Digital Commons Network^™

The Moral Justifications Of The Justice-Experienced: Recidivism In Dark Triadic Morally Disengaging Offenders, Lacy Parrett

Scripps Senior Theses

Little is known about the cognitions of those who commit violent crimes; even less is known about the justification process of those who reoffend after completing a prison sentence. The proposed study suggests analyzing the moral disengagement strategies and personality traits of incarcerated adults to identify recidivism risk factors. Current literature indicates that nonhomicide violent offenders’ use of moral disengagement cognitions that justify the violation of socially accepted morals will moderate the relationship between psychopathic, Machiavellian, and narcissistic personality traits and offenders’ risks of recidivating. Furthermore, it is anticipated that an interaction will exist between moral disengagement and this so-called …

Let's Talk About Sex: Investigating Radical Feminist Theories On Prostitution In The United States, Anna E. Peterson

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper explores the feminist debates surrounding prostitution through an analysis of Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin’s abolitionist theories, juxtaposed with critiques from Wendy Brown, Janet Halley, Susie Bright, and Marxist feminist abolitionist Esperanza Fonseca. The text examines the systemic forces of patriarchy and capitalism that commodify women’s bodies and the challenges of legislative approaches to the sex trade. While MacKinnon and Dworkin identify the structural inequalities underpinning prostitution, their legislative proposals often fail to address the stigma and systemic conditions that perpetuate the marginalization of prostituted people. Critics like Brown and Halley highlight the limitations of punitive measures, calling …

Dei And Antisemitism: Bred In The Bone, Suzanna Sherry

FIU Law Review

The article explains why no one should have been surprised by the antisemitism that exploded on college campuses after October 7, 2023. The article demonstrates that the worldview espoused by the DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) movement -- and its cousins, antiracism and wokeness -- is inherently and inevitably antisemitic. The antisemitism "bred in the bone" of DEI was bound to come to the surface eventually, and it did.

Punishing Violence, Shima Baradaran Baughman

American University Law Review

The American criminal justice system doles out the harshest punishments in the world. It is infamous for its protracted criminal sentences and prodigious criminal code. But what most scholars and policymakers overlook is that the United States punishes only a fraction of the total serious crime that occurs in the country—including violent crime.

Approximately twenty million serious crimes occur in America each year, but only about half of these are reported to police. Of those reported, the police make arrests for an average of only twenty percent of serious crimes, and only ten percent of arrests result in a conviction. …

Amending Rule 15.3 Of The Mississippi Rules Of Criminal Procedure To Fully Capture Boykin V. Alabama And Acknowledge Systemic Coercion Indigent Defendants Face In Mississippi, Sarina P. Larson

MC Law Review

The U.S. Constitution—not a state—is what governs questions of constitutionality. It follows that for a state court to make a constitutionally sufficient record of a defendant’s waiver at their plea, the complete interpretation as to sufficiency by the United States Supreme Court must be followed. This Comment stands for the proposition that when Rule 15.3 of the Mississippi Rule of Criminal Procedure was adopted in 2017, it misinterpreted the call of the United States Supreme Court in Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238 (1969). Ultimately, this Comment suggests amendments to Rule 15.3 that would place it in compliance with Boykin, …

Juvenile Record Expungement Policy In Illinois, Emma Kudelka

Res Publica - Journal of Undergraduate Research

This policy paper explores juvenile expungement policies and their broader social impact. Research suggests that lenient expungement laws help prevent discrimination in education, housing, and military service, aiding rehabilitation youth offenders' reintegration. The paper begins with a historical overview of Illinois juvenile law, highlighting its shift from punitive to rehabilitative approaches. It then examines key legislation, including the Juvenile Court Act, Juvenile Justice, and Delinquency Prevention Act, and Youth Opportunity and Fairness Act. Illinois's juvenile expungement laws are analyzed, covering eligibility, process, and timeline. A comparative analysis follows, contrasting Illinois' policies with those of California and Florida to emphasize differences …

Fixing Fixed Term Recall An Insights Paper: February 2025, Miranda Shanks, Katie Mcbride, Zoë James

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences

This Insights Paper seeks to provide a comprehensive understanding of the application of fixed term recall (FTR) within the criminal justice system (CJS) and their impact on the rehabilitation and resettlement journeys of individuals on licence. The paper explores how FTR are currently being applied, examines the experiences of those subject to them, and identifies strategies to reduce the use of FTR while improving their effectiveness in managing non-compliance of low-risk individuals.

