Legal Studies Commons^™

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 …

Factors Affecting The Longevity Of Individual Terrorists, Madeline Brice

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine factors that affect the longevity of individual terrorists. Previous studies on terrorist group longevity have focused on the decisions terrorist groups have made rather than focusing on factors that help individuals evade capture. Literature also suggests that terrorists that manage to stay active may be able to use this as a valuable recruiting tool. This project examines six different relationships with longevity, including Attorney General (AG) Guidelines, demographics, ideology, level of participation, number of activities, and sophistication of attack. To examine these relationships, data will be used from the American Terrorism Study …

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 …

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, …

Analyzing Palm Print Shapes With Pressure And Distortion, Whitney Grannan

Honors Theses

While much research exists on latent fingerprints, there is a lack of research on palm prints. This study aims to discover how the variable of pressure affects the distortion of latent palm prints recovered from a crime scene. This study used various development techniques to extract prints from aluminum Coca-Cola cans, white copy paper, and household steak knives. The collected prints were scanned into the AFIX Tracker system and an auto-extract number, based on the number of minutiae points, was generated automatically from the system. These auto-extract numbers were then compared to a baseline, which consisted of an average of …

A Validation Study Of Blueview™ Gunpowder Particle Testing Kit, Hanna Lester

Honors Theses

The examination of gunshot residue is often an integral part of evidence processing. The aim of this preliminary study is to validate the use of the BlueView Gunshot Particle Test Kit in the field. This was done by comparing the results of the presumptive tests using the BlueView Gunshot Particle Test Kit to confirmatory test results using a scanning electron microscope. This study used both collection techniques to collect samples for presumptive tests and confirmatory tests. Gunshot residue samples were collected from the hands after a series of guns were fired, and positive results were obtained from the presumptive and …

Exploring Various Techniques To Process And Identify Latent Friction Ridge Details From Fingers On Semi-Porous Surfaces, Emily Campo

Honors Theses

Numerous terrorist groups in the Middle East have been recently making detonators for IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) using items as basic as flip flops. Because of the semi-porous nature of flip flops, military forensic response teams have been unable to find an effective method through which they can identify, process, and lift latent fingerprints from the surface of a flip flop. The present study aims to use three fingerprint principles to formulate a reliable method that can be used for such purposes. This study specifically investigated the potential use of powders and cyanoacrylate fuming as processing techniques. The case study …

Using Pattern Area Ridge Flow In The Three Areas Of The Palm To Determine Classification Trends, Ashton Horton

Honors Theses

Friction ridge skin is only located on the fingers, palms, and soles of feet. These ridges have been used to make identifications since before the twentieth century. These methods may be the basis of scientific testimony in court because of the amount of research that has been conducted in fingerprint identification. Courts uphold these techniques because of three principles behind fingerprint identification: fingerprints are unique because no two are the same, they will not change from the time they are formed in the womb until post-mortem decomposition, and they can be objectively classified using a general classification system. Little research …

Exploring The Experiences And Mental Health Concerns Of 9-1-1 Public Safety Telecommunicators, Ariel Patience Elliot

Honors Theses

9-1-1 public safety telecommunicators are the first line of emergency services; however, minimal research currently exists on their mental health. A lack of understanding exists as to how the continuous flow of traumatic calls are influencing these people. The purpose of this project is to help fill the existing gap in literature and contribute to the existing minimal foundation for future research on this topic. Participants for this study were obtained with agency consent from the Harrison County Sheriff’s Office in Gulfport, MS; Gulfport Police Department in Gulfport, MS; Hattiesburg Police Department in Hattiesburg, MS; and Cobb County 911 in …

Exploring The Relationship Between Personality Characteristics And Eyewitness Memory: A Test Of The Weapons-Focused Effect, Emily Jean Stahly

Honors Theses

Eyewitness accuracy is of vital importance in crime scene investigations; however, accumulating evidence suggests that eyewitnesses often show memory inaccuracies. One type of eyewitness inaccuracy is the weapons-focused effect which occurs when the presence of a weapon as part of a crime scene compromises an individual’s ability to recall other details about the event or scene (Erickson, Lampinen & Leding, 2014). Given the weapons-focused effect negatively affects eyewitness accuracy, the purpose of my thesis is to examine the extent to which the weapons-focused effect is moderated by certain personality traits. Of particular interest were the neuroticism and conscientiousness factors in …

Is Corporal Punishment The Best Punishment? A Millennial Perspective, Zachary Rush

Honors Theses

Corporal punishment, defined as “physical force resulting in pain or discomfort, but not significant injury…meant to alter a child’s unfavorable behavioral patterns,” remains a much debated topic of conversation in the United States (Straus & Donnelly, 2001, p. 4). Straus and Stewart (1999) reported that 94% of parents have spanked their children by the time of their fifth birthday. Moreover, the same study identified that 52% of parents continued to employ corporal punishment when their children were teenagers (twelve to thirteen years old) and 20% up until their children were seventeen years of age. However, spanking and similar forms of …

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 …

Police Perceptions On False Accusations Of Sexual Assault, Danielle Ostrander

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to expand current literature regarding police officers’ perceptions on false accusations of sexual assault; specifically, focusing on perceptions of the frequency of false accusations, rape myths and behavior displayed by women reporting sexual assault. Police officers’ perceptions on false accusations of sexual assault were examined by administering a 21-question survey consisting of close-ended and open-ended questions. The survey included questions about police perceptions, false accusations, rape myths, training, and behaviors of women reporting sexual assault. The sample consisted of 40 sworn law enforcement officers from different municipal police departments in Tennessee. The results showed …

How To Think Constitutionally About Prerogative: A Study Of Early American Usage, Matthew J. Steilen

Journal Articles

This Article challenges the view of “prerogative” as a discretionary authority to act outside the law. For seventy years, political scientists, lawyers and judges have drawn on John Locke’s account of prerogative in the Second Treatise, using it to read foundational texts in American constitutional law. American writings on prerogative produced between 1760 and 1788 are rarely discussed (excepting The Federalist), though these materials exist in abundance. Based on a study of over 700 of these texts, including pamphlets, broadsides, letters, essays, newspaper items, state papers, and legislative debates, this Article argues that early Americans almost never used “prerogative” as …

Media Framing Of Wrongful Convictions, Eza B. Zakirova

Student Theses

Wrongful convictions are a major issue hindering the effectiveness and legitimacy of the criminal justice system. The topic has become a focus of media attention. Among the issues raised are the contributing factors to wrongful convictions, such as false confessions, false or misleading forensic evidence, official misconduct, mistaken witness identification, and perjury or false accusations. The following study examines how media frames these contributing factors of wrongful convictions using Loseke's social constructionist framework, which is useful for deconstructing the issue’s diagnostic, motivational and prognostic frames -- that is, how media consumers assess the causes, solutions, and the reasons to act …

Evaluation Of Illumina’S Forenseqtm Signature Prep Kit For Eye And Hair Color As Well As Biogeographical Ancestry Predictions, Krupa Vijaykumar Jani

Student Theses

This study examined and analyzed 266 samples using ForenSeq^TM Signature Prep Kit B. Samples from various populations such as African American, East Asian, South Asian, European, and Mixed population were included in the study. Primer Mix B targets 27 autosomal STRs (aSTRs), 24 Y-STRs, 7 X-STRs, and 94 identity Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (iSNPs), 24 phenotypic SNPs (pSNPs), and 56 ancestry SNPs (aSNPs), coming to a total of 231 targets. The study mainly focused on the quality of data generated by the instrument as well as for the accuracy of eye and hair color as well as biogeographical ancestry predictions …