Law Commons^™

Building Grounds For Release: Women’S Perceptions Of A Community Corrections Program, Andrea Cantora

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Few studies have examined the role halfway houses play in helping women navigate the transition from prison to community. To add to this research, my article explores the perceptions and experiences of women residing at a New Jersey female halfway house upon their release from prison. In-depth qualitative interviews with 33 women that I conducted were analyzed to understand the prison to halfway house transition. The study aims to answer the following questions: How does the halfway house help and/or hinder the reentry process? How do women perceive the halfway house during this transitional phase? The results of my research …

John Irwin, Lifers: Seeking Redemption In Prison, Brian P. Schaefer

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"The late John Irwin had a distinguished career researching the realities of American prisons and the associated cultures and norms that develop within these institutions. His legacy of research challenged widely held beliefs about the nature of imprisonment and reentry and introduced us to new frameworks to understand the prison industry. Along with famous works such as The Felon (1970), The Jail (1985), and The Warehouse Prison (2004), Irwin was instrumental in introducing Convict Criminology to academe, giving a voice to those who experienced the pains of imprisonment. In his final book, Lifers: Seeking Redemption in Prison (2009), Irwin once …

“We Incarcerate To Set Free:” Negotiating Punishment And Rehabilitation In Jail, Brittnie L. Aiello

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Criminology has documented the decline of rehabilitation in the age of get-tough approaches to crime and punishment. Therapy and punishment, however, are not mutually exclusive. Rehabilitation and traditional punishment have long co-existed in penal facilities. In this article, I examine the role of rehabilitation at Northeast Jail, a county jail in the U.S. that adhered to an ideology of rehabilitation. But Northeast Jail was, first and foremost, a penal facility where offenders were confined and punished. While staff and administrators at Northeast Jail routinely invoked a rhetoric of rehabilitation, they adhered to rules and engaged in punitive practices that interfered …

African American Perceptions Of Police Misconduct And Accountability, Ronald Weitzer, Rod K. Brunson

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"This article examines city residents’ reported experiences with and perceptions of various forms of police misconduct as well as their perspectives on two types of accountability mechanisms: internal and external to the police department. The data are derived from in-depth interviews with adult African American residents of the city. Our findings highlight the complexities involved in establishing credible citizen-led review boards, particularly in the types of cities such as the one examined here, East St. Louis. Survey research reveals that a majority of the public supports the principle of external oversight, but this general support may be diluted in settings …

Sex Offenders And Campus-Based Sex Offender Registration: Stigma, Vulnerability, Isolation, And The Classroom As Refuge, Richard Tewksbury

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Inclusion on the sex offender registration list is well known to produce stigma, collateral consequences, stress, and feelings of vulnerability for offenders. In addition to state-based registries, a number of institution-specific registries are beginning to appear, including those on college campuses. By using in-depth interviews with a sample of sex offenders listed on a campus-specific sex offender registry, this study explores the experiences resulting from this label. Findings highlight the feeling of vulnerability listing imposes, as well as self-isolating efforts designed to manage the possibility of identification, exposure, and confrontation. The interactional limitations, as well as the unintended consequence of …

“Hidden In Plain Sight”: Locating The Men And Women Of The 1954 Boston Special Youth Program, Richard K. Moule Jr., Scott H. Decker

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"The growing prevalence of longitudinal research in the social sciences, coupled with technological advances, provide new opportunities for researchers to more readily find participants from earlier studies. In addition, these advances necessitate the development of new strategies and methodologies for locating and building rapport with respondents. Drawing on previous methods of subject identification and location, this paper examines techniques for locating and interviewing former gang members from the 1954-1957 Special Youth Program in Roxbury, MA. In contrast to most longitudinal studies, (1) more than 50 years have passed since the original study with no contact with respondents in the interim, …

Motivation To Reduce Risk Behaviors While In Prison: Qualitative Analysis Of Interviews With Current And Formerly Incarcerated Women, Neetu Abad, Monique Carry, Jeffrey H. Herbst, Catherine I. Fogel

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Prison is an environment in which programs can be implemented to change harmful behaviors among high-risk populations. Incarcerated women experience high rates of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), yet little research has examined women’s motivation to reduce risky behaviors during incarceration. In-depth individual interviews were conducted with former and current women prisoners in two North Carolina correctional facilities and analyzed to identify barriers and facilitators of behavior change while in prison. Analyses revealed key motivators of behavior change: Viewing prison as a place to recover from past trauma, removing oneself from negative social networks, gaining access to needed …

