Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Forensic Investigation Process: Dji Phantom 3 Drone As A Case Study, Alan Roder, Kim-Kwang Raymond Choo, Nhien-A Le-Khac

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Drones (also known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles – UAVs) are a potential source of evidence in a digital investigation, partly due to their increasing popularity in our society. However, existing UAV/drone forensics generally rely on conventional digital forensic investigation guidelines such as those of ACPO and NIST, which may not be entirely fit-for-purpose. In this paper, we identify the challenges associated with UAV/drone forensics. We then explore and evaluate existing forensic guidelines, in terms of their effectiveness for UAV/drone forensic investigations. Next, we present our set of guidelines for UAV/drone investigations. Finally, we demonstrate how the proposed guidelines can be …

Detection And Recovery Of Anti-Forensic (Vault) Applications On Android Devices, Michaila Duncan, Umit Karabiyik

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Significant number of mobile device users currently employ anti-forensics applications, also known as vault or locker applications, on their mobile devices in order to hide files such as photos. Because of this, investigators are required to spend a large portion of their time manually looking at the applications installed on the device. Currently, there is no automated method of detecting these anti-forensics applications on an Android device. This work presents the creation and testing of a vault application detection system to be used on Android devices. The main goal of this work is twofold: (i) Detecting and reporting the presence …

Violence In Prostitution, Serena Maszak

Student Theses

It is estimated that the majority of prostitutes are victims of violence, including rape and homicide. Some research has suggested that the clients of sex workers perpetrate most of these acts of violence. While several qualitative studies have examined specific incidents of violence, the prevalence and causes of violence in prostitution remain largely unaddressed by the existing literature. This study compares attitudes towards sexual violence and prostitution between men who have purchased sexual services and those who have not. Participants were 170 men recruited online, with 35 (20.6%) participants self-identifying as those who had previously purchased sex. Overall, a significant …

Intersections Between Gender, Race, And Justice-Involvement: A Mixed Methods Analysis Of Women's Experiences In The Oregon Criminal Justice System, Breanna Lynne Boppre

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Since the 1970s, the rate of female incarceration in the United States skyrocketed, with highest imprisonment rates among Black and Latina women. Nonetheless, few studies examined disparities in female imprisonment and the distinct experiences of women of Color within the justice system. To fill this gap in the literature, this dissertation utilized conflict and intersectional perspectives to assess the differential treatment of women in the Oregon justice system. Using a convergent mixed methods design, this dissertation examined disparities in female imprisonment using state-level prison admissions and population data from 1983-2014 in conjunction with qualitative interview and focus group responses among …

Police Interventions, Public Perceptions, And The Rdfc Interaction Model, Stacey L. Clouse

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Procedural justice and police legitimacy research suggests that perceptions of legitimacy are based on the credibility of police (Sunshine & Tyler, 2003). However, highly publicized incidents of police use of force serve to threaten that credibility. High profile incidents between police and citizens in Black communities have contributed to national protests and, as some data suggest, increased violence toward the police (FBI.gov, 2016). Extensive media coverage of these incidents has contributed to an increased sensitivity toward police- citizen interactions leading to incidents of civil unrest (Weitzer, 2002). The incidents of civil unrest suggest that we should more closely examine factors …

School Bullying: Exploring Juvenile Victimization Trends With The Ncvs School Crime Supplement (Ncvs-Scs), Matthew Morris Le Claire

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Bullying is broadly defined as the act of repeatedly exercising superior strength or social capital to intimidate an individual or group and is enacted by different modes. This research is the first to distinguish between traditional modes (direct and indirect bullying) and contemporary modes (cyberbullying) of bully victimization using the National Crime Victimization Survey’s School Crime Supplement (NCVS-SCS). While establishing new conceptual criterias for defining bullying modes, the study explores the relationship between demographic variables (i.e., agre, gender, and race), socioeconomic disadvantage (i.e., hate words present on school premises, households earning less than $25,000 per year, perceptions of controlled substance …

Assessing The Potential For A Backfire Effect On Citizen Perceptions: A Test Of Hot Spot Policing In Las Vegas, Steven Andrew Pace

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Objects: In this dissertation, I explore whether the use of motorized police saturation patrol in high crime neighborhoods negatively impacts citizen perceptions of police activity, opinions about the police, and perceived safety level. This research focuses on evaluating

whether or not any backfire effects were attributed to the use of the hot spot policing tactic. Methods: I report on survey data from the Smart Policing Initiative (SPI), which entailed face-to face interviews in 12 hot spot neighborhoods (n=1,005) (6 paired locations) as part of an evaluation from the SPI on the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Mobile Crime Saturation Team. …

