Legal Studies Commons^™

Incarceration Of Nonviolent Offenders At The High Court In Oyo State, Nigeria, Olugbenga Rotimi Akanji

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The nonuse of community correction in the Nigeria criminal justice system has led to increased recidivism, contributed to prison congestion, introduced the risk of prison victimization, and lacked the provision of a rehabilitative structure for nonviolent offenders. The purpose of this phenomenological research study was to explore Nigerian judges' use of alternatives to incarcerations for nonviolent offenders. Dolinko retributive punishment theory provided the theoretical framework for this study. Ten participant judges comprised the study sample from a purposeful and criterion random sampling method. Data were collected from participants through structured interviews and were coded manually, sorted, and analyzed using the …

Police Culture And Decision-Making, Larry D. Anthony

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Decisions made by street-level police officers during encounters with the public have an immediate and long-lasting effect. Bad choices can cause a loss of trust, respect, and legitimacy for the police in a community and lay a foundation for violent confrontations between officers and citizens. Layers of culture that shape human decisions consist of social and institutional culture, including interactions that shape an individual's culture and beliefs and demographics and technology that affect cultural development. Police culture (which includes these layers of culture and factors like rank, units, and history) shapes attitudes and opinions about communities and people in a …

Factors Contributing To Juvenile Crime Leading To The Disparity Of The Risk Levels For Secure Detainment, Dawn Prystajko

Theses and Dissertations

The main purpose of this research was to explore the factors that contributed to juvenile crime which in turn caused disparity in secure detainment among juveniles. This was based upon the alternate hypothesis that there is a noticeable disparity with minority youths being more securely detained opposed to majority youths. Therefore, the research was designed to examine raw data obtained from the Juvenile Justice Services Planner/JDAI Coordinator of the excel database of juvenile arrests/detainment.

The findings revealed several key points. The finding revealed that useable data extracted from the excel database was not able to neither agree with nor support …

Developmental Patterns Of Religiosity In Relation To Criminal Trajectories Among Serious Offenders Across Adolescence And Young Adulthood, Siying Guo

Theses and Dissertations

The knowledge about the relationship between changes in both religiosity and crime over time remains limited. This dissertation aims to add to the existing body of literature and fill the gaps in prior studies by examining the religiosity-crime relationship in a sample of adjudicated adolescents studied in the Pathways to Desistance Study, a seven-year longitudinal dataset. Using Group-Based Trajectory Models and Growth Curve Models, this dissertation identifies distinctive trajectories of religious attendance, religious importance, and spirituality and their dynamic relationships with changes in different types of substance use and criminal behavior. Given the initial level of substance use and criminal …

The Importance Of Outcome Fairness: Revisiting The Role Of Distributive Justice, Kyle Mclean

Theses and Dissertations

Distributive justice, or the perceived fairness of outcomes, has played a minimal role in research into procedural justice and legitimacy in policing. However, allegations of racial bias that have contributed to the present legitimacy crisis in policing are more consistent with the concept of distributive justice than procedural justice. As such, the present study attempts to re-orient distributive justice within policing research. This study proposes that individuals infer the fairness of outcomes from the treatment that they receive from police officers. These judgments about outcome and treatment then combine to influence individuals’ perceptions of the legitimacy of police. In addition …

Association Between Perception Of Police Prejudice Against Minorities And Juvenile Delinquency, Kwang Hyun Ra

Theses and Dissertations

Criminologists have long studied police prejudice with the assumption that it is a fundamental problem resulting in discrimination against certain racial and ethnic groups. However, little research has examined how individuals’ perceptions of police prejudice (PPP) influences compliance or delinquency behavior among the public. To fill this gap, in this paper, I reviewed relations between police and racial/ethnic groups, theorized an association between PPP and juvenile delinquency, and empirically examined the association.

The long history of racial/ethnic prejudice and discrimination predisposes racial/ethnic minorities to consider themselves targets of discrimination and to feel powerless. Moreover, some minorities justify the current system …

Ghosting: It’S Time To Find Uniformity On Ghostwriting, Jona Goldschmidt

Criminal Justice & Criminology: Faculty Publications & Other Works

There is no way of knowing how many, and for how long, lawyers and nonlawyers have engaged in ghostwriting pleadings to assist pro se litigants — indigent or nonindigent. It is reasonable to assume that many lawyers and others have acted as ghostwriters in order to facilitate greater access to the court, rather than for personal gain. Despite the laudable motives of ghostwriters, ghostwriting has historically been considered an illegitimate form of unbundling legal services because of the spate of federal court opinions opposing the practice on ethical and Rule 11-violation grounds. This article addresses the current anomalous situation in …

