Digital Commons Network^™

People With Secrets: Contesting, Constructing, And Resisting Women’S Claims About Sexualized Victimization, Rose Corrigan, Corey S. Shdaimah

Catholic University Law Review

What do sexual assault victims and women charged with prostitution have in common? Both are processed through a criminal justice system where legal actors assess their claims of victimization and either provide or deny resources and recognition in response to those claims. Ideal victim theory posits that not all victims’ claims are treated equally due to static factors such as personal characteristics or case facts. Professor Corrigan and Professor Shdaimah present the Arena of Intelligibility, an original analytical tool developed from their empirical data, to more effectively explain case outcomes for women affected by sexual crimes.

The Arena explains criminal …

"Cerd-Ain" Reform: Dismantling The School-To-Prison Pipeline Through More Thorough Coordination Of The Departments Of Justice And Education, Lisa A. Rich

Faculty Scholarship

In the last year of his presidency, President Barack Obama and his administration have undertaken many initiatives to ensure that formerly incarcerated individuals have more opportunities to successfully reenter society. At the same time, the administration has been working on education policy that closes the achievement gap and slows the endless flow of juveniles into the school-to-prison pipeline. While certainly laudable, there is much more that can be undertaken collaboratively among executive branch agencies to end the school-to-prison pipeline and the endless cycle of people re-entering the criminal justice system. This paper examines the rise of the school-to-prison pipeline through …

John M. Hagedorn, The Insane Chicago Way: The Daring Plan By Chicago Gangs To Create A Spanish Mafia, Thomas Barker

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"In The Insane Chicago Way, Professor Hagedorn opines that the super street gangs in Chicago have fundamentally changed since the 1990s. He provides an “institutionalized history” of the rise and fall of the Spanish Growth and Development (SGD) alliance to document the fundamental changes in Chicago. He rightly concludes that the SGD is “almost completely unknown to the public, the police, the professors and even most gang members” (p. 1). This powerful SGD case study is supported by the author’s long history of gang study and his interviews with gang leaders and street gang members, and with organized crime—Chicago …

Editorial, Tom Holt

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Welcome to the first issue of the fourth volume of the Journal of Qualitative Criminal Justice & Criminology. This is my first issue as editor, and I am pleased to continue along the path established by Will Oliver. It has been both exciting and challenging to take the reins and transition into this role. Thankfully Will already had a great crop of articles prepared for this issue. In a way, you could argue this issue is a result of both of our efforts. To that end, this issue highlights the journal’s continued emphasis on high-quality qualitative scholarship. The first …

Mass Murder And The Mass Media: Understanding The Construction Of The Social Problem Of Mass Shootings In The Us, Jaclyn Schildkraut

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Nearly as soon as the first shot is fired in a mass shooting, the news media already are rushing to break coverage, the likes of which typically last days or, in the more extreme cases, weeks. Though mass shootings are rare in occurrence, the disproportionate amount of coverage they receive in the media leads the public to believe that they occur at a much more regular frequency than they do. In order to understand how the public comes to understand mass shooting events, however, one first must understand how the stories are constructed by the media. The present study takes …

Old Message In A New Bottle: Taking Gang Rivalries Online Through Rap Battle Music Videos On Youtube, Joseph D. Johnson, Natalie Schell-Busey

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"The Internet is changing society, including criminal behavior. It has been shown that gangs are active online, but it is unclear how gangs are using the Internet. Most studies seem to conclude that gang members are not using the Internet instrumentally to commit or promote criminal behavior, but these same studies show that gang members use social media for flame wars— to insult and threaten one another. We argue that using social media in this way is actually an instrumental use of the Internet because it promotes violence. According to the code of the street, a diss requires a response, …

Jody Miller And Wilson R. Palacios, Editors, Qualitative Research In Criminology, Carl Root

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Qualitative Research in Criminology is Volume 20 in the series titled Advances in Criminological Theory edited by William S. Laufer and Freda Adler. The title of Miller and Palacios’ contribution brings to mind the saying “one of these things is not like the others.” In fact, they acknowledge as much on page three of the introduction, as they state, “For some readers, our strategy may beg the question, why does a volume oriented around methodology belong in a theoretical series?” Miller and Palacios give a brief answer to this question, but allow the seventeen chapters that comprise their volume …

