Legal Studies 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 …

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 …

The Commercial Sexual Exploitation Of Children, Cynthia Hipolito

Criminology & Criminal Justice Theses - Archive

The purpose of the study is to review the thematic content analysis of the empirical literature on the commercial sexual exploitation of children. The research explores recurring themes and/ or trends in the literature by inductive content analysis. The research involves the examination of the research, that is, published books, book chapters, magazine articles, newspaper articles, and refereed journal articles on the topic of commercialized sexual exploitation of children. This very basic form of content analysis will seek to amplify issues on the topic in an organized fashion, by exploring the themes to emerge inductively and make policy recommendations. This …

Police In Peril: Determining The Work-Induced Stressors Affecting Officers And The Subsequent Use Of Individualized Coping Strategies, Ami Möller

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identifying what stressors affect an officer and how he or she copes is essential in maintaining psychologically healthy officers. Studies have found that police officers consider the organizationally based aspects of the job to greatly influence their level of stress. The present research used the Police Stress Survey and COPE Inventory to identify common stressors and coping strategies among forty-five officers in the state of Indiana. The study attempted to determine whether or not a chronic overall stress -produced by frequent organizational stressors existed, and if this stress led to an increased use of maladaptive coping strategies. Results indicated a …

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.

Citizen And Officer Perceptions Of Community Policing In Ghana: Policing Of, By, And For The People, Or Just To The People?, Angela West Crews, Gordon A. Crews

Criminal Justice Faculty Research

This presentation presents initial results of an evaluation of citizen and officer perceptions of policing in Ghana. The Ghana Police Service (GPS) is attempting to transition from a para-militaristic philosophy to a more community-centered approach, developing a domestic violence unit in the past decade and, more recently, a community policing unit. Community policing philosophies, however, face unique challenges in Ghanaian society, such as a deep-rooted (and historically well-founded) mistrust of the police, and a culture with a well-established and trusted “traditional” system wherein matters are settled within communities and impacted by religion, spirituality, and mysticism. This project used official reported …

Citizen And Officer Perceptions Of Community Policing In Ghana: Policing Of, By, And For The People, Or Just To The People?, Angela West Crews, Gordon A. Crews

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

This presentation presents initial results of an evaluation of citizen and officer perceptions of policing in Ghana. The Ghana Police Service (GPS) is attempting to transition from a para-militaristic philosophy to a more community-centered approach, developing a domestic violence unit in the past decade and, more recently, a community policing unit. Community policing philosophies, however, face unique challenges in Ghanaian society, such as a deep-rooted (and historically well-founded) mistrust of the police, and a culture with a well-established and trusted “traditional” system wherein matters are settled within communities and impacted by religion, spirituality, and mysticism. This project used official reported …

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 Examination Of Perception And Knowledge Concerning The Venezuelan Government Under The Leadership Of Hugo Chavez, Joshua Dean Prescott

Criminology & Criminal Justice Theses - Archive

This study examines the perception and knowledge of American undergraduate students regarding the Venezuelan Government under the leadership of President Hugo Chavez. A perception and knowledge survey covering various and relative aspects of the Chavez Administration in Venezuela was given to undergraduate students seeking a degree in Criminology and Criminal Justice. It is proposed that undergraduate students seeking Criminology and Criminal Justice degrees will compare with Americans overall in having low perceptions and knowledge of Venezuela, the President of Venezuela, Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias, the current Venezuelan Government and its role in the global community, thus supporting a lack of …

Attitudes Toward Illegal Immigration: What The Public Believes, What The Government Can Learn, Jason Ariel Daza

Criminology & Criminal Justice Theses - Archive

Illegal immigration is one of the most divisive domestic policy issues facing the United States and one could argue the absence of a solution may stem from a misunderstanding of how the public feels about illegal immigration. This survey explores the attitudes people have towards issues surrounding illegal immigration. The results indicate that attitudes towards illegal immigration vary according to demographics, but they also suggest there is more agreement over the issues than disagreement, regardless of demographics. Thus, with an increased knowledge of where people stand on the issues, and of the strength of their beliefs, legislators can be more …

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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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 …

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 …

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

History Faculty Publications (Archived)

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, …

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 …

Airport Security: Study Of Students' Perception And Knowledge Of The Selection Of Airline Passengers For Personal Searches, Esthela Cabrera Hernandez

