Law Commons^™

Law Enforcement Policy And Personnel Responses To Terrorism: Do Prior Attacks Predict Current Preparedness?, Bryce Kirk

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Terrorism has been on the mind of the American people and politicians alike since the 9/11 attacks over two decades ago. In the years since, there has been a massive shift in law enforcement priorities from community-oriented policing (COP) to homeland security-oriented policing. This was especially evident in the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shortly after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001, which was established to aid law enforcement entities with terrorism preparedness. While prior literature has addressed a variety of factors that have contributed to terrorism preparedness, very little research has …

Towards A Psychological Science Of Abolition Democracy: Insights For Improving Theory And Research On Race And Public Safety, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Phillip Atiba Goff

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

We call for psychologists to expand their thinking on fair and just public safety by engaging with the “Abolition Democracy” framework that Du Bois (1935) articulated as the need to dissolve slavery while simultaneously taking affirmative steps to rid its toxic consequences from the body politic. Because the legacies of slavery continue to produce disparities in public safety in the U.S, both harming Black people and the institutions that could keep them safe, psychologists must take seriously questions of history and structure in addition to immediate situations. In the present article, we consider the state of knowledge regarding psychological processes …

Creating And Undoing Legacies Of Resilience: Black Women As Martyrs In The Black Community Under Oppressive Social Control, Leah Iman Aniefuna, M. Amari Aniefuna, Jason M. Williams

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This paper contextualizes the struggles and contributions of Black motherhood and reproductive justice under police surveillance in Baltimore, Maryland. We conducted semi-structured interviews with mothers regarding their experiences and perceptions of policing in their community during the aftermath of the police-involved death of Freddie Gray. While the literature disproportionately focuses on Black males, little knowledge is known about the struggles and contributions of Black mothers in matters concerning police brutality and the fight against institutional violence. There still remains the question regarding the role of and impact on Black mothers during matters of institutional violence against Black children. We fill …

Public Perceptions Of Police Militarization: A Nuanced Understanding Of Public Support For Police Practices, Leobardo Lopez-Cristobal

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In recent years, there has been heavily publicized incidents of police use of military weapons and tactics, which has raised concerns regarding the militarization of police. More famously, in 2014, Ferguson police utilized military weapons and tactics to quell the masses after the police shooting of Michael Brown incited protests and riots. Despite an overall decrease in incidents of police use of force and deadly shootings, individual dramatic events of police militarization paint a picture of a militarized police force. This coincides with an overall increase in military equipment transfers (e.g., weapons, vehicles) to police agencies in the United States. …

Where Concerned Citizens Perceive Police As More Responsive To Troublesome Teen Groups: Theoretical Implications For Political Economy, Incivilities And Policing, Christopher Salvatore, Ralph B. Taylor, Christopher Kelly

Christopher Salvatore

The current investigation extends previous work on citizens' perceptions of police performance. It examines the origins of between-community differences in concerned citizens' judgments that police are responding sufficiently to a local social problem. The problem is local unsupervised teen groups, a key indicator for both the revised systemic social disorganization perspective and the incivilities thesis. Four theoretical perspectives predict ecological determinants of these shared judgments. Less perceived police responsiveness is anticipated in lower socioeconomic status (SES) police districts by both a political economy and a stratified incivilities perspective; more predominantly minority police districts by a racialized justice perspective; and in …

Exploring Places Of Street Drug Dealing In A Downtown Area In Brazil: An Analysis Of The Reliability Of Google Street View In International Criminological Research, Elenice De Souza Oliveira, Ko-Hsin Hsu

Elenice De Souza Oliveira

This study assesses the reliability of Google Street View (GSV) in auditing environmental features that help create hotbeds of drug dealing in Belo Horizonte, one of Brazil’s largest cities. Based on concepts of “crime generators” and “crime enablers,” a set of 40 items were selected using arrest data related to drug activities for the period between 2007 and 2011. These items served to develop a GSV data collection instrument used to observe features of 135 street segments that were identified as drug dealing hot spots in downtown Belo Horizonte. The study employs an intra-class correlation (ICC) statistics as a measure …

Exploring Places Of Street Drug Dealing In A Downtown Area In Brazil: An Analysis Of The Reliability Of Google Street View In International Criminological Research, Elenice De Souza Oliveira, Ko-Hsin Hsu

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This study assesses the reliability of Google Street View (GSV) in auditing environmental features that help create hotbeds of drug dealing in Belo Horizonte, one of Brazil’s largest cities. Based on concepts of “crime generators” and “crime enablers,” a set of 40 items were selected using arrest data related to drug activities for the period between 2007 and 2011. These items served to develop a GSV data collection instrument used to observe features of 135 street segments that were identified as drug dealing hot spots in downtown Belo Horizonte. The study employs an intra-class correlation (ICC) statistics as a measure …

Workshop | Body Worn Video Recorders: The Socio-Technical Implications Of Gathering Direct Evidence, Katina Michael, Alexander Hayes

Alexander Hayes Mr.

- From in-car video recording to body-worn video recording

- Exploring available technologies: how do they work, pros and cons

- Storing direct evidence in secure storage: factors to consider

- Citizens “shooting” back with POV tech – what are their rights?

