Law Enforcement and Corrections Commons^™

From First Steps To Second Chances: Addressing Mass Incarceration In State Prisons, Molly Connor

Notre Dame Law Review

In order to address mass incarceration meaningfully, Congress must pass legislation aimed at reducing state prison populations. The legislation’s name (the First Step Act) suggests there will be follow-up legislation—that Congress’s end goal has yet to be fully realized. This Note explores the details of the First Step Act with an eye toward drafting the “Second Step Act” in a way that adequately addresses the root causes of mass incarceration. In Part I, this Note discusses the events leading up to the passage of the First Step Act and its key provisions addressing sentencing reform and rehabilitative programming. Part II …

Juvenile Diversion Programs: Comparing Minnesota County Characteristics To Determine Their Role In Pre-Trial Diversion Programs, Kaydin Schmitt

Political Science Theses and Capstones

The main goal of the juvenile justice system is to rehabilitate offenders and prevent youth from entering the adult justice system. One approach is through the use of diversion programs. The state of Minnesota requires all counties to offer at least one type of pre-trial diversion program. However, there is no ubiquitous program; the number and types of programs differ between counties, and the reason for these differences between jurisdictions is under-researched. I analyze the number and types of pre-trial diversion programs in Minnesota counties and compare them to various county characteristics to determine which characteristics play a role in …

Understanding Violent-Crime Recidivism, J.J. Prescott, Benjamin Pyle, Sonja B. Starr

Articles

People convicted of violent crimes constitute a majority of the imprisoned population but are generally ignored by existing policies aimed at reducing mass incarceration. Serious efforts to shrink the large footprint of the prison system will need to recognize this fact. This point is especially pressing at the time of this writing, as states and the federal system consider large-scale prison releases motivated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Those convicted of violent crimes constitute a large majority of older prisoners, who are extremely vulnerable to the spread of the virus behind bars. Excluding them from protective measures will deeply undermine those …

Law Enforcement, Public Opinion, The Media, And Its Effects, Aaron Borcyk

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that, in 2018, law enforcement workers made up about .8% of the country’s workforce. Given that they make up such a large percentage of the workforce plus the extreme public visibility of the profession by nature, law enforcement is a highly discussed topic. After the controversial officer-involved shootings of Michael Brown, Walter Scott, and Freddie Gray between 2014 and 2016 the credibility and integrity of law enforcement came into question. Law enforcement is depicted on many media platforms in many different ways; The current research leverages qualitative data obtained from in-depth oral …

Presidential Ideology And Immigrant Detention, Catherine Y. Kim, Amy Semet

Journal Articles

In our nation’s immigration system, a noncitizen charged with deportability may be detained pending the outcome of removal proceedings. These individuals are housed in remote facilities closely resembling prisons, with severe restrictions on access to counsel and contact with family members. Given severe backlogs in the adjudication of removal proceedings, such detention may last months or even years.

Many of the noncitizens initially detained by enforcement officials have the opportunity to request a bond hearing before an administrative adjudicator called an Immigration Judge (IJ). Although these IJs preside over relatively formal on-the-record hearings and are understood to exercise “independent judgement,” …

Combating Sexual Misconduct And Abuse Of Authority In The United States Army: Same Long Fight, Wesley Martin

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Before my combat deployments into Iraq, I, Colonel Wes Martin, had successfully fought another war. As a military police officer, I spent many years fighting against sexual misconduct, abuse of authority, and cover-ups within the senior officer and sergeant ranks in the United States Army. During this fight I faced continual criticism from my senior officers who claimed I was discrediting the Army by exposing the corrupt and immoral behavior of senior officers and sergeants.

