Digital Commons Network^™

How Media Framing Impacts Juror Bias In A Fictional Criminal Case, Teah Sharon Swartzon

Journalism

This study examines how media framing influences juror bias among college-aged students when evaluating a defendant's guilt in a fictional criminal case. Utilizing framing theory, the research explores whether biased news coverage can shape perceptions of a defendant's guilt before trial.

Participants, consisting of students at California Polytechnic State University, aged 18-22, were asked to read two news articles about a fictional criminal case. One framed the fictional defendant as guilty, while the other framed him as innocent. Both articles were generated using the Artificial Intelligence Platform, Claude.

Data was collected in a survey where participants indicated whether they believed …

Jfl Insider: A Newsletter To Keep You In The Know, Liberty University

Jerry Falwell Library Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Beyond Algorithmic Equality, Tatiana Dancy

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

Algorithms can predict the risk that a given offender will reoffend, on the basis of statistical observations about the relationship between certain attributes and proxies for criminal behavior (e.g., arrest or conviction). These predictions inform a range of decisions within the realm of criminal justice across the world, including sentencing, security classification, and parole. The variables that can increase an individual’s risk score, which are not widely publicized by those who develop or use risk tools, include financial stress, the criminality of friends or family, parental neglect, and experiences of domestic violence. In this way, algorithms may treat individuals as …

The Press, Privacy, Expungement, And Second Chances: Shifting The Paradigm, Brian M. Murray

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

An Exploratory Analysis Of Student Attitudes Towards Punishment: Punitive Vs Rehabilitative Orientations, Leah Johnson

Honors Theses

This study examined differences in punishment orientation among undergraduate students, paying particular attention to variations across academic major, degree progression, and connectivity to law enforcement and corrections. This study explored how individual characteristics may influence attitudes toward crime and appropriate punishment. Data were collected through surveys which were administered in person to students enrolled in criminal justice or social science courses at the University of Southern Mississippi. Participants were asked to rate their level of agreement on a variety of statements regarding punishment. These responses were used to calculate punitive and rehabilitative orientation scores. Statistical analyses were conducted to test …

Child Support Factory: Racist History, Harm, And Unconstitutionality Of The Child Support System's Contractual Operations, Daniel L. Hatcher

All Faculty Scholarship

Within America’s justice institutions, the child support system has become a business. The intended mission of aid has been traded and abdicated through contractual deals to churn vulnerable families into factory-like revenue operations. Juvenile and family courts across the country have partnered through countless intertwined interagency contracts with human service agencies, prosecutors, attorneys general’s offices, probation departments, and policing offices—all aimed at generating revenue from impoverished children and parents rather than serving their best interests. The resulting child support factory is vast, harmful, unconstitutional, unethical, and grew from a racist history that devastated Black families, and still operates with starkly …

A Legal Transplant Failure In The Ai Age, Xuan-Thao Nguyen

Articles

Thailand positions itself as the new AI-driven innovation hub in the Southeast Asia region as Big Tech companies invest billions in building new data centers to power the AI transformations in all sectors in Thailand. An integral part of Thailand’s new ambition is the legal transplant of personal data protection law from Europe. The transplant, however, is of form, not substance, as this Article illustrates the failure through in-depth analysis of Thailand’s Personal Data Protection Act and provides evidence of rampant violations and noncompliance by the largest ecommerce conglomerate and SMEs. This Article offers suggestions for Thailand to realign its …

Listening To Survivors: A Community Conversation, Jonathan Jackson

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Adultification Of Black Girls, Melanie Thompson

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Impact Of Cannabis And Cannabis Legalization On Us Atrial Septal Defect Rates, Albert Stuart Reece, Hulse

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Atrial septal defect (ASD) affects 1:11.3 children in some US states; however, the antecedents of these trends are yet to be identified. A total of 1882 ASD rates (ASDRs) for 2003–2020 were sourced from the National Birth Defects Prevention Network reports. A total of 406,893 ASDs are reported. Substance (cigarettes, binge alcohol, cannabis, cannabinoids, analgesics, cocaine) exposure data were taken from the National Survey of Drug Use and Health. Income and ethnicity data were derived from the US Census. Adjustment was performed by mixed effects, survey and generalized additive regression. Causal analysis was by inverse probability weighting and E-values. Data …