Homeland Security In The Post-9/11 Era: Forced Compliance Along The Northern Border, Nancy E. Marion, Ronald Gelleny

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"The border relationship between the U.S. and Canada has traditionally been very trusting, allowing for an ease of trade and travel. However, the terrorist attacks of 9/11 altered this comfortable association. Now, U.S. policy is geared toward protecting the homeland from illegal immigration and potential terrorist actions. In other words, for Americans, security concerns trump trade. At the same time, Canada remains concerned with maintaining an ease of trade and travel with the U.S. To do this, Canada has been forced to establish and implement increased security measures as outlined by U.S. officials, even though there is strong opposition from …

When The Watchers Are Watched: An Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis Of Body-Worn Cameras, David A. Makin

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"This research explores the individual construction of the bodyworn camera (BWC) within what would be labeled as an average size police agency. Using a pre- and post-implementation qualitative design and leveraging interpretive phenomenological analysis as the analytical strategy, this research explores the nuanced reaction to this technological diffusion within the agency. Results reveal global themes spanning a continuum of negative and positive reactions to the diffusion, with an overwhelming acceptance of the device and individual construction of how best to use the device. While providing an initial lens of analysis for future researchers, the research includes considerable unanswered questions concerning …

Autism Spectrum Disorder And The Criminal Justice System: An Interdisciplinary Study, Erin T. Brown

Honors Theses

The purpose of this study was to advocate and raise awareness of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to SIU law students and to inform communication disorders and science (CDS) students of some basic facts about the criminal justice system in the United States. To accomplish this, an interdisciplinary session was conducted in which three CDS students taught ten law students about characteristics of ASD and three law teacher assistants taught thirteen CDS students about disability law and other intricacies of the justice system. Fifteen question pre-surveys were distributed to the participants upon arrival. CDS students answered questions about court …

Foreword: Innocent Until Proven Poor, Sara Zampierin

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

One of the core tenets of our criminal justice system is the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. As the title of the Symposium recognizes, we have allowed our justice system to ignore that presumption for people living in poverty in a variety of ways. Instead, it often inflicts additional and harsher punishment on individuals because of their poverty.

Student Perceptions Of Mentally Ill Offenders, Kimberly Nicole Rayborn

Master's Theses

Since deinstitutionalization, the responsibility for mentally ill members of society has shifted to the criminal justice system in a process of trans-institutionalization or “criminalization of mental illness” (Slate & Johnson, 2008). Though various groups have been studied to ascertain their perception of mentally ill individuals and offenders, previous research focuses largely on students of psychology, social work, and medicine. Little research has been conducted regarding the perceptions of students of criminal justice toward mental illness, despite the increasing involvement of the criminal justice system in treating and handling mentally ill individuals in the past thirty years. This exploratory research serves …

Tracking Lone Wolf Terrorists, Rodger A. Bates

The Journal of Public and Professional Sociology

Terrorism takes many forms, and many advances in identifying and tracking terrorists have been made in the past few years. However, the rise of self-radicalized lone wolf terrorists is an increasing challenge, compounded by their different types and the social and political contexts in which their threats exist. These predators require multiple strategies to track and neutralize.

“One Of The Worst:” The School-To-Prison Pipeline In Richmond, Virginia, Cassie Powell

Law Student Publications

Virginia tops the nation in the rate of referrals of students to law enforcement, at three times the national average. Students with disabilities and children of color are far more likely to be referred. Some Richmond area school districts and local government leaders are taking steps to counteract this trend.

Thinking Outside The Jury Box: Deploying The Grand Jury In The Guilty Plea Process, Roger Fairfax

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

There is near-universal agreement that the engine of the modern American criminal justice system is plea bargaining.'Given the ubiquity of plea bargaining, the Supreme Court and the rest of the legal community have begun setting their sights on how the practice might be better regulated. At the same time, many hold the view that the grand jury has outlived its usefulness in the administration of criminal justice and is a relic of a time gone by. Even before recent calls for the abolition of the grand jury in the wake of high-profile cases that seemed to cast the institution in …