The Short-Term Self-Control Stability Of College Students, Nicholas James Blasco

Theses and Dissertations

Since the stability problem was first outlined by Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) in their influential work A General Theory of Crime it has received a steady stream of attention from the academic community. Researchers have studied juveniles and adults and have implemented a variety of methodological and statistical approaches. Many of these studies do not show support for the theoretical concept outlined by Gottfredson and Hirschi; yet, there were exceptions. The current study used a slightly different theoretical approach accompanied with research methodology that is still in its infancy. While most studies testing the relative stability of self-control use longitudinal …

A Quasi-Experimental Analysis Of School-Based Situational Crime Prevention Measures, Gary Zhang

Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, there has been an expansion of situational crime prevention (SCP) measures in K-12 schools, including physical controls, law enforcement personnel, and security policies that are designed to prevent crime by modifying the situational features of school environments. Although SCP measures are now increasingly commonplace in schools, there is inadequate research demonstrating the need for SCP measures and their impacts on school crime. In particular, there is contradictory and inconclusive evidence of their effectiveness and research has largely been limited to examining aggregate outcomes through the use non-experimental, correlational designs. This dissertation aims to address these gaps in …

If I Had A Million Cryptos: Cryptowallet Application Analysis And A Trojan Proof-Of-Concept, Trevor Haigh, Frank Breitinger, Ibrahim Baggili

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

Cryptocurrencies have gained wide adoption by enthusiasts and investors. In this work, we examine seven different Android cryptowallet applications for forensic artifacts, but we also assess their security against tampering and reverse engineering. Some of the biggest benefits of cryptocurrency is its security and relative anonymity. For this reason it is vital that wallet applications share the same properties. Our work, however, indicates that this is not the case. Five of the seven applications we tested do not implement basic security measures against reverse engineering. Three of the applications stored sensitive information, like wallet private keys, insecurely and one was …

Prosecution As The "Soul Crushing Job:" Complexities Of Campus Sexual Assault Cases, Tammi L. Slovinsky

Theses and Dissertations

On April 4, 2011, the U.S. Department of Education issued a Dear Colleague Letter on campus sexual assault reaffirming the intent of Title IX, the 1972 law that prohibits discrimination sex-based under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. In response to growing concern over due process rights for defendants, in September 2017 the guidance was rescinded. Public policy continues to evolve, leading to potentially lasting institutional changes on many college campuses. These developments include the formalization of campus investigations and adjudications, the development of campus coordinating committees and expanded support mechanisms for victims. In Virginia, laws passed …

Validation Of Virginia's Juvenile Risk Assessment Instrument, Jessica P. Schneider

Theses and Dissertations

Utilizing a validated risk assessment tool to predict future offending is recommended as best practices in corrections by a number of professional organizations (Latessa & Lovins, 2010). Guided by the risk-needs-responsivity model, risk assessment tools have evolved to help inform criminal justice practitioners by identifying offenders most in need of intervention or supervision, guiding the case plan to optimize outcomes (Bonta & Andrews, 2007). The Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) utilizes the Youth Assessment and Screening Instrument (YASI) at all stages of contact with youthful offenders, including intake, probation, commitment, and parole (DJJ, 2016). However, risk assessment instruments do …

Police Officer Perceptions Of Organizational Justice And Body-Worn Cameras: A Civilizing Effect?, Carolyn Naoroz Ph.D.

Theses and Dissertations

This research sought to understand the potential association between officer perceptions of organizational justiceand officer perceptions of body-worn cameras (BWCs). A questionnaire was administered to a convenience sample of 362 officersfrom the 750 sworn personnel from the Richmond Police Department in Richmond, VA, yielding a response rate of 91% and representing 44% of the Richmond Police Department’s sworn employees. This study extends prior work by partially replicating a previous BWC survey conducted by leading body-worn camera scholars, utilizing a large sample from an urban mid-Atlantic police department. This study also extends prior work on officer perceptions of organizational justice …

Law's Evolving Emergent Phenomena: From Rules Of Social Intercourse To Rule Of Law Society, Brian Z. Tamanaha

Scholarship@WashULaw

Law involves institutions rooted in the history of a society that evolve in relation to surrounding social, psychological, cultural, economic, political, technological, and ecological influences. Law must be understood naturalistically, historically, and holistically. In my usage, naturalism views humans as social animals with natural traits and requirements, historicism presents law as historical manifestations that change over time, and holism sees law within social surroundings. These insights inform my perspective in A Realistic Theory of Law. While these propositions might seem obvious, few works in contemporary jurisprudence build around them.