The Importance Of Cultural Competence: The Defining Characteristic Separating Veteran Treatment Courts From Other Specialized Dockets, Kyle Nathan Rodgers

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The current study provides a systematic review of veteran treatment court research with two main purposes in mind. The first is to establish whether and how the courts adhere to current evidence-based best practices, and if such practices differ from other specialty court programs. The second is to establish whether and how the concepts of “moral injury” and “posttraumatic growth” are incorporated in current veteran treatment court research and court practices, as an indicator of the cultural competency of both researchers and practitioners. This is a groundbreaking study that expands current research on moral injury and posttraumatic growth from the …

Hotspot Homes: An Analysis Of The Situational/Contextual Factors, Windows Of Opportunity, And Attempted Burglaries On Repeatedly Burglarized Residential Homes, Joshua W. Donnelly

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This research study designed to inform the reader on the phenomenon of repeat burglary victimization as it applies to single residential family homes. This research used Henderson Police Department data to examine the prevalence of repeat victimization, and the situational factors that accompany this phenomenon. The main concept that is being examined in this paper is the time period in which most repeats happen, the analysis will be conducted using a 6-year time frame divided into equal time blocks. Repeat attempted burglaries are also analyzed to identify any similar patterns amongst these crimes. The study is composed of approximately 3,700 …

Boys To Men: Masculinity, Victimization, And Offending, Shon Michael Reed

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Male victims are an underrepresented group within society as research within victimology primarily focuses on female victims and services available typically cater to female populations. This study focuses on male victims and draws attention to the role that victimization may play in criminal offending. Prior research has found that male victims may feel a diminished sense of their own masculinity. While other studies have noted that masculinity plays a role in some men’s decisions to engage in criminal behavior (Messerschmidt, 1993, 2016). It seems logical that these two concepts (masculinity and victimization) would be related. Utilizing self-reported data from 135 …

The Ethics Of Environmental Litigation, Jenna Marie Dibenedetto

Student Theses 2015-Present

Abstract

We are raised from the early days of our youth to distinguish right from wrong, evil from good. Though there are many careers that have easily distinguishable ethics from their day of creation, others require spend their entire professional careers floating in a grey area. Being a lawyer can leave you in limbo very often. The ethical battle between prosecuting people whose actions go against everything you believe in and defending someone who actions you struggle to rationalize, looking for a “nail in the coffin” or finding a way to pry it open can play a large role in …

The Impacts Of Green Spaces On Crime In New York City, Matthew Edward Iannone Jr.

Student Theses 2015-Present

From the early 1960s through the mid-1990s, crime in New York City ran rampant. With a gradually dwindling police during this time, a high unemployment rate, and an rapidly increasing metropolitan population, crime peaked in the early 1990s, with the murder rate hitting a record-high of 2,245 in 1990. When Mayor Rudy Giuliani took office in 1994 and appoint Bill Bratton as the NYPD police commissioner, these rates immediately plunged. Numerous factors may have contributed to this sudden decline in crime: the police force grew significantly through the 1990s, more criminals were placed and held in prison, and the economic …

The Effects Of Media Exposure On Perceptions Of Residence Restrictions, Stephanie Simeone

Student Theses

Public perceptions impact the formation of sex offender policy, yet much of what the public knows about sex crimes is based in stereotypical narratives provided by the media. The present study investigated the effects of media exposure on perceptions of sexual offending and the efficacy of residence restrictions. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three media exposure groups and then asked about their opinions about sexual offending and residence restrictions. Results indicated that participants who viewed sensationalized media reports were more likely than individuals who viewed informed media and no media to endorse more stereotypical views of individuals convicted …

Cruel And Unusual: The Eighth Amendment And The Overuse Of Solitary Confinement In American Corrections, Brandon Craig

Honors Program Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Proposition 47 And Crime: A Difference In Differences Analysis Of Incarceration Rates And Crime Using Border Counties, Brian J. Fischer

Theses and Dissertations

California passed Proposition 47 by vote and changed the way the state punishes drug and theft. I find an increase in crime using a difference in differences model by computing the change in thefts with the change in inmates. This effect sides with anecdotal claims and disagrees with empirical studies.