During the early days of standing up to the corruption, when I had the rank of Major, I received retaliatory evaluations and was forced to …

Public Matters? Comparing Decision-Making By Appointed And Elected Prosecutors In Cases Of Deadly Use-Of-Force By Police In The Hartford Judicial District And Suffolk County, Andrew E. Dubsky

Honors Scholar Theses

This thesis dissects prosecutor discretion for appointed and elected prosecutors after a “catalyst” event shifts public opinion. Previous studies have shown that elected prosecutors are more likely to use discretion favoring the opinion of the public than their appointed counterparts (Bandyopadhyay 2014, Nelson 2014, and Valenti 2011). Because elected prosecutors are more likely to follow public opinion, they should also be more likely to respond to the demands of the public than their appointed counterparts. In effect, elected prosecutors are expected to be more likely to exercise discretion in their charging and prosecuting. To test this, I use the 2014 …

Detention Of Asylum-Seekers: Comparison Of The Asylum And Detention Practices In United States And Sweden, Yuliia Pohorilets

International Studies (MA) Theses

Refugees are both an urgent humanitarian issue and the subject of much political debate in the U.S. and Europe. This research paper compares and contrasts the asylum process in US and Sweden. It analyzes the similarities and differences in their refugee policies and how asylumseeker rights are undermined or supported in the detention centers. The research discusses the historical origin of the contemporary asylum/immigration policies, international standards on detention, their implication, and key contemporary policy trends in US and Sweden. The selection of US and Sweden was not random. Both countries are highly influential in different ways in shaping global …

The Misplaced Trust In The Doj's Expertise On Criminal Justice Policy, Shon Hopwood

Michigan Law Review

Review of Rachel Elise Barkow's Prisoners of Politics: Breaking the Cycle of Mass Incarceration.

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. …

Tear Gas + Water Hoses + Dispersal Orders: The Fourth Amendment Endorses Brutality In Protest Policing, Karen Pita Loor

Faculty Scholarship

Thirty years ago, in Graham v. Connor, the Supreme Court determined that excessive-force claims against police should proceed via the Fourth Amendment, which theoretically protects an individual against unreasonable seizures. However, the Court showed extreme deference to law enforcement’s use of force by using a permissive reasonableness analysis that bestows on police great leeway to make quick split-second decisions in tense and rapidly evolving circumstances. The result is a test that, from its inception, has been too forgiving of police violence and misconduct. This lax reasonableness standard, along with qualified immunity principles, has shielded police from § 1983 civil rights …

The Violence Of Nosy Questions, Jeannine Bell

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Essay examines a little-studied aspect of police procedure: police officers’ unfettered power to ask questions of motorists. The questions officers ask after they have stopped a car can run the gamut from questions about the nature of the motorist’s travel plans to nosy personal questions. Such questions are often intrusive, and drivers report feeling degraded by having to answer them. This Essay argues that these questions should be regulated because giving officers complete control over what they ask motorists provides a significant space for racial discrimination in policing, creates resentment, and encourages minorities to distrust the police.

Honor And The Code Of Silence, Michaela Sallade

KUCC -- Kutztown University Composition Conference

This work is about law enforcement and the code of silence some officers that take part in it. There are three reasons behind officers following this code is due to the influence of the police academy, their fellow police officers, and the police union. Then going over how honor influences these officers becoming a part of the code of silence as well. The code of silence is a problem in the United States that is leading to officers getting away with crimes.

Law School News: Rwu Law Professors Win Release For Two Immigrants At Risk For Covid-19 04-24-2020, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

State V. Pinkham: Erosion Of Meaningful Forth Amendment Protection For Vehicle Stops In Maine?, Roger M. Clement Jr.

Maine Law Review

In State v. Pinkham, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, held that a police officer's stop of a motorist to inquire and advise about the motorist's improper-but not illegal-lane usage did not necessarily violate the Fourth Amendment's proscription against unreasonable seizures. The Pinkham decision is the first time that the Law Court has validated the stop of a moving vehicle in the absence of either a suspected violation of law or an imminent, ongoing threat to highway safety.
This Note considers whether the Law Court was correct in sustaining the police officer's stop of Ronald Pinkham. …

State Prosecutors At The Center Of Mass Imprisonment And Criminal Justice Reform, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

State prosecutors around the country have played a crucial role in mass imprisonment. Little supervision and virtually unsurpassed decision making power have provided them with unrivaled influence over the size, growth, and composition of our criminal justice system. They decide which cases to prosecute, whether to divert a case, whether to offer a plea, and what sentence to recommend. Their impact does not stop at sentencing. They weigh in on alternative dockets, supervision violations, parole release, and even clemency requests. But they are also part of a larger system that constrains them. Funding, judicial limits on their power, and legislative …

Police Social Work In Minnesota: Starting The Conversation, Jenny Ellsworth, Taylor Fish, Alison Niesen, Natalia Pitts

Master of Social Work Student Policy Advocacy Briefs

Even with enhanced police officer training focused on improving responses to mental illness, chemical dependency, and other crisis-related calls, police officers remain ill-equipped to serve as trained mental health professionals. Officers respond to these service-related calls more frequently than crime-related calls, which is why community partnerships between police officers and social workers are needed to promote the safety and well-being of people in crisis.