In this essay, I draw on the notion of emergence …

An Investigation Of Mobile Phone Use While Driving: An Application Of The Theory Of Planned Behavior, Sokunthea Kruy

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Mobile phone use while driving has been an emerging issue for road safety in recent years. The development of new technology has meant that users are more connected to their devices than ever before. This has led to use while driving despite the illegality of this behaviour. In this research, three mobile phone use behaviours were investigated: making/receiving calls; creating/sending text messages, and accessing social media. Through application of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), an online survey was developed. Five hundred and fifty-nine university students including 193 young respondents (aged 17 – 25) responded to investigate attitudes, subjective norms, …

Young People Who Fireset In Western Australia: Peer Group Influences And Impulsiveness Trump Consequences, Catherine Analise Timms

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The paradoxical character of fire is perfectly captured by the juxtaposition between the initial ease and excitement of lighting fires, and fire’s destructive and uncontrollable nature. Australia is fire prone with its hot, dry climate, volatile vegetation and urban sprawl surrounded by bushland. Since an estimated 50% of fires lit in Australia are deliberate (Stanley & Read, 2016) the problem of intentional firesetting cannot be overstated. This thesis argues that youth firesetting requires both macro- and microlevel approaches to appreciate the complexities of the problem, and aims to identify applicable and directed responses to minimise youth firesetting. Study one analysed …

Reading Between The Crimes: Online Media’S Representation Of Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander People’S Interaction With The Criminal Justice System In Post-Apology Australia, Jonathan Cannon

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Australian research confirms that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people experience high levels of social inequality, racism and injustice. Evidence of discrimination and inequality is most obvious within the criminal justice system where they are seriously over-represented. The Australian news media plays a large part in reinforcing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander inequality, stereotypes and racist ideology within specific situations such as the Northern Territory Emergency Response and the Redfern riots. This study widens the scope from how the media reports a single criminal justice event to how the media reports Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s interaction with the …

The Effects Of The War On Drugs On Black Women: From Early Legislation To Incarceration, Tiffany Simmons

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Mandatory Professional Skills Training: What A Long Strange Trip It's Been, Robert R. Kuehn

Scholarship@WashULaw

The American Bar Association did not require that each J.D. student receive training in professional skills until 2005, and even then "one solid credit" hour was considered adequate training to begin the practice of law. In 2014, the ABA recognized the inadequacy of its one-credit skills requirement and increased it to six-credits effective with the graduating class of 2019.

With a decade of mandatory professional skills training now completed, this short article examines enrollment trends in law clinic, externship, and simulation courses over the past ten classes of law students. It finds that total enrollment in these experiential courses has …

If A 6 Turned Out To Be 9, I Don't Mind (But 3? Or 2!): The Uneven Implementation Of Mandatory Experiential Credits, Robert R. Kuehn

Scholarship@WashULaw

Legal education took almost 100 years before requiring that all J.D. students receive instruction in professional skills. Even then, the American Bar Association acted modestly by adopting a six-credit experiential coursework requirement beginning with students graduating in 2019.

This essay shares the results of a survey of how law schools are implementing the new requirement. It finds that approximately 90% of schools reacted to the new ABA requirement by simply increasing their experiential requirements from “a course” (the prior ABA requirement of as few as one professional skills credit) to the minimum six credits. But 22 (of approximately 200 law …

The Uneasy History Of Experiential Education In U.S. Law Schools, Peter A. Joy

Scholarship@WashULaw

This article explores the history of legal education, particularly the rise of experiential learning and its importance. In the early years of legal education in the United States, law schools devalued the development of practical skills in students, and many legal educators viewed practical experience in prospective faculty as a “taint.” This article begins with a brief history of these early years and how legal education subsequently evolved with greater involvement of the American Bar Association (ABA). With involvement of the ABA came a call for greater uniformity in legal education and guidelines to help law schools establish criteria for …

Securitizing Schooling: Post-Secondary Campuses As Security Projects, Andrea Corradi

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Societal pressure to increase security after violent incidents on post-secondary campuses such as the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, combined with the pressure for universities to have high recruitment rates, has led to an emerging climate of security on campuses across North America. The present study uses Valverde’s (2001; 2008; 2009; 2011a; 2011 b; 2014) security projects framework to examine the lived experiences of security measures on a Canadian urban-integrated campus. Through semi-structured interviews with administrators, campus police officers, students, and faculty, and constructivist grounded theorizing, this study provides an in-depth examination of security from multiple perspectives within one institution. …