- Crowdsourced sousveillance- harnessing public data for forensic profiling

- Police force policies and practices on the application of new media

Policing Cyber Bullying: How Parents, Educators, And Law Enforcement Respond To Digital Harassment, Ryan Broll

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Some prior research has emphasised how adults ought to address cyber bullying, yet little is known about how they actually prevent and respond to digital harassment. This study addresses this gap in the literature by exploring the formal and informal “policing” of cyber bullying by a network of security actors: parents, teachers and school administrators, and the public police. Data were collected through a mixed methods research design consisting of semi-structured qualitative interviews with eight parents, 14 teachers, and 12 members of law enforcement (n = 34) and quantitative surveys completed by 52 parents.

Drawing upon nodal governance theory as …

When Speech Isn't Free: Legal Barriers And Consequences Of Reporting Sexual Violence, Kevin M. Fleming

Departmental Honors Projects

Incidents of sexual violence continue to be a serious problem for society. Likewise, acts of sexual violence impose severe consequences for survivors. The consequences initially begin at the onset of the survivor’s journey to psychological recovery following the traumatic sexual assault. The consequences take on a unique set of characteristics when the survivor attempts to use the justice system to confront the perpetrator who committed the offense. These characteristics can transform an adversarial process into an isolated battle for the survivor. In the worst cases, the justice system empowers individuals who wish to silence survivors with free speech restrictions instead …

Interative Discussion Leader (Idt) @ Futuregov Forum Queensland On The Theme Of "Mobile Government", Katina Michael, Erica Fensom

Professor Katina Michael

Mobile Government Briefing: Provide services anywhere any time: - Transact to enable in-field data collection, request processing, order management, approvals, edits, updates and execute actions. - What are the implications for the incorporation of rich multimedia content on devices to better serve staff and citizens? - Addressing the security challenges of various risks around data access, data transmission, and data storage for BI architecture and mobile devices

Commentary On: Mann, Steve (2012): Wearable Computing, Katina Michael, M.G. Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

In Professor Steve Mann- inventor, physicist, engineer, mathematician, scientist, designer, developer, project director, filmmaker, artist, instrumentalist, author, photographer, actor, activist- we see so much of the paradigmatic classical Greek philosopher. I recall asking Steve if technology shaped society or society shaped technology. He replied along the lines that the question was superfluous. Steve instead pointed to praxis, from which all theory, lessons or skills stem, are practiced, embodied and realized. Steve has always been preoccupied by the application of his ideas into form. In this way too, he can be considered a modern day Leonardo Da Vinci.

Human Rights, Regulation, And National Security, Katina Michael, Simon Bronitt

Professor Katina Michael

Law disciplines technology, though it does so in a partial and incomplete way as reflected in the old adage that technology outstrips the capacity of law to regulate it. The rise of new technologies poses a significant threat to human rights – the pervasive use of CCTV (and now mobile CCTV), telecommunications interception, and low-cost audio-visual recording and tracking devices (some of these discreetly wearable), extend the power of the state and corporations significantly to intrude into the lives of citizens.

Sousveillance And The Social Implications Of Point Of View Technologies In The Law Enforcement Sector, Katina Michael, M.G. Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

Policing today has become a high-tech affair; especially in the provision of incident event tracking and reporting systems increasingly being used to provide evidence in a court of law. These in-car video (ICV) and body worn recording systems are said to increase convictions and eliminate false claims made by defendants, providing documentary support to police officers and their associated actions in an incident. But today, new technologies such as smart phones equipped with cameras and global positioning system chipsets can also be found in the hands of the everyday citizen, used to capture everyday happenings and distributed to social networks …

Location Privacy Under Dire Threat As Uberveillance Stalks The Streets, Katina Michael, Roger Clarke

Associate Professor Katina Michael

Location tracking and monitoring applications have proliferated with the arrival of smart phones that are equipped with onboard global positioning system (GPS) chipsets. It is now possible to locate a smart phone user down to 10 metres of accuracy on average. Innovators have been quick to capitalise on this emerging market by introducing novel pedestrian tracking technologies which can denote the geographic path of a mobile user. At the same time there is contention by law enforcement personnel over the need for a warrant process to track an individual in a public space. This paper considers the future of location …

Where Concerned Citizens Perceive Police As More Responsive To Troublesome Teen Groups: Theoretical Implications For Political Economy, Incivilities And Policing, Christopher Salvatore, Ralph B. Taylor, Christopher Kelly

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The current investigation extends previous work on citizens' perceptions of police performance. It examines the origins of between-community differences in concerned citizens' judgments that police are responding sufficiently to a local social problem. The problem is local unsupervised teen groups, a key indicator for both the revised systemic social disorganization perspective and the incivilities thesis. Four theoretical perspectives predict ecological determinants of these shared judgments. Less perceived police responsiveness is anticipated in lower socioeconomic status (SES) police districts by both a political economy and a stratified incivilities perspective; more predominantly minority police districts by a racialized justice perspective; and in …

Police Killings And Capital Punishment: The Post-Furman Period, William C. Bailey, Ruth D. Peterson

Sociology & Criminology Faculty Publications

In view of (1) escalating national attention and political and judicial activity centering on capital punishment during recent years and (2) concomitant changes in police killing rates, this paper investigates the impact of the death penalty on rates of lethal assaults against the police for the post-Furman period, 1973–1984. In keeping with recent investigations of deterrence and general homicides, multiple regression is used as a means of controlling for the influence of possible confounding variables in examining the capital punishment/police killings relationship. Consistent with previous investigations, the present analysis provides no indication that our national return to capital punishment …