Digital Forensic Readiness: An Examination Of Law Enforcement Agencies In The State Of Maryland, James B. Mcnicholas Iii

Masters Theses & Doctoral Dissertations

Digital forensic readiness within the law enforcement community, especially at the local level, has gone mostly unexplored. As a result, a current lack of data exists that examines the digital forensic readiness of individual agencies, the possibility of proximity relationships, and correlations between readiness and backlogs. This quantitative, crosssectional research study sought to explore these issues by focusing on the state of Maryland. The study resulted in the creation of a digital forensic readiness scoring model that was then used to assign digital forensic readiness scores to thirty (30) of the one-hundred-forty-one (141) law enforcement agencies throughout Maryland. It was …

Debt Bondage: How Private Collection Agencies Keep The Formerly Incarcerated Tethered To The Criminal Justice System, Bryan L. Adamson

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

This Article examines the constitutionality of statutes which allow courts to transfer outstanding legal financial obligations to private debt collection agencies. In Washington State, the clerk of courts can transfer the legal financial obligation of a formerly incarcerated person if he or she is only thirty days late making a payment. Upon transfer, the debt collection agencies can assess a “collection fee” of up to 50% of the first $100.000 of the unpaid legal financial obligation, and up to 35% of the unpaid debt over $100,000. This fee becomes part of the LFO debt imposed at sentencing, and like that …

The Present And Future Law Enforcement Workforce: A Generational Comparison Of Motivators For Entering And Remaining In The Profession, Nicole Cain

Doctor of Education (Ed.D)

Recruitment and retention are persistent issues within the law enforcement organizations because positions are remaining vacant and fewer people are attracted to the profession. The purpose of this research study was to understand the differences between generational cohorts and specifically the millennial generation’s motivation for entering and remaining in the law enforcement profession, as well as their satisfaction with their career choice. This quantitative, non-experimental research study utilized a survey method to address six research questions. A convenient, purposive sample consisting of sworn police officers from one mid-size law enforcement agency located in central Florida represented the study’s data source. …

Safe Consumption Sites And The Perverse Dynamics Of Federalism In The Aftermath Of The War On Drugs, Deborah Ahrens

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In this Article, I explore the complicated regulatory and federalism issues posed by creating safe consumption sites for drug users—an effort which would regulate drugs through use of a public health paradigm. This Article details the difficulties that localities pursuing such sites and other non-criminal-law responses have faced as a result of both federal and state interference. It contrasts those difficulties with the carte blanche local and state officials typically receive from federal regulators when creatively adopting new punitive policies to combat drugs. In so doing, this Article identifies systemic asymmetries of federalism that threaten drug policy reform. While traditional …

Recognizing The Need For Mental Health Reform In The Texas Department Of Criminal Justice, Kara Mchorse

St. Mary's Law Journal

The ways in which mental health care and the criminal justice system interact are in desperate need of reform in Texas. The rate of mental illness in Texas is higher than the current state of mental health care can provide for. While state hospitals were once the primary care facilities of those with mental illness, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) has taken on that role in the last few decades; and when the criminal justice system becomes entangled with mental health care, it often leads to “unmitigated disaster.” If Texas continues to allow the TDCJ to act as …

The Effects Of Anti-Immigrant Laws In The U.S. On Victims Of Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault, And Human Trafficking: A Gender-Based Human Rights Analysis, Caroline Bettinger-López, Jamila Flomo, Amanda Suarez

Articles

No abstract provided.

