusive Integrity” can build capacity for advancements in human understanding of the social sciences and inspire reconsideration of race-neutral standards which impede meaningful judicial review. Using Washington v. Davis as a timestamp, this Article outlines the pervasive nature of sanctioned systemic racism at the hands of the discriminatory intent doctrine and articulates a tangible strategy for examining an interdisciplinary system of equity through “Motivated Awareness” and “Inclusive Integrity.”

Voices For Justice, The Honorable Anita S. Earls

Campbell Law Review

No abstract provided.