Exploring Individuals’ Experiences Of Working With Probation Who Have Personality Disorder: A Community-Based Participatory Action Research Approach., Nikki Morfey

School of Psychology Theses

Utilizing a Community-Based Participatory Action Research approach, semi-structured interviews were used to explore seven individuals’ experiences of working with Probation who self-identified as screening into the Offender Personality Disorder (OPD) Pathway. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) of the data resulted in the construction of six Group Experiential Themes. Findings reflect participant confusion with the Personality Disorder label in light of feeling it was imposed without discussion, speaking to their experiences of the power dynamic in the probation relationship. Participants described being reduced to a case to be managed, with no space to be seen as a person, and a gap between …

The Experiences Of Systemic Invalidation In Chronic Pain Care Among Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Individuals: An Interpretative Phenomenological Study, Claira Moro

School of Psychology Theses

This study explored the lived experiences of individuals from socioeconomically disadvantaged communities living with chronic pain and prescribed pain-relief medication. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, eight participants were recruited from a single primary care network in England. Two Group Experiential Themes were developed. This paper reports one: From dismissed to disengaged: the trauma of seeking help, with three sub-themes: (1) “Being fobbed off” – dismissal across healthcare and benefit systems; (2) “It just seemed horrible to me, to take it off me” – pain relief as withdrawn, stigmatised, or conditional; and (3) “Do I want to poke the bear?” – disengagement …

Appearances Can Be Deceiving: How Naturalistic Changes To Target Appearance Impact On Lineup-Based Decision-Making, Dominic T. Jordan, Adrian J. Scott, Donald M. Thomson

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The present study examined the influence of appearance, procedure and position on identification decisions, post-decisional confidence ratings and estimates of discrimination and confidence-specific accuracy. Regarding appearance, the study examined the combined influence of three naturalistic changes that occur day-to-day (i.e. a reduction in cranial hair length, the removal of stubble, and a change of clothing), two of which have not been considered before in a lineup-decision context. Participants (N = 350) completed four experimental lineups which involved: viewing a target person, completing a brief distractor task, and making an identification decision and a post-decisional confidence rating from a photographic lineup. …

Impact Of Perceived Discrimination And Social Exclusion On Wellbeing Of Black African Immigrants In Australia, Obed Adonteng-Kissi, Matthew Mabefam, Elizabeth Archibong, Nnaemeka Meribe, Frank Darkwa Baffour

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Across the globe, a significant number of immigrants frequently encounter discrimination and social exclusion in their host nations, prompting discussions regarding policies and societal attitudes toward these groups. This study is guided by the structural social work framework which provides a very important structure to understand the experiences of Black African immigrants in Australia. Drawing on the case of Black African immigrants in Australia, this study investigates the effects of discrimination and social exclusion on their wellbeing. This research builds upon existing literature concerning the discrimination and social exclusion of immigrants, incorporating the perspectives of 27 social workers and immigrants …

From ‘Raise The Age’ To ‘Raise The Awareness’: How Knowledge Affects Public Opinion Of The Minimum Age Of Criminal Responsibility In Western Australia, Suzanne Rock, Natalie Gately, Piero Moraro, James L. Finney

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR) in Western Australia is 10 years old. While the negative impacts of early contact with justice systems have been well-documented and have resulted in calls to raise the age, research had not examined the public views of MACR in Western Australia. This article presents a novel examination of the knowledge and perceptions of the MACR with a sample of the West Australian public (n = 69). Findings from the semi-structured interviews revealed low levels of knowledge about the MACR, some reacted with surprise when provided with the information. Participants’ views shifted in that …