Federalism Anew, Sara Mayeux, Karen Tani , Professor Of Law

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

One of the most remarked-upon events of the recent past is the August 2014 death of a black teenager, Michael Brown, at the hands of a white police officer, Darren Wilson, in Ferguson, Missouri. Attention initially focused on individual actions and local circumstances, but quickly expanded to a broader set of injustices. Brown died just days before he was scheduled to start college, a significant accomplishment in his local context. His school district's graduation rate was less than 62 percent, compared to 96 percent in a wealthier district down the road, belying Missouri's constitutional commitments to public education and equal …

Telepsychological Services With Criminal Justice And Substance Abuse Clients: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, Ashley B. Batastini, Christopher King, Robert D. Morgan, Brieann Mcdaniel

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Recent years have seen the incorporation of telepsychology into poorly accessed, rural, and underserved settings, including criminal justice and substance abuse treatment. A systematic search of the literature on telepsychological and related services with justice-involved and substance abuse clients revealed numerous descriptive reports, but few empirical studies. The results of 3 studies of criminal justice participants and 2 studies of substance-abuse participants were subjected to a series of 5 outcome-specific meta-analyses (mental health symptoms, therapeutic processes, program engagement, program performance, and service satisfaction). These 5 studies, all of which utilized a comparison group, contributed a total of 342 participants and …

From Coercion To Consent?: Governing The Formerly Incarcerated In The 21st Century United States, Karen G. Williams

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

With over 650,000 incarcerated people returning to their home communities each year, prisoner reentry reform has recently become as an important strand of penal policy innovation intended to address the barriers that former offenders face. Through ethnographic research in four correctional institutions in the Midwest, I trace the use of evidence-based practices and policies as they relate to prisoner reentry and risk reduction. This dissertation intervenes in the debates on mass incarceration and prisoner reentry and offers insights on how evidence-based practices and policies are being mobilized to mitigate the costs of mass incarceration. I show how the scientization of …

Psychopathology And Crime Causation: Insanity Or Excuse?, Meagan Cline

Fidei et Veritatis: The Liberty University Journal of Graduate Research

One of the most controversial topics in the criminal justice industry is the "insanity defense" and its applicability or validity in prosecuting criminal cases. The purpose of this assignment is to identify and discuss psychopathology and crime causation in terms of mental illness, research, and the insanity defense. For this evaluation, information was gathered from scholarly research, textbooks, dictionaries, and published literature. These sources were then carefully reviewed and applied to the evaluation in a concise, yet informative, manner. This assignment also addresses some of the key terms in psychopathology and crime causation, including various theories, definitions, and less commonly …

A Comparison Of The Use Of The Antisocial And Borderline Personality Disorder Scales In The Mcmi-Iii And Personality Assessment Inventory With A Criminal Justice Population, Christine Chasek, Thomas Maxson, Brittany Schmidt, Julie A. Dinsmore, Douglas R. Tillman, David D. Hof

Counseling Faculty Publications

The present study compared outcome measurements on the Antisocial and Borderline scales of the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) with those on the Milion Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI-III) when both were used with a criminal justice population. Significant positive correlations were found between the Antisocial scales on the PAI and MCMI-III, as well as between the Borderline scales of both assessments, indicating that in an evaluation process it would be sufficient to use only one assessment. It is suggested that the MCMI-III is the better option to save costs and time while preserving the clinical accuracy of the testing protocol for …

Crime Logic, Campus Sexual Assault, And Restorative Justice, Donna Coker

Articles

No abstract provided.

Keynote Remarks, Vanita Gupta

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

In communities across America today, from Ferguson, Missouri, to Flint, Michigan, too many people—especially young people and people of color—live trapped by the weight of poverty and injustice. They suffer the disparate impact of policies driven by, at best, benign neglect, and at worst, deliberate indifference. And they see how discrimination stacks the deck against them. So today, as we discuss the inequality that pervades our criminal justice system—a defining civil rights challenge of the 21st century—we must also acknowledge the broader inequalities we face in other segments of society. Because discrimination in so many areas—from the classroom, to the …

Deadly Misunderstandings About Police Use Of Deadly Force, Gerald S. Reamey

Faculty Articles

This short article, written for law enforcement and criminal justice professionals in Texas, summarizes and addresses some of the most common ways in which the laws of justification in Texas are misunderstood and misapplied. The focus is on the use of deadly force by law enforcement officers and the specific provisions contained within the Texas Penal Code regulating the use of the highest level of force by police and others.