Criminology & Criminal Justice Theses - Archive

The aim of this study was to analyze and identify the perception and kowledge of the criteria used to select airport passengers for personal searches. The study was carried out via self-administered surveys. The collected data derived from the sample of undergraduate students at the University of Texas at Arlington. The study revealed statistically significant diferences in percepcion and knowledge between male and female students. The findings of this study suggest that undergraduate students perceived that African Americans and Hispanics are more likely to be searched at airports than Whites. It was also perceived that males are more likely to …

From Seduction To Copulation: How Child Molesters Negotiate The Contingencies Of Child Sexual Abuse, Danielle Katrina Schiller

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research has focused primarily on the psyche of individual child molesters in order to create better treatment regimens and prevention strategies. However, the extant research neglects to provide an in-depth analysis of what child molesters do and how they do it. This paper examines the seduction process child molesters use to gain access to victims, manipulate the adult community, and create a safe environment to molest. Twenty-one male child molesters were selected from several accredited publications throughout the past twenty years. Through the use of grounded theory, a set of qualitative descriptions revealed common post- and pre-offense behaviors. The behaviors …

Cpted: Interpreting Contemporary Security Practices In The Era Of Homeland Security, Rebecca Lynn Wenzel

Criminology & Criminal Justice Theses - Archive

The actions taken by the United States Government to increase domestic security in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, under the guise of homeland security, clearly make use of the techniques and philosophies of crime prevention through environmental design. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine components of Homeland Security's domestic response, specifically the airport security measures implemented as a result of the attacks, and demonstrate that they are, in fact, components of the crime prevention through environmental design general theorem. However, because the Department of Homeland Security has not recognized these techniques as components …

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 …

A Study Examining Perception And Knowledge Of Criminology/Criminal Justice And Political Science Students On Terrorism As It Pertains To The Palestinian/Israeli Conflict, Michael Andrew Gossett

Criminology & Criminal Justice Theses - Archive

The purpose of this study is to examine perception and knowledge of Criminology/Criminal Justice and Political Science majors. University of Texas at Arlington students were asked to identify scenarios related to actions taken by both Palestinians and Israelis as they pertain to terrorism. The data in this study were obtained from a sample of UTA students enrolled in both Criminology/Criminal Justice and Political Science courses. These findings revealed that both CRCJ and Political Science respondents share a similar propensity towards identifying terrorist acts. Additionally, the findings revealed a general lack of knowledge and familiarity with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and an …

Illegal Immigrants And Crime: A Perception Study Through The Lenses Of Majority And Minority Criminology/Criminal Justice Students, Robyn D'Amberly Rivera

Criminology & Criminal Justice Theses - Archive

The purpose of this study is to examine the perceptions and attitudes of CRCJ majority (White/Caucasian) college students and minority (Black, Mexican American/Hispanic, American Indian, Asian/Pacific Islander or Other) towards illegal immigrants and crime in the United States. An administered survey was given to criminology/criminal justice university students that surveyed their perception and knowledge of illegal immigration and their impression on whether illegal immigration and crime are correlated. It is anticipated that the students' overall answers to the survey will show that they do not perceive that illegal immigration is related to crime in the United States.

The Perception And Knowledge Of Serial And Mass Murder, Kendra Nicole Bowen

Criminology & Criminal Justice Theses - Archive

The purpose of this study is to examine the knowledge and perceptions of serial and mass murder between officers at the Arlington Police Department and Criminology and Criminal Justice Students at the University of Texas at Arlington. The data for this study was obtained from a sample of criminology and criminal justice students enrolled at the University of Texas at Arlington and law enforcement officers from the Arlington Police Department. Students appeared to be more knowledgeable about serial and mass murder; however, there was little significant difference of opinion (perception) among criminology and criminal justice students and law enforcement officers.

Race/Ethnicity And The Attitudes Of College Students Toward Women In Policing, Calvin Haba

Criminology & Criminal Justice Theses - Archive

The attitudes toward women in policing were compared among college students from the three racial/ethnic groups of African American, Hispanic, and White. Because of the limited literature available, this research explored Hispanic students' attitudes toward women in policing. With the influx of the Hispanic population within the United States, it is important to focus on the attitudes of this race/ethnicity toward women in policing. The findings revealed that the respondents generally supported women in policing, however males were less supportive than females. This analysis also indicates that African American, Hispanic, and White college students are all generally supportive of women …

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 …

Proposition 36: Ignoring Amenability And Avoiding Accountability, Mehgan Porter

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

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.

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 …