Criminal Law Commons^™

Michael Welch, Escape To Prison: Penal Tourism And The Pull Of Punishment, Lindsey L. Upton

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Prisons and asylums are unique institutions of confinement that attract our gaze long after they are abandoned. In Escape to Prison, Michael Welch draws attention to ten prison museums across the world where the histories of punishment and control found in each respective culture are presented for our consumption. Welch analyzes prison museums as sites of power and authority. Escape to Prison is an invaluable contribution to cultural criminology because it studies each prison museum in the context of their respective cultures and provides connections between dark tourism and the history of punishment across the globe."

Shaw, Clifford, The Jack Roller, Richard Tewksbury

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Learn from the classics. Understand where you came from. Know the past so you won’t repeat it. Be informed about those that have preceded you. Find the foundation your own work is based upon. All of these are viable, valuable, and unfortunately, often unheeded pearls of wisdom. I, for one, can admit that while I’ve espoused these lessons many times, I have not adhered to my own advice. Although we all are well versed (at least for an undergraduate level lecture or two) on the history of our field and the influential scholars and works of the field, unfortunately far …

“Age Is Just A Number In Here”: A Qualitative Study Of Adulthood In A Women’S Prison, Janani Umamaheswar

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Desistance from crime is a significant marker of adulthood, while persistence in criminal behavior is inconsistent with a subjective sense of adulthood (Massoglia & Uggen, 2010). To understand the relationship between crime and adulthood in greater detail, however, it is important to understand how offenders interpret and conceptualize the notion of adulthood in the first place. Based on interviews and mail correspondence with 35 incarcerated women, I explore this question through an examination of how incarcerated women construct definitions of adulthood while in prison. The findings indicate that in a restrictive environment marked by a lack of independence, women in …

Sex Offender Residency Restrictions: Government Regulation Of Public Health, Safety, And Morality, John Kip Cornwell

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Sex offender residency restrictions have proliferated throughout the United States over the past decade. A number of commentators have likened these laws to medieval banishment, when political outcasts and undesirables are exiled to remote areas where they cannot threaten civilized society. This Article argues first that likening modern residency restrictions to “banishment” largely misconstrues this practice as it has been practiced historically. Instead, these statutory initiatives are better understood as an assertion of governments’ police power to protect public health, safety, and morality. Seen through this lens, this Article evaluates the laws’ constitutional sufficiency with attention to their allegedly punitive …

Exploring Police Legitimacy Perceptions Among Arab And Chaldean Business Owners In Detroit, Vaughn J. Crichlow, Edmund F. Mcgarrell

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Most agree that police officers cannot do their jobs effectively without the support of community members. However, little is known about the perceptions of small business owners who could potentially make a meaningful contribution to safety and security in such communities. There is also a paucity of research on immigrant-owned businesses in disorderly urban communities. To address the gap, this study explores the attitudes of small business owners toward the police in Detroit, Michigan, a city known for high levels of violent crime and presents an analysis of the qualitative data collected from in-depth interviews with small business owners (n …

Racially Neutral Policing?: Puerto Rican And Mexican Young Adults’ Experiences With Order Maintenance Strategies, Claudio G. Vera Sanchez, Jacinta M. Gau

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Despite the proliferation of seemingly racially neutral police strategies, Latinos continue to report unfavorable views toward police. Limited attention has been given to how urban strategies, such as order maintenance policing, are experienced by young Latino males. The present study uses data from in-depth interviews conducted with male Latino youth in two Chicago neighborhoods: one majority-Latino, predominantly Mexican; and one mixed-race, gentrifying Puerto Rican. Results show that youth in both neighborhoods report enhanced surveillance and aggressive stop-and-frisks. Additionally, neighborhood context shapes the dynamics between police and young Latinos. In the Puerto Rican neighborhood, policing is enmeshed in culture clashes. In …

From Peer-To-Peer Networks To Cloud Computing: How Technology Is Redefining Child Pornography Laws, Audrey Rogers

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Article traces the history of the child pornography laws and sentencing policy in Part I. Part II explains the technologies that have caused some of the current controversies, and then Part III describes how these technologies have blurred the offenses. Finally, Part IV makes suggestions as to how the law could better reflect technology and comport with a refined harm rationale. Courts, legal scholars, and medical experts have explained the harm includes the sexual abuse captured in the images and the psychological injury the victim endures knowing the images are being viewed. This Article further develops the harm …

Newsroom: Future Of Cybersecurity, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

The Current State Of The Insanity Defense In Virginia, Jacob Gordon

The Kabod

Based upon British common law and legal precedents, the American legal system allows individuals with severe mental instability to plead not guilty by reason of insanity when charged with a criminal offense. In order to prove this claim, defendants are required to show that their mental capacity at the time of the crime was not sufficient enough in order to establish culpability and responsibility for their actions. Proving insanity is a difficult task, requiring that defendants confess to the crime, convince a jury of their insanity, and pass two independent psychological evaluations before they can be released. Because of these …

