Digital Commons Network^™

Fostering Human Rights Awareness In Kosovo: A Case Study On The Sustainability Of Ngo Trainings, Hana Kaja

Theses

The sustainability of human rights trainings in Kosovo remains a critical issue, particularly as the country seeks to develop a rights-oriented society aligned with Euro-Atlantic values. This case study evaluates the sustainability efforts of two trainings conducted by a non-governmental organization, focusing on their alignment with objectives, participant feedback, and systemic factors such as institutional support and follow-up mechanisms. It also explores broader challenges like participant disengagement and the limited integration of human rights education into the national curriculum. A mixed-methods approach was used, combining survey data from participants, interviews with NGO representatives, and analysis of internal documents. To ensure …

Irish Teachers’ Perceptions Of Immigrant Students: Exploring How Culturally Responsive Pedagogy Affects Biases, Metacognition, And Inclusive Teaching Practices, Dorothy Widener Alton

Theses and Dissertations

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to describe a qualitative, reflective action research study that examined if learning and reflecting on culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP) affected Irish post-primary teachers’ perceptions of immigrant students, metacognition of biases, teaching practices, and inclusivity of these marginalized students. Qualitative data consisted of administering an online survey to post-primary teachers across Ireland, chosen by convenience sampling. In addition, I conducted an in-depth reflective survey before, during, and after providing CRP literature to four select participants, selected by purposive and snowball sampling. Data was analyzed by coding and observing emerging patterns to identify overarching themes …

Unveiling Injustices In Theodore Dreiser's “An American Tragedy” And Susan Glaspell's “A Jury Of Her Peers”, Athena Maria Dotsikas

Theses and Dissertations

Crime and its representation in new age media is seeping into every avenue of discussion nowadays. The influence of crime is most notably evident in literature, where real cases inspired fictional novels and short stories that explore social issues and injustices. Since the 16th century, true crime has captivated human curiosity while also shedding light on the United States legal and justice system. Ultimately, true crime narratives provide a deeper understanding of human psychology and the reasons behind a number of gruesome and horrific incidents. This thesis investigates how Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy and Susan Glaspell’s A Jury of …

Leadership Emergence Among Black Urban Women Survivors Of Intimate Partner Violence: A Qualitative Exploration, Dawn H. Benton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study proposed to identify leadership strategies that assisted intimate partner violence-impacted Black women in urban areas to become leaders in their homes and communities as perceived by mental health professionals. Nine mental health professionals and counselors from an Ohio urban area completed a questionnaire and a semi-structured interview to provide data about Black women in intimate partner violence-impacted relationships living in a metropolitan area in Ohio. Deprived of valuable leadership resources and gifts that the women can offer their families and communities, investigators omitted the women's plights in their studies. Four research questions framed this qualitative case study design …

Necessary Justice: “Political” Trials And Modern Political Philosophy, Rob Howse

Cardozo Law Review

Donald Trump’s election to President of the United States for the second time in November 2024 marked the beginning of the end of a sustained effort to hold him accountable in court for conduct that many Americans viewed as criminal.[1] Trump received not only the majority of Electoral College votes but a decisive plurality of the popular vote as well.[2] At the time of the election, he had already been convicted of thirty-four felonies surrounding a complex fraud to hide the use of campaign funds for hush money to an adult film actor.[3] Prior to this conviction, the decisions of …

The Mental Health Bill (2025) For England And Wales: Professional And Carer Consensus Statement Summarising Concerns And Unintended Consequences From Proposed Changes To Autism And Learning Disability, Rohit Shankar, Peter Beazley

Peninsula Medical School

The Mental Health Bill, 2025, proposes to remove autism and learning disability from the scope of Section 3 of the Mental Health Act, 1983 (MHA). The present article represents a professional and carer consensus statement that raises concerns and identifies probable unintended consequences if this proposal becomes law. Our concerns relate to the lack of clear mandate for such proposals, conceptual inconsistency when considering other conditions that might give rise to a need for detention and the inconsistency in applying such changes to Part II of the MHA but not Part III. If the proposed changes become law, we anticipate …

Looking Forward, Reflecting Back: The Promise Of Dispute Resolution To Reform The Criminal Legal System, Cynthia Alkon

Journal of Dispute Resolution

The criminal legal system in the United States is plagued by serious and systemic problems. There have been countless efforts at reform over the last many decades that have included changes in what is a crime, how crimes are punished, how prosecutors do their job, and changes in policing. Yet, despite these efforts, problems such as mass incarceration remain deeply embedded. It is easy to be swept up in pessimism when discussing the criminal legal system. Change is hard, at best incremental, and we seem to be in the beginning of an era of backlash against recent reforms. This is …