Clergy & Police A Semiotic Analysis Of Clergy On Patrol, Ricardo Estevan Reyes

Communication & Theatre Arts Theses

The Clergy On Patrol (COP) program is a collaboration between the Norfolk Police Department and community faith leaders of the Norfolk Urban Renewal Center. This study analyzed themes and patterns in the communicative relationship between police and clergy members, using a semiotic approach and the scholarship of intergroup communication. Additionally, an added secondary analysis of media coverage helped focus the results of the study using themes. This thesis merged the two semiotic analyses to examine a style of community policing that has lacked a closer eye.

This thesis guided itself by the argument that clergy-police collaborative programs structure …

Healers Or Dealers: The Effect Of Doctors Committing Health Care Fraud On The Opioid Epidemic, Peri Novick

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review

The note argues that doctors who commit healthcare fraud by improperly prescribing opioids for personal gain should be held criminally liable for patient deaths resulting from their actions. It emphasizes that these physicians, often operating as "pill mills," violate ethical and legal standards, contributing significantly to the opioid epidemic. The analysis advocates for stronger legal enforcement and accountability to address this issue effectively.

Abolishing Ice Is Not Enough: Using Conservative Judicial Principles To Protect Unauthorized Immigrants From A "Tyrannical Bureaucracy", Ashley Dylenski

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The note argues that abolishing ICE alone will not resolve the systemic issues plaguing the U.S. immigration system, as the root problem lies in Congress's overdelegation of authority to executive agencies. These agencies, operating under doctrines like plenary power and Chevron deference, wield broad discretion with minimal judicial oversight, leading to inhumane and unpredictable enforcement practices. The analysis advocates for resurrecting the nondelegation doctrine and reasserting congressional authority to restore separation of powers and ensure a more humane and transparent immigration system.

The Misplaced Trust In The Doj's Expertise On Criminal Justice Policy, Shon Hopwood

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

As should be clear, this is less a book review and more an in-depth exploration of a key point Professor Barkow makes in Prisoners of Politics as applied to the federal criminal justice system. Sure, we need expertise in order to make data-driven criminal justice policy decisions--as Barkow puts it, “[t]he key is to create and foster an institutional framework that prioritizes data” and “expertise” so as to “create incentives for key decisionmakers to be accountable for real results” (pp. 14-15). But in creating reforms, the kindof expertise is also important. Many federal policymakers currently view the DOJ and …

Righting The Wrongfully Convicted: How Kansas's New Exoneree Compensation Statute Sets A Standard For The United States, Scott Connolly

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Part I of this Note will document the increasing prevalence of exonerations and provide a perspective on how significantly the landscape of postconviction justice has developed since the late 1980s. Such developments include DNA testing, greater awareness of false confessions, and a more thorough understanding of the unreliability of eyewitnesses. Part II will demonstrate the devastating impact that wrongful imprisonment has on exonerees. Finally, Part III of this Note will provide a snapshot of the current landscape of exoneree compensation laws. It will highlight the fact that many of the laws that exist do not provide sufficient resources and …

Supervisors Without Supervision: Colon, Mckenna, And The Confusing State Of Supervisory Liability In The Second Circuit, Ryan E. Johnson

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Note received the 2019 Washington and Lee Law Council Law Review Award.

This Note analyzes two intra-Second Circuit splits that make it nearly impossible for prisoners to recover against supervisors under § 1983. First, district courts in the Second Circuit are divided as to whether the five categories of personal involvement defined in Colon v. Coughlin survive the Supreme Court’s decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal. Personal involvement by the supervisory defendant is a necessary element to impose supervisory liability. Some district courts hold that only the first and third Colon factors survive Iqbal, while others hold that all …

The New Veil Of Race-Neutrality: A Critical Race Perspective On The Disproportionate Police Killings Of Unarmed Black Males, Robert Durell Mccord

Student Theses and Dissertations

This study conducts a qualitative thematic analysis of mass media framing of victims and perpetrators of police-involved killings of unarmed black males, the legal outcomes of the investigations into these killings, and the community response in the aftermath. This research finds five themes within the data: Dispute over Justice, Colorblind Racism, Distrust of the Criminal Justice System, Officer Vindication, and Suppression of Black Protest. I find that systemic issues in police use of force are exacerbated by preexisting racial inequalities and ideologies that perpetuate the racial status quo, wherein these killings are deemed justified. The implications that these killings convey …