Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Forensics Image Background Matching Using Scale Invariant Feature (Sift)Transform And Speeded Up Robust Features (Surf), Paul N. Fogg Ii

Theses and Dissertations

In criminal investigations, it is not uncommon for investigators to obtain a photograph or image that shows a crime being committed. Additionally, thousands of pictures may exist of a location, taken from the same or varying viewpoints. Some of these images may even include a criminal suspect or witness. One mechanism to identify criminals and witnesses is to group the images found on computers, cell phones, cameras, and other electronic devices into sets representing the same location. One or more images in the group may then prove the suspect was at the crime scene before, during, and/or after a crime. …

Structural Changes And Neighborhood Homicide Trends In St. Louis, Missouri, 1980 - 2000: A Multi-Level And Spatial Analysis, Robert Jason Fornango

Dissertations

Social scientists have long observed strong correlations between social structure and violent crime rates at the neighborhood level. Yet little is known about the relationship between changes in social structure and violent crime trends. Furthermore, the spatial distribution of crime trends has received little attention in the literature. The dissertation explores the trajectories and spatial dynamics of neighborhood homicide rates and social structure in St. Louis, Missouri between 1980 and 2000. Multilevel growth curve models are used to describe the nature of, and variation in, census tract homicide trajectories as functions of structural characteristics and changes in those features. Exploratory …

Amplicon Length Heterogeneity (Alh)-Pcr Generated Bacterial Community Profiling : A Novel Application For The Forensic Examination Of Soil, Todd Martin Crandall

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Current forensic comparisons of soil most often rely upon physical characterizations. We hypothesized that bacterial community profiles obtained by Amplicon Length Heterogeneity-Polymerase Chain Reaction (ALH-PCR) of the 16S rRNA genes would provide discriminating data for soil comparisons. Dual extractions and replicate amplifications were performed on each soil. Chemical characterization by elemental analysis, pH, moisture content, percent Carbon and percent Nitrogen were performed. Supervised classification of the microbial community profiles using a Support Vector Machine (SVM) learning tool was over 95 % accurate labeling a microbial community profile to its originating soil type. By comparison, the chemical analysis data yielded accuracies …

An Evaluation Of Operation Street Sweeper - 2006, Andrew Giacomazzi, Jeremy D. Ball

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications and Presentations

Operation Street Sweeper (OSS) was a multi-level, interagency collaboration with multiple purposes. According to OSS documents, Operation Street Sweeper goals included the following: (1) to reduce gang-related criminal and violent activity in Nampa and Caldwell, Idaho through aggressive, proactive, and coordinated street enforcement between the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) and local law enforcement; (2) to deter criminal activity through high profile enforcement activity; (3) to develop and/or increase the number of positive community contacts; (4) to show the community and gang members that law enforcement is serious about reducing gang and violent crime in the area; and …

Reflections On The Reentry Movement., Jeremy Travis

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Rethinking The Definition Of Police Crime: The Relationship Of Sex, Drugs, Violence And/Or Greed To Virtually All Police Crime, Philip M. Stinson

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Menace Of Security, Chandan Gowda

Chandan Gowda

No abstract provided.

Why Sarbanes-Oxley Whistleblowers Don’T Win, Richard E. Moberly

Nebraska College of Law: Faculty Publications

Whistleblowers played a significant role in revealing and disrupting corporate malfeasance at the beginning of the 21st century, as scandals at corporations such as Enron and WorldCom came to public light through the efforts of whistleblowing employees. Subsequently, Congress recognized the importance of whistleblowing and included strong and unprecedented anti-retaliation protection for corporate employees as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (the Act), the mammoth congressional reaction to these corporate scandals.

Despite Sarbanes-Oxley’s pro-whistleblower provisions and a few early employee victories, however, administrative decisions over the first three years of the Act’s life failed to fulfill these expectations that …

An Analysis Of The Relationship Between Higher Education And Police Misconduct In The New Jersey State Police, Steven C. Gerding

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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The Silent Revolution, Chandan Gowda

Chandan Gowda

No abstract provided.

Still Playing The Game:An Ethnography Of Young People, Street Crime And Juvenile Justice In The Inner-City Dublin Community, Jonathan Ilan

Doctoral

Crime must be understood as a facet of class-cultural interaction, given that the majority of the convicted are young, urban, disadvantaged males, while the criminal law enshrines and enforces what could be viewed as middle-class behavioural expectations. Class-cultural dynamics have become increasingly complex in late modernity, however, with traditional certainties and class boundaries becoming blurred and indistinct. This thesis examines the social and cultural factors underlying youth offending and justice in an inner-city Dublin community through an ethnographic treatment of the various actors in a locality which has undergone significant change in recent years. The Crew, a group of young …

Which Sexual Abuse Victims Receive A Forensic Medical Examination? : The Impact Of Children's Advocacy Centers, Wendy A. Walsh, Theodore P. Cross, Lisa M. Jones, Monique Simone, David Kolko

Sociology

Abstract

Objective

This study examines the impact of Children's Advocacy Centers (CAC) and other factors, such as the child's age, alleged penetration, and injury on the use of forensic medical examinations as part of the response to reported child sexual abuse.