Victimization In The Grain Tower: A Study Of The Effect Of Community Perceptions On Victimization Risk And Perceived Wellness In A Rural Environment, Morgan Steele, April Terry, Ziwei Qi, Troy Terry, Tamara Lynn

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Social science research has studied the role of neighborhood order in explaining perceptions of crime and official crime statistics for decades. When citizens perceive their neighborhood to be socially and/or physically disordered, community and interpersonal relationships diminish, mistrust increases, including negative perceptions of police legitimacy, and overall individual wellness decreases. However, little is known about these interactions within a college population—neighborhoods referred to as “studentification” and described as “student ghettos.” Using an online survey distributed to all students, faculty, and staff of a midwestern rural university, we sought to better understand the university population’s perceptions regarding social disorder, police legitimacy, …

Tell Me How You Really Feel: A Case Study On Restorative Practices, Marissa Santiago

Theses and Dissertations

Restorative Practices are gaining popularity as the primary form of handling student discipline. In the past, school districts have heavily relied on exclusionary practices, such as suspension and expulsions. The purpose of this qualitative case study is to explore and understand how educators make sense of restorative practices in an urban intermediate school serving students in fourth to sixth grade. The guiding framework for this study was Sensemaking Theory. Sensemaking theory helps researchers to understand how participants make sense of their experiences. Ten teachers, from an urban intermediate school, participated in this study through semi-guided interviews, observations, and document collection. …

Operating Fund Budget/ Expenditure Summary Report 2024-25, Csusb Budget Office

University Budget Office records

No abstract provided.

Ai And The Erosion Of Law’S Moral Authority, Joseph Avery

BYU Law Review

Over the past decade, artificial intelligence (AI) has begun to assist, augment, and influence judicial and legislative work. At the end of 2023, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts was “confident” that technological changes would continue to transform the common law and that judicial work would “be significantly affected by AI.”

In the legislative realm, there are AI tools devoted exclusively to drafting statutes, and the use of AI by members of the U.S. Congress is now officially sanctioned. These developments have led to a focus on technical and performance-related issues with AI, including those of accuracy and reliability, …

Leveraging The Convention Against Torture: Opportunities For U.S. Migrants Within International Human Rights Frameworks, Margaret Burnetti

DePaul Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Licensure As Pathway, Not Barrier, Brian Gallini

Arkansas Law Review

The legal profession knows it has an access to justice crisis. One side lacks a lawyer in approximately three-quarters of the twenty million civil cases filed across state courts every year. Against that concerning backdrop is how we license attorneys. The most common method is the written bar exam. But that exam bears little resemblance to the practice of law, produces racially disparate results, and is shockingly expensive for law graduates to prepare for and take. Its opaque scoring practices alongside its rare administration—offered just twice per year—strengthens the idea that the modern bar exam operates more as a barrier …

‘ Less Museum And More Like Disney’ The Infantilisation Of Dark Histories: Objective Violence At Bodmin Jail, Siân Lewis, Iain Channing, Oliver Smith

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences

This paper uses the Bodmin Jail Attraction in Cornwall, UK, as a case study to explore how sites of dark tourism have been subsumed into infantilised consumer culture. In these commodified, disney-esque forms, rather than being spaces of reflection and education, they act to perpetuate objective violence. This allows us to fetishise the subjective violence of the past and disavow our participation in or acceptance of present and future harms. Using a conceptual framework that connects dark tourism with historical and sensory criminology, we analyse data gathered from a field analysis of Bodmin Jail, alongside the analysis of 1505 Trip …

Thirtieth Aniversary Of The Srebrenica Genocide: Revisting The Judgment In The “Bosnian Genocide Case”, Harun Halilović

Indonesian Journal of International Law

The year 2025 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide. This article aims to revisit and give an overview of the critical points of the judgment in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina v Serbia and Montenegro (Judgment), related to the application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide that was conducted before the International Court of Justice. The case (also known as the Bosnia v Serbia case) was brought to an end by the Judgment in 2007, drawing a mixed response. The main points of contention in the Judgment are related to …

Reconnecting With Their Ud Flyer Roots, University Of Dayton

Blog: The Dayton Engineer

A group of 1978 engineering alumni recently reunited back on campus to discover how things have changed.

