Law Commons^™

Insights And Blind Spots: A Qualitative Analysis Of Risk In Psychiatric Security Review Board Hearings, Abby Kealani Balfour

Dissertations and Theses

The prevalence and consequences of the insanity plea, titled "guilty except for insanity" in the State of Oregon, are fraught with misconceptions. The use of the plea requires a complex set of interactions between the mental health and criminal justice systems, and comes with severe costs for people who use it. Most of the research on the psychological aspects of the insanity plea emphasizes empirical validity in the form of risk assessment instruments and/or the biomedical model with its focus on disease and illness. This thesis analyzes from community psychology and critical theory perspectives the decision process of hearings held …

Decommissioning Orleans Parish Prison: A Campaign To Build A Safer New Orleans / One Local Policy Step To Dismantle The Prison Industrial Complex, Tara M. Echo

Capstone Collection

Today, nearly two and a half million people in the U.S. are living in cages, with New Orleans holding the highest per capita rate of incarceration. While we have consistently seen that building cages does not bring us any closer to actualizing safety, the sheriff and other city officials of New Orleans justify a financially profitable plan to create more cages-to warehouse more of the city's people-in the name of safety.

Using an abolitionist framework, this paper examines safety by differentiating between contributing factors of being secure and factors which create harm in our communities. By tracing these factors to …

Organized Crime Outlaws: An Evaluation Of Criminal Organization Legislation In Canada, Carol Fleischhaker

PhD Dissertations

This thesis explains how some organized crime outlaws, such as anti-Prohibitionists, the North American Mafia or La Cosa Nostra, outlaw motorcycle gangs, and Aboriginal street gangs, come to exist and thrive in Canadian society. It sets forth the historical development and nature of criminal organization laws in Canada, and compares the definition of “criminal organization” in the Criminal Code with other criminal law concepts, such as corporate criminals and white-collar criminals; conventional criminality or garden-variety predatory crime; terrorists; and criminal conspirators, parties, and accessories. It uses various concepts and assertions within criminological, sociological and psychological theories to explain the formation …

Canada's Marihuana Medical Access Regulations: Up In Smoke, Carolynn Conron

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The Supreme Court of Canada has interpreted the constitutional principles entrenched in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to mean that everyone in Canada has a constitutional right to access necessary medical treatment without fear of criminal sanction. The latest research suggests cannabis (marihuana) provides a unique medicinal benefit that, for some individuals, is necessary. The federal criminal prohibition of cannabis deprives many individuals of a potentially beneficial medicine and stigmatizes them with a criminal record.

Without a valid medical cannabis access system, the criminal prohibition is invalid. The current Marihuana Medical Access Regulations were recently struck down. Parliament …

The Cultural Complex Of Innocence: An Examination Of Media And Social Construction Of Missing White Woman Syndrome, Sarah Land Stein

Dissertations

This study examined the etiology and promulgation of the sociological phenomenon known as missing white woman syndrome. It was hypothesized that missing white woman syndrome may not be entirely attributable to racial disparity as has been claimed in the past. Rather, citing the work of Dr. Carl Jung, the researcher believed that missing white woman syndrome may be partially explained by a concept known as a cultural complex. The cultural complex that was hypothesized for purposes of this study is one related to innocence: That is, as a western society, we have been culturally overexposed to the blonde, Caucasian female …

Communicating Crimes: Covering Gangs In Contemporary Canadian Journalism, Chris Richardson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In this integrated-article dissertation, I examine representations of gangs in Canadian journalism, focusing primarily on contemporary newspaper reporting. While the term “gang” often refers to violent groups of young urban males, it can also signify outlaw bikers, organized crime, terrorist cells, non-criminal social groups, and a wide array of other collectives. I build on Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical framework to probe this ambiguity, seeking to provide context and critical assessments that will improve crime reporting and its reception. In the course of my work, I examine how popular films like West Side Story inform journalists’ descriptions of gangs. Though reporters have …

Evaluating Learning Disabilities And Learning Difficulties As Risk Factors Of Delinquency, Miriam Brooks

Honors Theses

This is a study of the relationship between learning disabilities or learning disability indicators and juvenile delinquency. The three main learning disabilities addressed in this study are dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dysgraphia. Delinquency is measured in the categories of drug use, property damage, and violence. This study also evaluates the accuracy of the school failure hypothesis. Participants for this study included 221 high school students ranging in age from 14 to 19 years old. The unit of measurement utilized in this study is a survey composed of 61 questions involving diagnosis of a learning disability, indicators of a learning disability, delinquent …

Adaptive Behavior Malingering In Legal Claims Of Mental Retardation, Renee M. Kadlubek

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to put people with mental retardation to death for capital crimes (Atkins v. Virginia, 2002). Justice Scalia dissented, suggesting that mental retardation is a condition easy to feign. The current study examined whether participants provided with the definition of mental retardation and adaptive behavior ("informed malingering group") are any better at malingering having mental retardation than participants not provided with the definitions ("malingering group"). Three groups of participants participated in this study: the control group, the malingering group, and the informed malingering group. All participants completed an intellectual assessment and …

Die Frauen, Der Strafvollzug, Und Der Staat: Incarceration And Ideology In Post-Wwii Germany, Andrea Moody Kozak

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores how the material reality of Germany's women's prisons has been largely determined by their ideological foundations, and by the historical developments that have produced these ideologies. The German women's prison system is complex and imperfect, yet in many ways very progressive. It is the result of the last sixty years of tumultuous German history, and has been uniquely shaped by the capitalist and communist histories of the once-divided state. In its current state, it seems to have incorporated elements of a supposedly “rational” or individualistic conception of humanity as well as one that is relational and interdependent, …

Veterans Court: Towards The Implementation Of A Collaborative Justice Model In San Luis Obispo County, Daniel Smee

Continuing Education (CAPSTONE)

Veterans’ treatment courts represent an emerging trend across the country of collaborative justice designed to deal with criminal justice issues stemming from problems linked to military service. This approach places the veteran in VA (Veterans Affairs) treatment programs as a diversion from incarceration. There are few such courts in California (nine) largely in non-rural counties. This study investigated two rural counties, Tulare and Santa Barbara with Veterans courts to develop a model for such a court in San Luis Obispo County. Early recidivism data at the one-year point for Tulare County showed a zero percent rate of criminal behavior (12 …