Impact Of Community Treatment And Neighborhood Disadvantage On Recidivism In Mental Health Courts, Woojae Han

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The purpose of the study is to investigate the impact of community treatment and neighborhood disadvantage on recidivism among offenders with mental health problems in Mental Health Courts (MHCs) and in traditional courts. Although treatment is believed to lead to reduced recidivism for offenders with mental illness, little research has been conducted for MHC participants. Further, neighborhood disadvantage are known to influence recidivism generally, but environmental factors have not been examined in the MHC context.

Prisons And Power : Carceral Coloniality In Hybrid Post-Neoliberal Venezuela, Cory Fischer-Hoffman

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation examines contemporary Venezuela’s dual prison system--in which half of the prison population is incarcerated in internally controlled prisons run by armed inmates, and the other half are locked up in the Bolivarian Government’s restricted “New Regime” prisons. The Venezuelan state formation is conceptualized as ‘hybrid post-neoliberal,’ demonstrating how rationalities of a liberal rentier state and neoliberalism, combined with anti-neoliberal logics all act together in competing yet co-existing ways in the post-neoliberal era, which was initiated by the 1999 Bolivarian Revolution. The central question examines the “work” of the prison in the (re)production of power relations and how policies, …

Examining Law Enforcement Analysis And Intelligence Capabilities : A Case Study Of Urban Policing, Shelagh Dorn

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Extant research, concerning police use of intelligence analysis, hypothesizes that police culture and information-sharing partnerships may affect outputs of intelligence analysis. Previous efforts have provided overviews of criminal intelligence analysis, without examining organizational and structural factors which might affect the genesis and use of intelligence and crime analysis. Examining the role and impact of both analysis and information sharing in law enforcement has been largely absent, and based on current research, it is difficult to determine what accounts for law enforcement variation in the knowledge, use, and demand for crime and intelligence analysis. Ashton Police Department’s (APD) Information Coordination Unit …

A Federal Certificate Of Rehabilitation Program: Providing Federal Ex-Offenders More Opportunity For Successful Reentry, Lisa A. Rich

Faculty Scholarship

The purpose of this Article is to propose a new federal certificate of rehabilitation program. The creation of such a program not only would help the thousands of federal offenders released back into their communities every year overcome employment barriers but would also serve as a model for states to use in addressing the need of their own burgeoning population of former offenders. In order to understand the magnitude of the problem, it is essential to understand the pool of offenders affected by their criminal history, the intent of the federal agencies to assist this disadvantaged group, and the barriers …

He Jiahong, Back From The Dead: Wrongful Convictions And Criminal Justice In China, Stanley B. Lubman

Hong Yen Chang Center for Chinese Legal Studies

1In 1987, Teng Xingshan was sentenced to death for raping a woman and dismembering her body; wrongfully convicted, he was executed in 1989 – but in 1992 the “victim” returned home, and Teng was exonerated in 2005. His case is only one among numerous other tragic wrongful convictions discussed in Back From the Dead: Wrongful Convictions and Criminal Justice in China, by Professor He Jiahong (Renmin University Law School, Beijing). This book, the product of ten years of research, is a scholarly analysis of wrongful convictions that demonstrates deep system-wide flaws in China’s criminal justice system.

"Get Tough On Juvenile Criminals": An Assessment Of Punitiveness And Punitive Attitudes, Richard Charles Gehrke

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This quantitative study surveyed college students (n=111), currently attending a community college in northeastern Minnesota, regarding whether juveniles should receive the same due process rights as adults, what the primary goal of the juvenile justice system should be, whether juveniles charged with serious offenses should be tried as adults, and whether juveniles convicted of committing a serious offense should be sentenced as adults. Utilizing two competing theoretical frameworks, the researcher hypothesized that students who self-identify with a conservative political ideology would be more punitive than students who self-identify with a liberal political ideology. The researcher's second hypothesis was that students …

America Is Slowly Awakening To The Structural Unfairness In Our Criminal Justice System, Mary Kelly Tate

Law Faculty Publications

Review of Bryan Stevenson's book, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, published by Spiegal & Grau in 2014.