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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Rise Of Police Militarization And Impact On Civilians, Araceli Marquez May 2021

The Rise Of Police Militarization And Impact On Civilians, Araceli Marquez

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

Across the country, police are using aggressive, military-style policing tactics to enforce the law. These aggressive tactics disproportionately affect minorities and residents of lower-income communities. Recent protests by the Black Lives Matter movement have taken place in response to the deaths of individuals such as George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Aggressive police presence at these demonstrations has been prominent, despite protesters’ peaceful intent. The police are not only present at rallies and protests but also at celebratory events like major cities' sports celebrations. This paper examines militarization as a result of the War on Drugs, the 1033 program, racial politics, …


From Preschool To Prison: How School Resource Officers Produce Criminality, Brenda Vargas Tapia May 2021

From Preschool To Prison: How School Resource Officers Produce Criminality, Brenda Vargas Tapia

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

Police officers were introduced in the American school system to provide White communities with a sense of safety. However, these police officers are not well trained to provide students with support and instead are trained to deal with situations with force. The implicit bias of police officers criminalizes and punishes Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) students unfairly. School shootings have continued to enforce the idea that officers are needed. However, this notion is untrue. Policing in schools builds a school-to-prison pipeline that is now, in the online schooling era, translating to the Zoom-to-prison pipeline, which reveals that BIPOC …


Official Misconduct, Exoneree Race, And The Length Of Time From False Conviction To Exoneration, Blase S. Rokusek Jan 2021

Official Misconduct, Exoneree Race, And The Length Of Time From False Conviction To Exoneration, Blase S. Rokusek

Undergraduate Research Journal

We investigated the interaction of official misconduct (OM) committed by criminal justice officials and race of the defendant in the context of the length of time from conviction to exoneration. We included in our study cases from 1989 to 2020 from the National Registry of Exonerations (NRE), which compiles in its database exonerations accomplished both with and without DNA evidence. Analysis revealed that there does exist an interaction effect of OM and race of the defendant. The timeframe from conviction to exoneration was longest when the case involved both OM and a Black exoneree. Our results indicate that official misconduct …