Miriam Boeri, Women On Ice: Methamphetamine Use Among Suburban Women, Karen Mcelrath

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Some readers fail to read the preface to a book, eager to step inside the chapters. I began with the preface to Women on Ice and then returned to it after I had read the book in its entirety. The preface provides the reader with a brief but important snapshot of Miriam Boeri as an author and one whose family, like so many others, has experienced addiction. These life events shaped her interest in studying people who experience problems with psychoactive drug use. Moreover, authors who share this kind of “private trouble” help to de-stigmatize drug addiction (see also, the …

Barrett, C.J., Courting Kids: Inside An Experimental Youth Court, Avi Brisman

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the United States witnessed a small increase in youth violence, particularly a rise in gun violence among young African-American urban males. This spike in gun violence was localized and primarily linked to turmoil surrounding the introduction of crack cocaine into many cities around the country—metropolitan areas that were already experiencing crushing economic pressures, unemployment, and decaying neighborhoods. There was no evidence of an overall nationwide surge in “youth crime” or “juvenile crime”—terms that became conflated with serious “youth violence,” which, in turn, became code for “dangerous young black or brown men.” Despite this …

Ronald Weitzer, Legalizing Prostitution: From Illicit Vice To Lawful Business, Tammy Castle

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Dr. Ronald Weitzer is considered an expert on the sex industry, having studied prostitution for over a decade. In his latest book, Legalizing Prostitution: From Illicit Vice to Lawful Business, Weitzer provides a comprehensive examination of the myriad dimensions of sex work by drawing on both past research and his own ethnographic field work. Not only does he shatter prostitution myths by using empirical data, but also offers an alternative paradigm for understanding sex work that is theoretically grounded. In addition, he casts a critical eye on prostitution policies in the United States and proposes a “best practices” approach …

Stephanie C. Kane, Where Rivers Meet The Sea: The Political Ecology Of Water, Ashley K. Farmer

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Where Rivers Meet the Sea aims to explore how human beings have somehow created an environment that threatens the life-sustaining water systems that are such a natural, and perhaps taken for granted, part of their communities. Exploring rich cultural and historical contexts within two strikingly different South American neighborhoods, Stephanie C. Kane delves into how communities situated along bodies of water interact with and affect the human-water relationship. She pays particular attention to how culture, art, and race are intertwined with politics, crime, and governance."

Forced To Learn: Community-Based Correctional Education, Ron Mottern, C. Amelia Davis, Mary F. Ziegler

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Community-based correctional education has received scant attention in adult literacy research yet mandatory education is a growing part of the legal system and is fueled by research that suggests a link between correctional education and lower rates of recidivism. Growth in alternative to prison programs affects local ABE and GED programs. Adults who attend community-based correctional programs as a condition of their probation or parole face many challenges. The purpose of this existential-phenomenological study was to understand the experience of those adults. Findings describe students’ experiences of being forced to attend a GED program. Opening a space for these stories …

Jamie J. Fader, Falling Back: Incarceration And Transitions To Adulthood Among Urban Youth, Kallee Spooner

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"In her first book, Jamie J. Fader presents an account of a group of young black males attempting to “fall back,” or stay out of trouble, as they return from a juvenile residential corrections facility to their communities in Philadelphia. Prior to the study, Fader spent six years evaluating delinquency programs for the city of Philadelphia and over a year working at a communitybased aftercare program that assisted youth returning to the city from reform schools. Fader gained access and insight to the structure and processes of the juvenile court system, which facilitated her research."

Adaptive Planning For Flooding And Coastal Change In Virginia: Legal And Policy Issues For Local Government, Molly Mitchell

October 2, 2013: Quantifying Risks and Moving Forward

No abstract provided.