Table Of Contents

FIU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Inge Viermetz, Woman Acquitted At Nuremberg, Diane Marie Amann

FIU Law Review

Conventional narratives tend to represent the post-World War II international criminal proceedings as a men’s project, thus obscuring the many women who participated, as lawyers, journalists, analysts, interpreters, witnesses, and defendants. Indeed, two women stood trial before Nuremberg Military Tribunals. This article examines the case of the only woman found not-guilty: Inge Viermetz, who had been an administrator at Lebensborn, the Nazi SS adoption and placement agency. The article outlines the prosecution’s child-taking case against Viermetz, as well as her successful gendered self-portrayal as a conventionally feminine caregiver. With references to Professor Megan A. Fairlie, at whose memorial symposium it …

Beyond Policy: Overcoming Challenges In Prosecuting Gender Persecution At The International Criminal Court, Yvonne M. Dutton, Milena Sterio

FIU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Professor Megan A. Fairlie's Scholarship On The Relationship Between The United States And The International Criminal Court, Jennifer Trahan

FIU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Should Hate Speech Be Criminalized? Lessons From The Canadian Experience In R V. Zundel And R V. Keegstra, Kenneth Grad

FIU Law Review

There is a global trend toward increased use of criminal law to combat hate speech. In assessing this trend, one should be mindful of the experience of countries that have long had criminal laws targeting harmful expression. Canada is one such country. Using the leading Canadian cases of R v. Zundel and R v. Keegstra, this article argues that the Canadian experience suggests the criminal law is a flawed mechanism for countering harmful expression. This is so for at least three reasons. First, hate-speech prosecutions may undermine the group dignity and sense of inclusion of minority groups. Second, criminal laws …

"Replace The Jew"--The Visible Invisibility Of American Antisemitism And Spoken Beliefs, Kerri Stone

FIU Law Review

This is an essay that attempts to provide a contemporary take on antisemitism from the perspective of a professor of employment discrimination.

Confronting The Challenges Of Regulating Artificial Intelligence, Amy B. Cyphert

FIU Law Review

Public opinion polls conclude that the American public is in favor of regulating artificial intelligence (“AI”), and many technology companies publicly claim that they would welcome regulation. And yet the United States has struggled to enact federal comprehensive AI regulations beyond a short-lived Executive Order. Why? Part I of this Article explains why regulating AI is so difficult, focusing on six key reasons: AI is a global issue; AI is not one discrete issue; AI is developing at a speed that is unprecedented; lawmakers largely lack the technical expertise effective AI regulation requires; the stakes of getting the regulation wrong …

Contested Criminalization, Steven Arrigg Koh

Faculty Scholarship

How does the U.S. government decide to deploy criminal justice abroad? From the Syrian civil war to the Israel-Gaza conflict, Russia-Ukraine War, and U.S.-China relations, criminal law sits at the heart of contemporary U.S. foreign relations. And yet legal scholarship has never precisely explained how the U.S. government deploys or supports criminal prosecutions abroad, often defaulting to simplistic labels of the United States as exceptionalist, carceral, or isolationist. This Article rectifies this by introducing a theory of contested criminalization, piercing the veil of U.S. government decisionmaking in its use of criminal law in foreign policy. According to this process, …

Why Did Prosecution Strengthen President Trump In The 2024 Election?, Steven Arrigg Koh

Faculty Scholarship

Why did criminal prosecution strengthen President Donald Trump's electoral prospects in the 2024 federal election? It was not supposed to be this way: after President Trump's 2024 New York state conviction, many speculated that President Trump's "felon" status would imperil his political career. In fact, the opposite occurred: federal and state criminal prosecutions reenergized President Trump's 2024 presidential candidacy. Contemporary criminal law theories-traditional individualist, expressivist, and critical-struggle to explain why. 