"School Clubs Are Great Here, But They Are Not For Me" A Narrative Inquiry Of Students' Experiences With After-School And Extracurricular Activities, Janae Khadijah Baine

Theses & Dissertations

This study focused on the narratives of four high school students who did not participate in after-school or extracurricular activities at a suburban high school in the Northeast region of the United States. Understanding participant narratives supported a recognition of the problem that many students were opting out of beneficial non-compulsory school activities. The purpose of this study was to present the narratives and perceptions of students from Northridge High School who shared the reasons they did not participate in any of the available after-school and extracurricular activities. The selected site was nationally recognized by the U.S. Department of Education …

Redefining Retention: Analyzing The Experiences Of Black Men In Higher Education Through The Lens Of Race, Masculinity, And Strength-Based Approaches, Roderick Waters

Theses and Dissertations from DePaul University

Black male students have continued to face systemic challenges in higher education, particularly at historically White institutions (HWIs), where they experience lower retention and graduation rates compared to their peers. Although enrollment numbers have increased, institutional barriers, racialized campus environments, and deficit-based narratives have continued to contribute to disparities in academic success. Much of the existing research has focused on the challenges Black male students encounter rather than the strategies, relationships, and institutional conditions that support their persistence. This study sought to shift that focus by exploring the lived experiences of Black men who persisted at an HWI through an …

Structural Silence: When Ai Infrastructure Fails Speakers Of Underrepresented Languages, Avijit Roy, Proma Roy

Publications and Research

Artificial intelligence tools for education and language support are increasingly framed as scalable responses to access gaps in under-resourced communities. Yet the infrastructure underlying these tools—training corpora, tokenization schemes, evaluation benchmarks, and deployment architectures—encodes a set of assumptions that systematically disadvantages speakers of underrepresented languages before a single model is trained. This paper examines those assumptions through the lens of Bengali, one of the world’s most widely spoken languages with roughly 285 million speakers (Ethnologue, 2025; International Communication and Leadership School, 2026), and the structural barriers that emerge when attempting to build AI-assisted educational tools for Bengali-speaking learners in low-connectivity …

Predictors Of Opioid Misuse And Abuse Among Pregnant Women In The Us, Henry Ofori Duah, Diane Von Ah, Ethan Morgan

College of Nursing Faculty Research and Publications

Introduction

Opioid misuse and abuse during pregnancy can adversely affect maternal and infant outcomes. Factors that drive the burden of opioid misuse and abuse are multifaceted and understudied. This study sought to explore predictors of opioid misuse and abuse among pregnant women in the United States.

Methods

Secondary data analysis of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) data from 2015-2019 was performed. The primary outcomes were past-year opioid misuse, past-month misuse, and past-year opioid abuse. Data analysis included weight-adjusted univariate, bivariate, and multivariable logistic regression.

Results

The pooled weighted sample comprised 2,258,599 pregnant women. The prevalence of …

The Digital Radical: Online Extremism, Propagation, And Terror By Design's Strategic Implications For Homeland Security, Hunter Lacroix, Shevach Berkovits

Journal of Strategic Security

The 'lone wolf' figure has long been central to counterterrorism analysis, representing the trajectory from non-participant to self-directed actor aligned with extremist causes. Traditional frameworks emphasizing in-person networks or online exposure, however, fail to capture the transformation of radicalization in the algorithmic age. The Arab Spring demonstrated the mobilizing power of digital platforms, yet movements like ISIS later weaponized these networks to provide ideology, belonging, and identity to dislocated populations. This article introduces the concept of the Digital Radical—an individual who transitions from passive consumer to active propagator of extremist narratives, sustaining and expanding radical ecosystems in a symbiotic …

Third Generation Gangs And Transnational Cartels. Edited By John P. Sullivan And Robert Bunker. Xlibris, 2025., Nathan P. Jones

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.

Redbird Scholar, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Spring 2026), Illinois State University, Office Of The Vice President For Research And Graduate Studies

Redbird Scholar

No abstract provided.