New York Times V. U.S.: Implications And Relevance In The 21st Century, Maria E. Lombardi

Student Publications

In 1971, the New York Times released the first installment in a series later referred to as the Pentagon Papers that would eventually have significant political, social, and historical impacts that are felt even in the 21st Century. Following the first release, President Nixon’s administration sought an injunction against the publication of the remaining contents of the classified study, ultimately becoming an extensive legal process that culminated in the Supreme Court. In a per curiam opinion, the Court ruled that in accordance with Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe and Near v. Minnesota that the federal government did not …

Making Matters Worse: The Safe Streets And Communities Act And The Ongoing Crisis Of Indigenous Over-Incarceration, Ryan Newell

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

The Safe Streets and Communities Act (SSCA), a recent and wide-reaching piece of the Conservative Party of Canada’s tough-on-crime agenda, will exacerbate the ongoing crisis of Indigenous over-incarceration. In this article, I review the extensive literature that addresses the causes of Indigenous over-representation in the Canadian criminal justice system before assessing the impact of R v Gladue, nearly fifteen years after the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision. I analyze how the SSCA will restrict courts’ resort to Gladue, thus resulting in the incarceration of increasing numbers of Indigenous people. I then develop one avenue of constitutional challenge to the SSCA’s …

Money Laundering Detection Framework To Link The Disparate And Evolving Schemes, Murad Mehmet, Duminda Wijesekera, Miguel F. Buchholtz

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Money launderers hide traces of their transactions with the involvement of entities that participate in sophisticated schemes. Money laundering detection requires unraveling concealed connections among multiple but seemingly unrelated human money laundering networks, ties among actors of those schemes, and amounts of funds transferred among those entities. The link among small networks, either financial or social, is the primary factor that facilitates money laundering. Hence, the analysis of relations among money laundering networks is required to present the full structure of complex schemes. We propose a framework that uses sequence matching, case-based analysis, social network analysis, and complex event processing …

The New Normal, Hannah M. Frantz

SURGE

On September 19, 2013 an individual wielding a military-grade assault rifle fired sixteen bullets into a Chicago park harming thirteen individuals, among them a 3-year old named Deonta Howard who was shot in the cheek.

On September 16, 2013 a man by the name of Aaron Alexis opened fire on the cafeteria at the Navy Yard in Washington D.C. Thirteen people died, and eight others were injured.

On December 14, 2012 Adam Lanza shot twenty-six people—twenty of whom were children between the ages of 6 and 7—in Newtown, Connecticut. Barack Obama called it the “worst day of [his] presidency.”

On …

The Role Of Clinical Legal Education In The Future Of The Battered Women's Movement, Leigh Goodmark

Buffalo Journal of Gender, Law & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

The Tools Of Our Trade, Richard Leiter

Marvin and Virginia Schmid Law Library: Faculty Publications

During the past 30 years, computers and other digital tools have evolved from scientific curiosities that promised to make our lives easy and paperless and threatened to make libraries go away to ubiquitous means of communication, research, entertainment, news, and much, much more. Access to technology for librarians today is as critical as having access to leather-bound books once was for the earliest librarians. In order to communicate with peers, patrons, and colleagues and to conduct legal research and create scholarship, today we need a device that lets us “see” the communication or information. This article explores the changing role …

On Hart's Category Mistake, Michael S. Green

Faculty Publications

This essay concerns Scott Shapiro’s criticism that H.L.A. Hart’s theory of law suffers from a “category mistake.” Although other philosophers of law have summarily dismissed Shapiro’s criticism, I argue that it identifies an important requirement for an adequate theory of law. Such a theory must explain why legal officials justify their actions by reference to abstract propositional entities, instead of pointing to the existence of social practices. A virtue of Shapiro’s planning theory of law is that it can explain this phenomenon. Despite these sympathies, however, I end with the suggestion that Shapiro’s criticism of Hart, as it stands, is …

An Examination Of Cities' Resilence To Violent Crime: A Contextual Analysis Of Victim-Offender Convergence, Vanessa Hatch Woodward

Dissertations

In his 2012 Presidential Address to the American Society of Criminology, Robert Sampson purported that causality can only be reached when social science researchers accept that individual actions are dependent on social context. He referred to this as contextual causality and argued that future research needed to focus on how to measure and/or reoperationalize community measures of crime.