Non-Traditional Transitional Justice Mechanisms And Perceptions And Symptoms Of Victimization Among Diasporic Individuals: Members Of The Coptic Christian Diaspora In The United States As A Case Study, Samy S. A. Gerges

Doctor of International Conflict Management Dissertations

Transitional justice measures are state-centered measures articulating atrocities committed by officials and occurring within the borders of a specific state. Questioning members of a Diaspora about the impact of transitional justice on their self-classification as victims and their experienced symptoms of victimization may therefore support attempts to expand the field of transitional justice. This study contributes to a body of work promoting understanding of the possibilities and constraints of transitional justice mechanisms, in the context of hate crime against Copts by Muslims in Egypt. To analyze the impact of restored relationships on self-classified victimhood and experienced symptoms of victimization, the …

Forensic Entomology And The Order Coleoptera, Carrie Pratt

Essential Studies UNDergraduate Showcase

Medico-legal forensic entomology is the study of insects to aid in determining time, place, manner, and cause of death. Identification of the postmortem interval (PMI), or the time that has passed since a person has died, is arguably one of the most important pieces of information that forensic entomology can provide. The PMI can be found using either insect developmental rates or entomofaunal succession, the arrival of different insects at a body at different time points.

The largest group of insects, the beetles, is the order Coleoptera, which contains 25% of all animal species. Members of this order are critical …

The Implementation Of The Family Chaos Diversion Pilot In Worcester, Massachusetts, Nina Thacker

Sustainability and Social Justice

In October 2017, the city of Worcester began a three-month pilot program that worked to divert youth charged with domestic assault and battery crimes away from the criminal justice system and towards restorative services. Studies show that incapacitation, especially of low level offenders, does not reduce crime or produce better outcomes for individuals, families, or communities. Thus, it is essential to explore alternatives, such as diversion programs, that work to downsize the prison population, target the factors contributing to delinquency, and rehabilitate rather than purely punish offenders. For this study, I interviewed personnel involved in the implementation of the Family …

Sex Trafficking Of Transgender And Gender Nonconforming Youth In The United States, Meaghan Tomasiewicz

Center for the Human Rights of Children

There is a growing body of research from a variety of disciplines highlighting the overrepresentation of LGBTQ identified individuals among sex trafficked and commercially sexually exploited (CSE) youth. A much smaller subset of this research specifically focuses on transgender female youth. Transgender male, GNC, and intersex youth are largely excluded from the available literature. The issues and obstacles faced by the transgender and GNC communities require specialized services that are not necessarily applicable to the LGBTQ community as a whole due to population-specific healthcare, mental health, and safety factors in addition to employment discrimination, housing discrimination, and familial rejection. By …

United States Human Trafficking Task Force, Michael A. Palazzi Iv

Master in Management for Public Safety and Homeland Security Professionals Master's Projects

Human Trafficking is a multi-billion-dollar industry which is both a domestic and foreign issue for the United States government. The purpose of this paper is to address the issues such as: lack of a centralized task force, lack of funding and an introduction of a new method of investigation which utilizes intelligence to fight human trafficking. The results found through research and interviews with federal agents have shown that a federal task force utilizing federal, state, and local law enforcement along with nongovernmental organizations (NGO’s) and government would have a positive, profound effect against human trafficking. It is recommended that …

Mental Health Screening For Prisoners Upon Entrance To State Prisons, Illandra Denysschen

Criminology & Criminal Justice Theses - Archive

The prison system has left a penal system that strives to rehabilitate an offender, for one that simply punishes. This is detrimental for prisoners with mental disorders, as their condition may worsen exponentially with incarceration. This research examines the mental health screening processes for prisoners upon entrance to state prisons across the United States, by identifying the screening process via state policies. State policies were identified by going onto the respective DOC websites for every state, and reading through the mental health/health policy in order to identify whether or not there were mental health screening processes in place. The resulting …

Does The Death Penalty Deter Homicides?, Lorenzo A. Mendoza Valles

Criminology & Criminal Justice Theses - Archive

This study assessed the long debated question over the death penalty’s deterrent effects. The majority of the empirical research on this topic is dated and does not display the current status of capital punishment. The death penalty argument is divided between criminologists who suggest that capital punishment holds no deterrent effects and criminologists who suggest that it does. This examination revisits the argument with an analysis of state panel data and executions between the years of 2000 and 2014. The findings suggest that the application of the death penalty does not deter would be offenders from committing homicide.