Methods

This analysis is part of a quasi-experimental study, the Multi-Site Evaluation of Children's Advocacy Centers, which evaluated four CACs relative to within-state non-CAC comparison communities. Case abstractors collected data on forensic medical exams in 1,220 child sexual abuse cases through review of case records.

Results

Suspected sexual abuse victims at CACs were two times more likely to have …

Toward A Legal History Of Children As Witnesses, William S. Bush, David S. Tanenhaus

History Faculty Publications

This essay offers a selective overview of recent trends in the historical scholarship on American childhood from the origins of the American Revolution to the early years of the Cold War. This overview of the literature has two purposes. First, it highlights recent sociocultural scholarship that presents substantive challenges to the conventional ways of understanding the history of children and the law. Second, in so doing, it points out that legal histories concerned solely with doctrinal matters can, and often do, present a limited and distorted window into the past. Instead, the essay argues that the place of children, historically, …

The Luck Of The Draw: Using Random Case Assignment To Investigate Attorney Ability, David S. Abrams, Albert H. Yoon

All Faculty Scholarship

One of the most challenging problems in legal scholarship is the measurement of attorney ability. Measuring attorney ability presents inherent challenges because the nonrandom pairing of attorney and client in most cases makes it difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between attorney ability and case selection. Las Vegas felony case data, provided by the Clark County Office of the Public Defender in Nevada, offer a unique opportunity to compare attorney performance. The office assigns its incoming felony cases randomly among its pool of attorneys, thereby creating a natural experiment free from selection bias. We find substantial heterogeneity in attorney performance …

Steekpartij Voor De Spiegel, Jenneke Christiaens

Jenneke Christiaens

No abstract provided.

Ensuring That Regional Trade Agreements Complement The Wto System: Us Unilateralism A Supplement To Wto Initiatives?, Matthew Schaefer

Nebraska College of Law: Faculty Publications

In the mid-1990s, the policy debate within the WTO focused on whether regional trade agreements (RTAs) were building blocks or stumbling blocks for the WTO system, essentially questioning whether regionalism was appropriate at all from an economic policy perspective. Given the proliferation of RTAs since that time and the inability to roll back the clock, that policy debate has been replaced by a search for strengthened constraints on RTA activity that might ensure it complements the WTO system. Three major controversies within many existing RTAs are the exclusion of agriculture from coverage, complex and restrictive rules of origin, and varied …

Property Crimes At O'Hare International Airport Post 9/11: The Impact Of Increased Security, Brian Johnson, Brian Kingshott

Brian R. Johnson

Since 11th September 2001 there has been a raft of measures brought in to make airports and commercial airlines a more difficult target to reach. We have witnessed an increase in both the range of technologies and personnel deployed to ensure passenger safety. Although primarily designed to thwart terrorism, one of the secondary outcomes of these increased security measures has been the reduction of property-related offenses, particularly larceny and motor vehicle theft, at U. S. airports. Brian R. Johnson and Brian F. Kingshott examine the Changes in the number of reported property crimes at Chicago O'Hare, pre- and post-9/11.

Airport Crime: Chicago O'Hare Post-9/11, Brian F. Kingshott, Brian R. Johnson

Brian F. Kingshott

Since 11th September 2001 there has been a raft of measures brought in to make airports and commercial airlines a more difficult target to reach. We have witnessed an increase in both the range of technologies and personnel deployed to ensure passenger safety. Although primarily designed to thwart terrorism, one of the secondary outcomes of these increased security measures has been the reduction of property-related offenses, particularly larceny and motor vehicle theft, at U. S. airports. Brian R. Johnson and Brian F. Kingshott examine the Changes in the number of reported property crimes at Chicago O'Hare, pre- and post-9/11.

Validation Of A Short Tandem Repeat Multiplex Typing System For Genetic Individualization Of Domestic Cat Samples, Nikia Coomber, Victor A. David, Stephen J. O'Brien, Marilyn Menotti-Raymond

Biology Faculty Articles

Aim To conduct developmental validation studies on a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based short tandem repeat (STR) multiplex typing system, developed for the purpose of genetic individualization and parentage testing in domestic cat samples.