There were three primary goals of this study. First was to provide a better understanding of victim-offender convergence in time and space (Cohen & Felson, 1979) within incidents of violent crime. In order to meet this goal, 90 city agencies’ incident and …

Reasonable Persons, Reasonable Circumstances, Christopher Jackson

San Diego Law Review

The reasonable person test is a common thread that runs through the fabric of Anglo-American law. It has become such a common trope in legal discourse that it scarcely receives much attention in its own right. This Article analyzes one facet of the test that will yield significant benefits in understanding the subject as a whole: how we ought to go about determining which circumstances are relevant to the reasonable person inquiry. The Article will argue that the circumstances that ought to be part of the test will vary based on one’s underlying theoretical commitments: the reasonable person test is …

The Role Of The Federal Judge In The Constitutional Structure: An Originalist Perspective, Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain

San Diego Law Review

Join me now in examining some of the structural features of our Constitution. And let’s do so by focusing upon cases that have come before my court—the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the second highest federal court in the land, inferior only to the Supreme Court of the United States. My goal is to present, in modest outline, an originalist perspective on the federal judge’s role, particularly my role as a circuit judge, in the constitutional order.

Holmes, Cardozo, And The Legal Realists: Early Incarnations Of Legal Pragmatism And Enterprise Liability, Edmund Ursin

San Diego Law Review

The theory of enterprise liability is associated with the tort lawmaking of the liberal California Supreme Court of the 1960s and 1970s. Legal pragmatism, in turn, is associated with the conservative jurist Richard Posner. This Article explains that early incarnations of each can be found in the works of four giants in American law: Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Judge—later Justice—Benjamin Cardozo, and the Legal Realists Leon Green and Karl Llewellyn. As will be seen, these scholars and judges shared a common view of the lawmaking role of courts. Stated simply, this shared view was that judges are lawmakers and policy …

“Unmistakably Clear” Coercion: Finding A Balance Between Judicial Review Of The Spending Power And Optimal Federalism, Dale B. Thompson

San Diego Law Review

This Article proposes a new tier of scrutiny, “unmistakably clear,” for conducting judicial review of congressional authority under the Spending Clause. Under this standard, a condition would be unconstitutional only if it is unmistakably clear that it is coercive. In order to develop this proposal, this Article traces the debate over the spending power from the Federalist Papers up through the decision in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, finding strong arguments for granting significant deference to Congress’s Spending Clause authority. Careful analysis of the opinions in the case yields not only the name for the new standard of …

Is Freedom Of Expression A Universal Right?, Larry Alexander

San Diego Law Review

The title of my Essay asks a question. If one were to go by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights —or by John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice and other quotidian works of liberal political and moral philosophy—the answer to the question is a resounding “yes.” Indeed, in the constellation of cherished liberal rights, freedom of expression is surely one of the brightest, if not the brightest, of its stars.

Joyless Life And Lifeless Joy: The Recovery Of Hedonic Damages By Plaintiffs In A Persistent Vegetative State, Alexandra Preece

San Diego Law Review

This Comment focuses on the potential injustice to patients in a persistent vegetative state and the proper manner in which to handle these cases. Based on tort principles underlying the justification for the award of damages to plaintiffs, including deterrence and compensation, plaintiffs in a persistent vegetative state should be entitled to damages for loss of enjoyment of life. To allow for these awards, courts must separate loss of enjoyment of life from pain and suffering, thereby allowing vegetative plaintiffs who cannot prove that they are in pain to recover hedonic damages from their wrongdoers. Part II discusses the effects …

Testing Orthodox Utilitarian And Extrajudical Determinants Of Incarceration In The U.S. At The State-Level, 1980-2005, Pavel V. Vasiliev

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This project is a theory-driven secondary data analysis of state-level incarceration trends in the U.S. between 1980 and 2005. I replicate and advance Smith's (2004) study of the relationship between the socioeconomic, demographic, political, electoral, and criminal justice factors and incarceration rates at the state level. The purpose of this project is to determine the empirical validity of the major explanations of the incarceration trends in the U.S. I advance Smith's (2004) study using important novel elements. First, I extend the scrutinized historic period by a decade by compiling time-series data for 1980-2005. Second, I employ a more sophisticated analytic …

Studies On Religion And Recidivism: Focus On Roxbury, Dorchester, And Mattapan, George Walters-Sleyon

Trotter Review

This research article raises the question of whether religion can be considered a viable partner in the reduction of the high rate of recidivism associated with the increasing mass incarceration in the United States. Can sustainable transformation in the life of a prisoner or former prisoner as a result of religious conversion be subjected to evidenced-based practices to derive impartial conclusions about the value of religion in their lives? With a particular focus on three neighborhoods of Boston—Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan—this study examines the relevance of religion and faith-based organizations in lowering the high rate of recidivism associated with incarceration …