Polarization And The Supreme Court, Kyla Duffy

Senior Honors Projects

Political polarization has been commonly observed in American politics and has drawn scholarly interest. In recent years, trends of polarization have appeared to increase in Congress, with Democrats and Republicans drifting further and further apart. Americans appear to be deeply split on many social issues which have resulted in culture wars in American politics. According to the legal model of judicial decision making, decisions handed down by the Supreme Court should be unaffected by these trends of polarization. However, recent scholarship, most notably the attitudinal model of judicial decision making, calls into question the legal model of decision making. It …

Are Jurors’ Judgments About Confessions Affected By Juvenile Defendant Race?, Lisa Dobrowolsky

Criminal Justice

This research is focused on understanding jurors’ beliefs about how much weight juvenile defendants’ confessions should be given, especially when the confessions were coerced. This is an important topic because adolescents are vulnerable and at risk for producing false confessions. Because of their age and other developmental factors, they can sometimes be coerced by police during interrogation to admit to crimes they did not commit. Once a confession is obtained, it can be very persuasive to jurors because it is hard for them to believe that someone would admit to a crime they did not commit. This can lead to …

Federal Circuit Courts’ Impact On Immigration Reform: An Analysis Of Judicial Ideology And Immigration Policy, Evanna Ojeda

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Regulation of immigration policy is an expressed power granted to the federal government in the Constitution; however, state and local governments often pass immigration policy legislation to address gaps in federal legislation. This research project seeks to understand the role of federal circuit courts ruling powers in determining the legal standing and substitute holding of merits for immigration policy regulation. By analyzing the political ideology of presiding judges and understanding the relationship between political ideology and judicial decision support for federal or state regulated policy, this project seeks to recognize the role of federal circuit courts in enhancing and shaping …

A Forensic Investigation Into The Possible Origins Of Three Human Skeletons, Jefferson P. Sinnott

Forensic Science Theses

The Anthropology Department at Buffalo State has three human skeletons that have been part of the department’s collection for several years. The origin of the skeletons is currently unknown. Modern DNA techniques coupled with forensic anthropological techniques may now allow us to determine with some certainty the geographic origin of the skeletons. Ancestry, sex, age, and stature were assessed using current anthropological techniques. Afterwards, one tooth from each of the three skeletons was extracted, pulverized and DNA was isolated. Y-STR fragment size analysis of the DNA samples can provide information about the patrilineage of male individuals. Mitochondrial DNA sequencing analysis …

The Styles Of Criminology : Writing Among The Stars., Ethan Maxwell Higgins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates how criminological writing style is "a [more] complicated terrain" than we realize in criminology (Butler, 1990, p. xix). Data is drawn from interviews with forty of the one hundred most influential criminological writers (Walters, 2015) to explore perceptions of good writing in the field, namely in describing writing practices, norms and values. Thus, the findings of this study come in three chapters. The first two result chapters explore the terrain of writing in criminology by presenting perceptions of best practices and values of good writing. The third results chapter then examines these perceptions within a lens of …

Vocational And Life Skills Monthly Data Update: May 2018, Uno Nebraska Center For Justice Research, Johanna Peterson

Reports

Grantees use an online data management system to submit data on participants served under their Vocational and Life Skills programming. This data is due monthly and reflects all services provided during the previous month to participants. Evaluators at the Nebraska Center for Justice Research work with grantees directly to manage data entry errors on an ongoing basis during monthly update calls and regular site visits. This data comes from an active database with live data being entered and updated daily.

Data, including previously submitted information, may fluctuate depending on changes made from data entry oversight. One common example of this …

Nebraska Vocational And Life Skills Initiative Client Perceptions Of Program Services And Ability To Reintegrate: A Qualitative Analysis Of Grant Cycle 1 Participant Interviews, Nebraska Center For Justice Research, University Of Nebraska At Omaha, Don L. Kurtz, Ryan E. Spohn, Johanna C. Peterson

Reports

This report provides a detailed analysis of client perceptions of services they received as part of the Vocational and Life Skills (VLS) first grant cycle. Approximately 2500 participants received services as part of the first grant cycle of the Life Skills Program created in 2014 by Nebraska Legislative Bill 907. VLS programming focused on reentry of individuals currently incarcerated, recently released from one of the ten Nebraska correctional facilities, or clients supervised in the community via probation or parole. VLS services included a range of job readiness, educational, and career trainings as well as and a number of mental health, …

#Readyforrio: How A Revised Rule 40 Impacted Sponsorship At The 2016 Summer Olympics, Anthony Carson

Senior Theses

When planning and executing the Olympic Games, a premier event in modern sport, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) relies heavily on sponsorship revenue from their official sponsors. “Worldwide Olympic Partners,” the top 11 sponsors of the 2016 Olympics, had exclusive rights during the Olympic cycle from 2013-2016.

With the purchase of these expensive sponsorship deals, brands are looking to capitalize on the “glow” of the Olympics, and use excusive Olympic intellectual property to make ties from their brand to the Games. In order to make these sponsorship deals more valuable, the IOC has historically provided official partners with added exclusivity …