Methods To evaluate reproducibility of the typing system, the multiplex was amplified using DNA extracted from hair, blood, and buccal samples obtained from the same individual (n = 13). Additional studies were performed to evaluate the system’s species’ specificity, using 26 North American mammalian species and two prokaryotes Sacchromyces and Escherichia coli, sensitivity, and ability to identify DNA mixtures. Patterns of Mendelian inheritance and mutation …

The Recruitment And Selection Of Minority Police Officers, Patrick Oliver

History and Government Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Ramachandra Gandhi - The Passionate Philosopher, Chandan Gowda

Chandan Gowda

No abstract provided.

Community Policing: Broken Windows, Community Building, And Satisfaction With The Police, Robert M. Lombardo, Todd Lough

Criminal Justice & Criminology: Faculty Publications & Other Works

The concept of community policing dominates the law enforcement profession today. One would be hard pressed to find an advertisement for a police chief’s position that does not require a thorough understanding of this method of policing. Like the Kansas City preventive patrol experiment and the Rand report on the criminal investigation process, the call for community policing has led to dramatic changes in the way that police carry out their responsibilities. In spite of its popularity, there have been a number of challenges to community policing from social scientists who are particularly concerned about the ‘broken windows’ model of …

Private Sector Whistleblowers: Are There Sufficient Protections?, Richard E. Moberly

Nebraska College of Law: Faculty Publications

In response to the question this hearing presents, my research indicates that whistleblowers have some legal protection, but the protection is likely insufficient. Over 30 Federal statutes protect whistleblowers and relate to a variety of topics, including workplace safety, the environment, public health, and corporate fraud. However, these statutes provide only a relatively limited amount of protection because of their ad hoc and narrow approaches. Rather than protect any employee who reports any illegal activity, Federal statutes only protect whistleblowing related to a specific topic or statute, and then only if the whistleblower works for an employer covered by the …

Testimony Of Jeremy Travis, President Of John Jay College Of Criminal Justice, City University Of New York, Before The New York State Senate Committee On Higher Education, May 1, 2007, Albany, Ny., Jeremy Travis

Publications and Research

The President speaks in response to the Virginia Tech shootings.

Proposition 36: Ignoring Amenability And Avoiding Accountability, Mehgan Porter

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Standardized Testing On Student Performance In The United States, Stephanie Linden

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

In the United States, the current trend in education is the dependence on standardized testing to improve our current education system. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 mandates higher test scores and improved academic performance in schools nation-wide, especially inner city schools. This thesis will attempt to evaluate whether standardized testing and the methods used to assess high performance has helped to create a better education system in the United States, or whether it has hindered student performance. There has been much discussion about this topic, some positive and some not. In this paper I will present both …

Electrochemical Detection Of Prostate Carcinoma Biomarkers Using Nanotechnology, Kathryn Leonard

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

The first chapter of this thesis speaks about prostate specific antigen, carbon nanotubes and horseradish peroxidase. The second chapter discusses the electrochemistry and catalysis of horseradish peroxidase (HRP) and myoglobin (Mb) covalently attached to vertically aligned carbon nanotube arrays used as a tranducer. Cyclic voltammetry results gave quasi-reversible FeIII/FeII voltammetry and electrochemical catalysis involving catalytic reduction of hydrogen peroxide for both the iron-heme enzymes in myoglobin and horseradish peroxidase coupled to the carboxylated ends of the carbon nanotube arrays by amine bioconjugation reactions. Reduction peak currents gave linear relationships with scan-rates, typical of thin layer voltammetry. Results suggest that the …

Ink Impressions: Public Perceptions Of Tattoos And Criminality, Ashlee N. Cook

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

In an ever evolving society, the definition and acceptance of deviant behavior has broadened significantly. The taboos that were once cast out by society have begun to be accepted in society. Participation in tattooing is a prime example of behavior that has become more mainstream. This once detestable art form, which ranges from branding techniques of criminals to tattooing as fashion, has been commodified and accepted by certain groups in our society. However, the adoption of this practice by no means indicates that it is uniformly viewed as acceptable. Research has been conducted on this phenomenon; however, limited studies have …

The Penetration Of The Criminal Justice System Into Communities Of Color: A Leadership Challenge For The Legal Profession. Address At The Convocation On The Face Of The Profession Iii: Leadership Of The Bar; Sponsored By The New York State Judicial Institute On Professionalism In The Law On April 27, 2007 In Albany, Ny., Jeremy Travis

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Textbooks For Computer Forensic Courses: A Preliminary Study, Jigang Liu, Larry Gottschalk, Kuodi Jian

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

As computer forensics develops into one of the fastest-growing areas in the computer related fields, many universities and colleges are offering or are planning to offer a course in computer forensics. When instructors begin to develop a new course in the area, one of critical questions they would ask is what textbook should be used. To better answer the question, we conducted a study in which we tried to find which textbooks are being used in computer forensic courses. We believe that the results and analysis of our study will help instructors in choosing adequate textbooks for their new course …