This Article advances a theory of criminal coalescence to explain why the Trump prosecutions led the former President to political victory. Criminal coalescence is the intensification of mass support for …

Mobility And Power In Temp Work, Andrew Elmore

Faculty Scholarship

Labor mobility is an underdiscussed determinant of temp worker power. Drawing on original interviews with professional and blue-collar workers who work as and alongside temps, this Article shows how businesses use staffing agencies to restrict the labor mobility of contingent workers. Staffing agencies limit worker mobility by imposing user- and worker-side contractual restraints while misrepresenting themselves to temp workers as their sole employer. They also exploit state-imposed mobility limitations by recruiting foreign nationals and people leaving incarceration and channeling them into their most precarious work. This enables clients to dismantle internal labor markets and to fill staffing shortages without raising …

Challenging The Law, Steven Arrigg Koh

Faculty Scholarship

Frédéric Mégret’s engaging contribution, A Look Back at The Women’s Hague Peace Conference: What Contribution To International Law Today?, exposes a legal duality. On one hand, the legalist perspective: law is a closed system. From this perspective, law is objective, hard, universal, and bounded. On the other hand, the sociocultural perspective: law is a human practice. From this perspective, law is subjective, organic, particular, and porous. This Essay reads Mégret’s analysis of the 1915 International Congress of Women in The Hague as a “sociocultural challenge,” disrupting the legalist perspective on international law, war, and peace during World War I. …

How Not To Democratize Algorithms, Ngozi Okidegbe

Faculty Scholarship

A growing set of jurisdictions has embraced “consultative algorithmic governance,” the idea that community members, particularly racially and otherwise politically marginalized ones, should be involved in the processes by which state institutions procure, construct, implement, and oversee artificially intelligent algorithms employed in public sector decision-making. Consultative processes range from public hearings that provide communities with an opportunity to comment about anticipated algorithmic use to community advisory boards that help public officials evaluate the impact of current or future algorithmic use.

This Article argues that consultative algorithmic governance is critically flawed and then builds upon this critique to point toward a …

Artificial Intelligence & Criminal Justice: Cases And Commentary, Benjamin Perrin

All Faculty Publications

When I was given the chance to develop a seminar this year at UBC’s Peter A. Allard School of Law, I jumped at the opportunity to develop something new and engaging. After brainstorming ideas with students, it quickly became evident that there was substantial interest and enthusiasm for a seminar on the growing integration of artificial intelligence and the criminal justice system.

Embarking on this journey has been a steep learning curve for me as my students and I worked together to shape the course along with input from generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, along with open-source …

You Get The Jury You Get And You Don’T Throw A Fit, Taurus Myhand

Scholarly Works

The proliferation of deepfake videos has resulted in rapid improvements in the technology used to create them. Although the use of fake videos and images is not new, advances in artificial intelligence have made deepfakes easier to make and harder to detect. Basic human perception is no longer sufficient to detect deepfakes. Yet, under the current construction of the Federal Rules of Evidence, trials judges are expected to do just that. Trial judges face a daunting challenge when applying the current evidence authentication standards to video evidence in this new reality of widely available deepfake videos. This article examines the …

Cyber Sexual Misconduct: The Evolution Of Sexual Privacy Laws And Best Practices For Representing Victims, Jolie Bodner Zangari, Lindsay Lieberman

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

A Conviction In Jeopardy: The Mysterious Case Against Scott Peterson, Jolie Bodner Zangari

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Criminal Law: Felons, Firearms, And The “Federalization” Of Crime, Jonathan Abel

The Judges' Book

No abstract provided.

Modeling Feature And Instance Interactions In Longitudinal Data For Improved Performance, Khandker Sadia Rahman

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Tabular data has been a core representation format in machine learning, widely used in high-stakes domains such as healthcare, finance, and social services. In many of these domains, data is collected longitudinally, capturing sequences of events and evolving feature values for the same entities over time. Despite its prevalence, most machine learning approaches assume mutual independence between features and independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) instances. However, these assumptions limit effectiveness in settings where features and entities exhibit complex interdependencies. Moreover, existing approaches frequently overlook a critical dimension: the real-world impact of the decisions informed by model predictions. This thesis addresses …