After Atrocity: Optimizing Un Action Toward Accountability For Human Rights Abuses, Steven R. Ratner

Michigan Journal of International Law

It is a great honor for me to be here to deliver the John Humphrey Lecture. Humphrey led one of those lives within the UN that shaped what the organization has become today—as one of the first generation of UN civil servants, he was to human rights what Ralph Bunche was to peacekeeping, or Brian Urquhart to UN mediation. To read his diaries, so beautifully edited by John Hobbins, is to see a world that has in many ways vanished, a nearly entirely male club, mostly of Westerners, that hammered out new treaties and mechanisms over fine wine and cigars …

Trending @ Rwulaw: Professor Peter Margulies's Post: Cybersecurity: A 'Must-Know' For Lawyers And Citizens, Peter Margulies

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Staying Out Of Hot Water: A Legal Guidebook On Hazingstaying, Jasmine Kelly, Alex Kennedy, Keira Martin, George Woodard

Parameters of Law in Student Affairs and Higher Education (CNS 670)

No abstract provided.

Criminal Confrontation Of Nuclear Danger, Dr. Emadeldin Mohamed Kammel Abdulhamed

Faculty Peer-Reviewed Papers | بحوث هيئة التدريس المحكمة

Criminal confrontation for Nuclear Danger of the most important and dangerous issues facing the peaceful use of nuclear energy, especially with the scientific and technological progress in the field Any nuclear activity, whether individually or collectively, must result in a nuclear radiation, that is the essence of nuclear radiation damage that can be gripping humans and the environment around him This special nature of the nuclear threat and caused a change in the evolution of the criminal threat theory Research subject is divided into two chapters and preliminary Study, Section primer: what the danger is generally the basis for criminalization, …

An Ethical Dilemma: Attorneys' Duties Not To Reveal Elder Abuse In Washington State, Margaret Sholian

Washington Law Review

Elder abuse is a growing social issue in the United States. As a result of increasing awareness of elder abuse, every state has enacted mandatory or voluntary reporting laws to encourage public oversight of this vulnerable population. While mandatory and voluntary reporting statutes list a wide variety of professionals, such as physicians, social workers, and caretakers, as mandatory reporters, few of these statutes require attorneys to report elder abuse. Arguably, attorneys are in the best position to discover abuse of their elderly clients, as attorneys are advisors, counselors, and protectors of their clients’ affairs. However, in many circumstances, an elderly …

Mens Rea, Criminal Responsibility, And The Death Of Freddie Gray, Michael Serota

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

Who (if anyone) is criminally responsible for the death of Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old African-American man who died from injuries suffered while in the custody of Baltimore police? This question has been at the forefront of the extensive coverage of Gray’s death, which has inspired a national discussion about law enforcement’s relationship with black communities. But it is also a question that may never be fairly resolved for reasons wholly unrelated to the topic of community policing, with which Gray’s death has become synonymous. What may ultimately hamper the administration of justice in the prosecution of the police officers involved …

Combatendo A Corrupção Nos Estados Unidos, Paul Marcus

Faculty Publications

The article discusses the problematic of the fight against the corruption by the criminal justice system of the United States, mainly the white-collar crimes. It is emphasized, first, that in most of the cases does not result in trial, but in plea bargains, and, second, in many cases the encouragement from an undercover agent has served as an effective defense instrument. Finally, it is discussed the problematic of the use of information obtained from the technological devices and its probable violation to the right privacy.

This article is in Portuguese.

Decisions To Prosecute Battered Women's Homicide Cases: An Exploratory Study, Sarah N. Welling, Diane Follingstad, M. Jill Rogers, Frances Jillian Priesmeyer

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Discretionary decisions to prosecute cases in which a battered woman kills her partner were investigated using several research strategies and targeting a range of case elements. Law students presented with case elements reported they would consider legal elements over nonlegal (or ‘supplemental’) elements when making a decision to prosecute. In contrast, law students assessed through an open-ended format as to important case factors for deciding to prosecute spontaneously generated high proportions of supplemental case elements compared with legal factors. Vignette comparisons of 42 case elements on participants’ likelihood to prosecute identified salient factors including legal and supplemental variables. Themes from …

Trafficked? Aids, Criminal Law And The Politics Of Measurement, Aziza Ahmed

University of Miami Law Review

Since early in the HIV epidemic, epidemiologists identified individuals who transact sex as a high-risk group for contracting HIV. Where the issue of transacting sex has been framed as sex work, harm-reduction advocates and scholars call for decriminalization as a primary legal solution to address HIV. Where the issue is defined as trafficking, advocates known as abolitionists argue instead for the criminalization of the purchase of sex.