Unpacking Faculty Perceptions: Disability Critical Race Theory & Adaptive Equity-Oriented Pedagogical In Teaching Practices, Courtney D. Gipson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Students with disabilities (SWD) encounter barriers in higher education despite federal legislation intended for equitable access. Community colleges enroll in a significant number of SWDs, who outstandingly are positioned to support different learners. However, the implementation of instructional practices and accommodations are shaped by false beliefs, inadequate training, and inequitable structures. Historically, research on disability and higher education have been analyzed from a deficit and ableist perspective, ignoring the intersectional experiences of SWDs and the important role faculty play in creating inclusive learning environments. This study addresses these gaps by examining community college faculty members' perceptions, beliefs, and pedagogical practices. …

Promoting Positive Youth Development With Adolescent Boys In Uk Schools: A Theory-Driven Evaluation Of The “Becoming A Man” Programme, Finlay Green, Cristina Preece, Kate Allen, Sean Manzi, Julia Mannes, Lynne Callaghan, Vashti Berry, Ediane Santana De Lima, Amy Woodburn, Tim Hobbs, Julie Harris, Nick Axford

Peninsula Medical School

Youth violence, including gender-based violence, is a major public health issue in the UK, yet evidence on effective interventions in the UK remains limited. Becoming a Man (BAM) is a two-year school-based positive youth development programme for adolescent boys, developed in Chicago, US, where two RCTs found reduced violent crime arrests and improved academic engagement. This study evaluated BAM’s potential in the UK using a theory-driven design (no comparison group). 97 boys aged 12–14 years (66% Black/Black British) in three London schools enrolled in BAM. Data sources included: implementation records (recruitment, attendance, adherence, quality, youth socio-demographics); school data (attendance, exclusions, …

الوساطة الجزائية ودورها في إنهاء الدعوى الجزائية (دراسة مقارنة), فاطمة راشد السبوسي

Theses

Criminal mediation, criminal proceedings, restorative justice, UAE Criminal Procedure Law, alternatives to criminal litigation

This thesis addresses the topic of criminal mediation as one of the modern mechanisms adopted by contemporary criminal legislation as an alternative to traditional criminal proceedings. The study focuses on the United Arab Emirates, where the Federal Decree-Law No. (38) of 2022 on Criminal Procedure codified criminal mediation, particularly in Articles 352 and following. This raises questions regarding the adequacy and appropriateness of the legal framework regulating this system.

The research problem lies in assessing the extent to which the UAE legal system effectively organizes criminal …

Exploring The Effect Of Counterstereotype And Perspective Taking In Reducing Bias And Promoting Empathy In Police, Sydney C. Timmer-Murillo, Keara Kangas, Nakia Gordon

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Racism in policing continues to be a serious issue in the United States (U.S.). While most efforts to reduce racism, focus on changing implicit (i.e., nonconscious) racial biases, other factors may also influence behavior. Intergroup emotion theory posits that emotions, especially empathy, may play a powerful role in changing behavior. In this study, using community-based participatory research design we created and tested a virtual reality (VR) experience designed to reduce implicit racial bias through perspective taking and counter-stereotypical information. Fifty-six police officers from a large city took part in the study. They completed questionnaires and an implicit association task (IAT) …

Giving Meaningful Effect To Victims’ Rights: The Canadian Victims Bill Of Rights As Quasi-Constitutional Legislation, Benjamin Perrin

All Faculty Publications

This research paper is the first detailed examination of the quasi-constitutional status of the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights ("CVBR") and the implications for its interpretation and application. It aims to provide a doctrinal account of this extraordinary legal recognition and to serve as a resource for scholars, judges, lawyers, and other justice system participants to ensure that the CVBR is interpreted and applied consistently with its aim of serving as a catalyst for transformative change to how the criminal justice system has historically treated victims.

How Policing Data Visualizations Affect Comprehension, Decision Confidence, And Perceptions Of Racial Disparities, Abeer Mustafa

Theses

Police departments use public dashboards to share use-of-force data for policymaking and public awareness, but it remains unclear how visualization formats affect how people interpret this information. This between-subjects study with 64 participants compares absolute use-of-force incident counts (Totals) and population-adjusted rates (Rates) across four United States cities. The research included a quantitative analysis of graph comprehension, policy prioritization, confidence ratings, and attitude change, as well as a qualitative examination of open-ended responses. Results showed a strong framing effect: those who viewed absolute numbers prioritized Aurora, Colorado (highest incidents) for policy intervention, often disregarding population baselines, while those viewing per-capita …

Confessions In Cases Of Child Physical Abuse-A Capnet Study, Margaret R Russell, Antoinette L Laskey, Henry T Puls, Suzanne P Starling, Joanne N Wood, Daniel M Lindberg, Nancy S Harper, Caitlin R Mcnamara, Angela N Bachim, Farah W Brink, Lori D Frasier, James D Anderst, Porcia Vaughn, Kristine A Campbell

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Objective: Prior research on confessions of physical abuse (PA) has explored mechanisms of injury. Little is known about conditions supporting a confession of abuse or how confessions may influence case outcomes.