Labor Unions, Solidarity, And Money, Marion G. Crain, Ken Matheny

Scholarship@WashULaw

For labor, 2018 was a year of highs and lows. A wave of teachers’ strikes in states traditionally hostile to public sector labor unionism and collective bargaining garnered widespread popular support. The passions animated by the strikes were credited with inspiring a range of progressive political shifts, including the rollback of right to work laws in Missouri and new challengers running on education platforms aimed at increasing investment in public education. Less than three months later, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Janus v. AFSCME, Council 31 invalidating agency fees that public sector unions relied on to cover costs …

The Consensus Myth In Criminal Justice Reform, Benjamin Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

It has become popular to identify a “bipartisan consensus” on criminal justice reform, but how deep is that consensus, actually? This article argues that the purported consensus is largely illusory. Despite shared reformist vocabulary, the consensus rests on distinct critiques that identify different flaws and justify distinct policy solutions. The underlying disagreements transcend traditional left/right political divides and speak to deeper disputes about the state and the role of criminal law in society. The article offers a typology of the two prevailing, but fundamentally distinct, critiques of the system: (1) the quantitative approach (what I call the “over” frame); and …

Are Advocates General Political? An Empirical Analysis Of The Voting Behavior Of The Advocates General At The European Court Of Justice, Jens Frankenreiter

Scholarship@WashULaw

The question whether political preferences of EU Member States play a role in the decision making of the members of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has so far gone largely unanswered in the literature. This paper formally tests the hypothesis that the political preferences of Member State governments are reflected in the decisions of the Advocates General, who are judge-like members of the ECJ. The empirical analysis is motivated by a novel model of the interaction between the Advocate General and the judicial panel. It uses a newly assembled dataset combining information on agreements and disagreements between the opinions …

The Purpose (And Limits) Of The University, John D. Inazu

Scholarship@WashULaw

Scholars of the university have written volumes about contemporary challenges to higher education. Meanwhile, legal scholars writing about the university have typically focused on its First Amendment dimensions rather than on those challenges. This Article links insights from these two groups of scholars to clarify and defend the purpose of the public university against growing technological, ideological, and cultural pressures. It argues that a better understanding of the relationship between the First Amendment and the public university can help strengthen the coherence of the university’s purpose against growing technological, ideological, and cultural pressures. The connection between the First Amendment and …

International Lobbying Law, Melissa (M.J.) Durkee

Scholarship@WashULaw

An idiosyncratic array of international rules allows nonstate actors to gain special access to international officials and lawmakers. Historically, many of these groups were public-interest associations like Amnesty International. For this reason, the access rules have been celebrated as a way to democratize international organizations, enhancing their legitimacy and that of the rules they produce. But a focus on the classic public-law virtues of democracy and legitimacy produces a theory at odds with the facts: The international rules rules also offer access to industry and trade associations like the World Coal Association, whose principal purpose is to lobby for their …

Political Opportunism, Position Taking, And Court-Curbing Legislation., Laura Moyer, Ellen M. Key

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Although there is extensive scholarship on court-curbing efforts directed at the U.S. Supreme Court, much less is known about bills targeting the lower federal courts. This article argues that members of Congress also engage in position taking with respect to the U.S. Courts of Appeals, by proposing legislation to divide up the Ninth Circuit. Over seven decades, no other circuit has attracted as much court-curbing legislation as the Ninth Circuit, and yet no bill has succeeded. What accounts for this persistent focus on one court? We argue that bill sponsors are motivated primarily by electoral considerations and capitalize on the …

The Intersection Between Young Adult Sentencing And Mass Incarceration, Joshua Gupta-Kagan

Faculty Scholarship

This Article connects two growing categories of academic literature and policy reform: arguments for treating young adults in the criminal justice system less severely than older adults because of evidence showing brain development and maturation continue until the mid-twenties; and arguments calling for reducing mass incarceration and identifying various mechanisms to do so. These categories overlap, but research has not previously built in-depth connections between the two.

Connecting the two bodies of literature helps identify and strengthen arguments for reform. First, changing charging, detention, and sentencing practices for young adults is one important tool to reduce mass incarceration. Young adults …

Interest In Police Patrol Careers: An Assessment Of Potential Candidates' Impressions Of The Police Recruitment, Selection, And Training Processes, Charles Scheer, Michael Rossler, Leonard Papania

Faculty Publications

Both criminal justice researchers and practitioners have suspected that generational preferences and the nature of police patrol work have acted as dual forces leading potential police recruits away from police careers, resulting in large numbers of unfilled police positions. This challenge is exacerbated by accelerating retirements and expanding police duties. Police recruitment became an even larger managerial issue after the 2008 recession failed to resolve the most critical factor driving people away from police careers in the first place: police departments saw fewer and fewer qualified applicants, despite the recession bringing more applicants in number. In the wake of the …