Global health governance institutions are porous to these competing ideas and ideologies. This article first historicizes the contestation between harm-reduction and abolition in global governance on health. The paper then turns to a …

Beyond The Visiting Room: A Defense Counsel Challenge To Conditions In Pretrial Confinement, Amber Baylor

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

No abstract provided.

Overcriminalization's New Harm Paradigm, Todd Haugh

Vanderbilt Law Review

The harms of overcriminalization are usually thought of in a particular way-that the proliferation of criminal laws leads to increasing and inconsistent criminal enforcement and adjudication. For example, an offender commits an unethical or illegal act and, because of the overwhelming depth and breadth of the criminal law, becomes subject to too much prosecutorial discretion and faces disparate enforcement or punishment. But there is an additional, possibly more pernicious, harm of overcriminalization. Drawing from the fields of criminology and behavioral ethics, this Article makes the case that overcriminalization actually increases the commission of criminal behavior itself, particularly by white collar …

Method Of Attack: A Supplemental Model For Hate Crime Analysis, Angela D. Moore

Indiana Law Journal

On October 28, 2009, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act (HCPA) was signed into law by President Barack Obama. Two years later, between September and November of 2011, members of a Bergholz, Ohio, Amish community allegedly carried out five attacks in which they forcibly restrained, and cut the hair and beards of, members of other Amish communities. In September of 2012, a jury rendered a verdict in United States v. Mullet and found sixteen members of the Bergholz community—including Samuel Mullet, bishop of the community—guilty of HCPA violations. These were the first convictions for religion-based …

Firing Back: State V. Huckelba Takes Aim At Precedent, Impacting The Gun Rights Of North Carolina Citizens, Thomas C. Wolff

North Carolina Central Law Review

No abstract provided.

Criminal Law And The Counter-Hegemonic Potential Of Harm Reduction, Alana Klein

Dalhousie Law Journal

Harm reduction approaches to drug use have been lauded for saving lives, being cost-effective, elevating pragmatism over prohibitionist ideology, being flexible in tailoring responses to the problem, and for their counter-hegemonic potential to empower people who use drugs. This article examines the legal systems engagement with harm reduction, and, in particular,recent cases that incorporate harm reduction s focus on empirical evidence in policy making into Canadian constitutional rights jurisprudence. It argues that harm reduction approaches in this venue may hold promise as a bulwark against some of the marginalizing features of traditional criminaljustice approaches. However, the article also warns of …

Will Oklahoma Put An Innocent Man To Death?, Lauren Carasik

Media Presence

No abstract provided.

Criminal Law And Common Sense: An Essay On The Perils And Promise Of Neuroscience, Stephen J. Morse

Marquette Law Review

None

Public Defenders And Appointed Counsel In Criminal Appeals: The Iowa Experience, Tyler J. Buller

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.

No Law And No Order: Local, State And Federal Government Responses To The United States Rape Kit Backlog Crisis, Glenne Ellen Fucci

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

No abstract provided.

The Admissibility Of Hearsay Evidence In New York State Sex Offender Civil Commitment Hearings After State V. Floyd Y.: Finding A Balance Between Promoting The General Welfare Of Sexual Assault Victims And Providing Due Process Of Law, Brittany K. Dryer

Fordham Law Review

    In twenty states throughout the country, the government may petition for the civil commitment of detained sex offenders after they are released from prison. Although processes differ among the states, the government must generally show at a court proceeding that a detained sex offender both suffers from a mental abnormality and is dangerous and that this combination makes a detained sex offender likely to reoffend. At such court proceedings, both the government and the respondent will present evidence to either the court or the jury on these issues. As in most court proceedings, hearsay evidence is inadmissible at sex offender …

Prejudicial Character Evidence: How The Circuits Apply Old Chief To Federal Rule Of Evidence 403, Hannah J. Goldman

Fordham Law Review

    It is a fundamental principle of the American justice system that a defendant should be judged on the facts of the case at issue and not for the defendant's general character or past indiscretions. Federal Rule of Evidence 404, which prohibits character evidence, addresses this issue. Rule 403 represents another principle of the justice system: the legal system favors admissibility of evidence over its exclusion. There are some exceptions to this principle, including when evidence is so highly prejudicial that it outweighs the benefits of its admission. As 404(b) character evidence is almost always highly prejudicial to the defendant, trial …

An Overlooked Key To Reversing Mass Incarceration: Reforming The Law To Reduce Prosecutorial Power In Plea Bargaining, Cynthia Alkon

Faculty Scholarship

The need to “do something” about mass incarceration is now widely recognized. When President Obama announced plans to reform federal criminal legislation, he focused on the need to change how we handle non-violent drug offenders and parole violators. Previously, former Attorney General Eric Holder announced policies to make federal prosecutors “smart on crime.” These changes reflect, as President Obama noted, the increasing bipartisan consensus on the need for reform and the need to reduce our incarceration rates. However, proposals about what to reform, such as President Obama’s, tend to focus on some parts of criminal sentencing and on prosecutorial behavior …