Methods: This cross-sectional study of suspected PA in children aged < 10 years at 10 centers participating in CAPNET, a multicenter child PA research network, included children with in-person Child Abuse Pediatrics (CAP) consultations between February 2021 and December 2022 and excluded children without injury. Our focus was a confession of inflicted injury known to the CAP during clinical involvement. We compared child and clinical characteristics, out-of-home (OOH) placements, and arrests between cases with and without confessions. Multivariable models using generalized estimating equations (GEE) produced adjusted predicted probabilities (APP) clustering by CAPNET site.

Results: Confessions were known to CAPs in 115/4297 (2.7%) cases, with significant site variability. In a multivariable GEE model, confessions were more likely in cases with injuries with high specificity for abuse (APP 6.0% vs 1.6%, P < .001), near-fatality (APP 5.6% vs 2.3%, P < .001), and older children (APP 4.8% vs 2.5%, P = .025). OOH placements and arrests were more common in cases with confessions. CAP awareness of confessions, OOH placements, and arrests did not follow racial or ethnic patterns seen in the US child welfare system. Lower socioeconomic status was associated with OOH placements and arrests but not with CAP awareness of confessions.

Conclusions: Our findings highlight differences in case characteristics and outcomes where a confession is known to the CAP and raise questions about …

Verdict Format On Trial: Experimental Tests Of The Criminal Law’S Orthodoxy, Avani Mehta Sood

Vanderbilt Law Review

For centuries, American criminal courts have overwhelmingly favored “general” verdicts over “special” verdicts, without giving the latter a fair trial. A general verdict requires criminal jurors to deliver only an ultimate judgment of “guilty” or “not guilty” on a charged offense. In contrast, a special verdict would require jurors to answer a sequence of questions about whether each legal element of the charged offense has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt before they deliver a final judgment. The criminal law’s conventional wisdom holds that special verdicts will disadvantage defendants by constraining jurors’ latitude to temper or nullify the law, thereby …

The School-To-Prison Pipeline: A Crisis In Education And Justice, Abbey A. Poirier

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This honors thesis analyzes how school discipline polices, teacher perspectives, and academic factors contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline (STPP) in three Southern Louisiana parishes. Informed by General Strain Theory and Social Control Theory, the study explores how punitive environments, weak teacher-student relationships, and unmet academic or emotional needs increase the probability that students, particularly marginalized groups, are pushed out of instructional space and toward exclusionary systems such as detention centers. This project is based on a mixed-methods design using a comprehensive literature review with a teacher questionnaire distributed across Pre-K-12 schools in Lafayette, Vermilion, and St. Martin Parishes. Quantitative findings …

Tennessee State Unintentional Drug Overdose Reporting System (Sudors) Report 2025, Tennessee. Department Of Health.

Drug Poisonings and Overdoses in Tennessee

No abstract provided.

Tennessee State Unintentional Drug Overdose Reporting System (Sudors) Report 2024, Tennessee. Department Of Health.

Drug Poisonings and Overdoses in Tennessee

No abstract provided.

Violent Extremism In West Africa, Ben Ellis

Helms School of Government Spring Public Policy Conference

No abstract provided.

The Exoneration Of Archie Williams, Dominic R. Graves

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

This poster covers the case of Archie Williams, a man incarcerated for a crime he did not commit. Multiple forensic science and criminalistic strategies were employed to exonerate Williams after years of incarcerations. Fingerprints and false identification were themes throughout the case. Much of the evidence was used in the trial but disregarded, only to be used to appeal the punishment. This poster highlights the case, the issues with repeat line-ups, and the accuracy of fingerprints. The poster also conveys alternative actions that could have prevented this unfortunate outcome. This is but one story of many others who have been …