Political Agroecology In Syracuse: Local Understandings, Possibilities, And Barriers To Food System Transformation, Cooper Olds

Theses - ALL

In recent years, agroecology has begun to receive increasing attention from international institutions such as the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UN FAO). For some, this is seen as a valuable case of up-scaling agroecology which will lead to greater institutional support for the framework. However, critical agroecologists have raised concerns that such institutional adoption is rather a form of co-optation where the social and political elements of agroecology are omitted to facilitate the integration of the framework into a wider program of food system reform. As a result, there is ongoing contestation over the framework between these co-opted …

Und Connect: A Preliminary Overview Of Courtroom Observations And Interviews With Gfdvc Professionals And Representatives, Adam K. Matz, Ashley Fansher, Roni Mayzer, Jackson Archbold, Kambrya Stephenson, Sierra Schartz

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

This research brief summarizes about half a dozen courtroom observations and a dozen interviews conducted with practitioners and court representatives affiliated with the Grand Forks Domestic Violence Court (GFDVC). About 43% of women and 31% of men in the state of North Dakota have experienced some form of sexual, physical, or stalking violence in their lifetime (Smith et al., 2023). Rates of intimate partner violence (IPV) against women in the state generally matches that of the broader nation, though the state ranks as one of the lowest in terms of violence against men.

Examining The Effectiveness Of Anti-Recidivism Programs In Fresno County, California, James Mora

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this phenomenological research is to examine the perceived effectiveness of anti-recidivism programs in California and the lived experiences of ex-offenders who participate in the programs. This research will employ a qualitative methodology, utilizing a phenomenological design and interviews to collect data. The guiding theory for this research will be the Life-Course Theory, which examines relationships, significant life events, or turning points and their correlation with sobriety, gainful employment, and a crime-free lifestyle. The open coding system will synthesize and categorize interview responses before inputting the data into NVivo 15, a qualitative analysis software. The participant sample will …

Flourishing: A Plan To Strengthen Public Legal Education And Information, The Bc Plei Ecosystem Project, Catherine Dauvergne, Aara Johnson, Shannon Srivastava

All Faculty Publications

The Public Legal Education and Information (PLEI) Sectoral Planning Project, headed by Dr. Catherine Dauvergne, K.C., was commissioned by the Law Foundation of British Columbia with the goal of making recommendations about how to improve public legal education and information in the province. The project was co-sponsored by the Law Foundation and the province’s Ministry of the Attorney General. We have come to understand this constellation of resources and organizations as the “public legal education and information ecosystem.” There is a wide array of high-quality, easily accessible, clearly written, legal information available in British Columbia. Ecosystem leaders are at the …

To Use Or Not To Use Exclusionary Discipline In Early Childhood Education? A Phenomenological Analysis Of Pre-Kindergarten Teachers In Alabama, Christal C. Coker

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This qualitative phenomenological study was conducted to examine the lived experiences of pre- kindergarten teachers in Alabama regarding their use of and restraint from using exclusionary discipline. The study aimed to find outcomes that could potentially improve social contexts in Alabama's preschools by creating more equitable learning environments. The problem addressed by the study is that the lived experience of preschool teachers regarding their use of and restraint from using exclusionary discipline when students misbehave at school remains to be discovered. A purposive sampling strategy was employed to recruit seven preschool teachers licensed in Alabama for a one-on-one semi-structured Zoom …

Evaluating The Utilization Of Icd-10 Z-Codes For Documenting Social Determinants Of Health And The Association With Frequent Emergency Department Visits Among Medicaid Beneficiaries, Sofia L. Gomez

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This study assesses the use of ICD-10 Z-codes for documenting social determinants of health (SDoH) and examines their relationship with frequent emergency department (ED) visits among Arizona Medicaid-eligible beneficiaries. This retrospective cohort study utilizes claims data from a major Arizona Medicaid payor to explore the frequency of ICD-10 Z-codes use for documenting SDoH, associations between variables, and factors most strongly linked to higher ED utilization. The study sample (N = 53,368) includes Medicaid beneficiaries with ED visits in 2023, including 47,153 individuals without documented SDoH and 6,215 individuals with documented SDoH. Descriptive and statistical analyses, such as binomial tests, chi-square …

Navigating Reintegration: A Qualitative Exploration Of The Challenges And Success Factors For Women Offenders In Society, Arabella Grace Alegrid Velasquez, Beatrice Gabrielle Z. Dyquiangco, Vylet Xummer Eduardo Pimpinio, Tamachi Agnesia Varent, Lander James Luke Torres Villanueva

DLSU Senior High School Research Congress

This study explores the different challenges and success factors women ex-offenders face during their reintegration into society after being incarcerated. With the help of 11 women on parole and probation in Baguio City from interviews, the researchers were able to examine their experiences and perspectives. Superordinate themes emerged, namely Reintegration Struggles and Societal Rejection, Resilience Through Support Systems, and Stigma and Social Exclusion. The results indicate the personal, societal, and structural barriers that women offenders face upon reintegration. Additionally, the successful reintegration of women offenders is influenced by both internal and external support systems, personal motivation, and spiritual guidance. A …

Robbing The Cradle: Georgia's Battle To Enact "Raise The Age" Legislation Through Hb 462, Elizabeth Hammond

Georgia Criminal Law Review

In the state of Georgia, seventeen-year-olds are not old enough under the law to vote or consume alcohol and tobacco products. Despite this, they are old enough to be criminally tried as adults. Georgia is one of three states that continues to process seventeen-year-old juvenile offenders through the criminal justice system instead of juvenile court. In September 2023, forty-five juveniles were prosecuted as adults and incarcerated in Georgia prisons. This is significant because juvenile offenders experience better outcomes when they are processed through the juvenile court system because juvenile courts account for a youth’s “naturally high capacity for change and …

The Shadow Pandemic: The Response To Domestic Violence In The Wake Of Covid-19 And What We Can Carry Forward, Presley Sneed

Georgia Criminal Law Review

When the COVID-19 virus brought the pandemic to the United States in March of 2020, the legal system was not prepared for the increase in domestic and intimate partner violence that would follow. The United Nations (UN) later identified this social phenomenon as a second pandemic, a “shadow pandemic” that resulted from an increase in stay-at-home orders and a decrease in support services for victims. By the end of 2021, forty-five percent of women globally reported either they themselves or a woman they know had experienced some form of domestic or intimate partner violence since the emergence of COVID-19. One …

Misreading The Federal Child Pornography Statutes, Owen Senders

Georgia Criminal Law Review

For the past 40 years, federal courts have committed two grievous textual errors in interpreting the federal child-pornography statutes and sentencing guidelines. These errors have caused hundreds of wrongful convictions—many the bases for decades-long sentences—and have produced a body of caselaw that is profoundly incoherent and in direct conflict with basic tenets of First Amendment doctrine. They have also likely endangered children. This article identifies these errors, surveys their consequences, and suggests legal arguments for people charged or convicted under the child-pornography statutes.

The first error impacts the application of all of the federal child-pornography statutes and sentencing guidelines. These …

Directing Unconstitutional Verdicts: When Judges Become Jurors On Self-Defense, Anjali Pathmanathan

Georgia Criminal Law Review

The right to self-defense is one of the oldest and most universal concepts in Anglo-American criminal law and criminal procedure. Under this defense, an accused person, who honestly believed that using force was necessary to protect themself from imminent danger, did nothing criminal even if another person was harmed as a result. To assert self-defense at trial, however, the accused must admit to intentionally committing the forceful acts alleged to explain how they only used such force to save themself from immediate harm. Once an accused has made such a grave admission, the jury must consider whether the force was …

Homework, Households, And Hurdles: The Unexpected Drivers Of Student Graduation Perceptions, Daniel Alhassan, Zahra Fatah, Priscilla Mansah Codjoe, Caroline Bena Kuno, Dorcas Ofori-Boateng

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Students’ perceptions of their likelihood to graduate are important determinants of their academic engagement, yet these perceptions remain understudied. This study, which is based on the 2021 Monitoring the Future survey of 8th- and 10th-grade students in the United States, uses machine learning algorithms to identify the most important factors that influence these perceptions. Among the tested models, random forest provided the best classification performance. Using permutation-based feature importance, we identified frequent participation in schoolwork, maternal education, paternal education, and homework completion as the most important predictors of students’ graduation perceptions. These results highlight the importance of targeted and well-coordinated …

Probation Officers’ Perspectives Of Outside Services In Reducing Recidivism, Karla Murguia

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Research has underscored the critical role of probation officers in improving rates of recidivism. However, the literature on the comprehensive impact of outside services on recidivism was sparse and underdeveloped. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how probation officers in court services and a community corrections agency in Garden City, Kansas perceived the utility of outside services in reducing adult recidivism for probationers. Ecological systems theory was used to guide the study. Eight probation officers recruited via purposive sampling participated in semistructured interviews. Transcribed data were analyzed using a six-step thematic analysis protocol. Findings revealed that probationers …

Law Enforcement Officers’ Perceptions About Antipolice Sentiment And Social Media As A Force Multiplier, Edward Peter Pope

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

As a newly emergent form of mass communication, social media platforms can act as a force multiplier in fomenting negative and critical attitudes or viewpoints toward law enforcement officers and agencies. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the perceptions and lived experiences of law enforcement officers about antipolice sentiment and social media as a force multiplier. Amid growing concerns regarding public opinion and the impact of social media on law enforcement practices, more research was needed on how officers navigate and interpret these challenges. Data from in-depth interviews with 10 law enforcement officers were thematically analyzed to …