Legal Studies Commons^™

Predicting Solitary Confinement, Bryce Young Roby

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

Abstract The rates of incarceration in the United States have steadily increased at an average rate of 3.4% per year since 1995, requiring the majority of federal and state institutions to function at or above capacity (Haun, 2007). This influx of adults entering correctional systems has placed increased pressure on prison officials to efficiently and effectively monitor inmate behavior as maintaining the safety and security of the correctional institution is most often the highest priority of correctional administrators (Cullen, Latessa, Burton, & Lombardo, 1993). One security measure commonly implemented to manage inmate violence and disturbances is solitary confinement. This study …

The Effectiveness Of An Evidenced-Based Decision Making Program In Criminal Justice Systems, Tashina Lorraine Keith

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

Abstract The National Institute of Corrections selected the Yamhill County Department of Corrections to implement a new evidenced-based decision making program within their criminal justice system. As part of the new program, every individual who was arrested and placed on probation went through a case analysis assessment and had their treatment programs approved by a judge prior to sentencing. In this study 20 randomly selected individuals who received their treatment programming prior to sentencing were matched to 20 randomly selected individuals who received treatment programs post-sentencing. The hypothesis of this study was that those probationers in the pre-sentencing group who …

The Role Of Lifestyles And Routine Activities On Youth Sexual Assault And Intimate Partner Victimization, Margaret Tilley

Dissertations, Theses and Capstone Projects (Full IR Collection)

Past research indicates that a significant proportion of youth experience sexual or intimate partner victimization (IPV) during their time in high school. Studies examining the risk-factors for victimization among this population report that youth are more likely to be victimized when they engage in behaviors such as drinking, drug use, and risky sexual practices (see Basile, Black, Simon, Arias, Brener & Saltzman, 2006). Many past studies that have examined the risk factors for victimization among this population have used the theoretical framework put forth by the routine activities theory (Cohen & Felson, 1979) and lifestyle-exposure theory (Hindelang, Gottfredson & Garofalo, …

Racial Profiling : Using Propensity Score Matching To Examine Focal Concerns Theory., Anthony Gennaro Vito

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines traffic stops by the Louisville Police Department between January 1 and December 31, 2002 to see if racial profiling was evident. Focal concerns theory is tested as a theoretical explanation for racial profiling. The method of statistical analysis used is propensity score matching. The analysis examines all White and Black drivers, all White and Black male drivers, and all White and Black female drivers to see if there was evidence of racial profiling by the Louisville Police Department.

Sex Offenses At Protestant Christian Churches : A Typology And Examination Using Social Disorganization Theory., Andrew Stephen Denney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The focus of this study is two-fold. First, using data obtained via content analyses of published news articles, this study examines sexual offenses that have occurred at or through activities provided by Protestant Christian churches in the US. Drawing upon 326 identified cases spanning from 1999 until 2014, this study aims to explore common offense, offender, and victim characteristics of sex offenses that occur at these locations. Moreover, this study aims to create a typology of offenders and victims at or through activities provided by Protestant Christian churches. Second, using the data from the content analyses and social disorganization measures …

Imagining The Unimaginable: Torture And The Criminal Law, Francesca Laguardia

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This article examines the use of torture by the U.S. government in the context of the late 20th-century preventive turn in criminal justice. Challenging the assumption that the use of “enhanced interrogation tactics” in the war on terror was an exceptional deviation from accepted norms, this article suggests that this deviation began decades before the terror attacks, in the context of conventional criminal procedure. I point to the use of the “ticking time bomb hypothetical,” and its connection to criminal procedure’s “kidnapping hypothetical.” Using case law and criminal procedure textbooks I trace the employment of that narrative over several decades, …

Knocking On The Door : Police Decision Points In Executing Search Warrants., Brian Patrick Schaefer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research indicates that search warrants raids increased during the 1990s and continue to be a common enforcement tool for law enforcement. The extant literature does not provide a detailed understanding of why police departments are increasingly using search warrants and in particular why plainclothes detectives are conducting these raids at a higher rate. Furthermore, the research does not provide an understanding for how search warrants are secured and executed by police departments. This research examines the social constructions detectives use to justify and carry out the various stages of the search warrant process. Ethnographic research was used to observe 73 …

Capital? Child Rape : Does Public Opinion Support The Use Of The Death Penalty On Child Rapists?, Charlene Kaye Chudacoff 1987-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For many years scholars have quested to determine public support for the death penalty while achieving varying degrees of accuracy. Some studies have asked respondents to rate their level of agreement with the imposition of the death penalty for the crime of murder while others simply ask respondents if they agree with the use of the death penalty at all. The purpose of this thesis is to challenge oversimplification of death penalty polls while testing citizens’ willingness to impose the death penalty for the crime of child rape. Two surveys were administered, one survey with statements of five different crimes …

Assessing Victim Blame: Intersections Of Rape Victim Race, Gender, And Ethnicity, Kirsten A. Piatak

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The current study sought to assess the impact of the race, gender, and ethnicity of rape victims on college students’ propensity to assign culpability to victims. Using a sample of college students (n=279) from a mid-sized Southeastern university, respondents were given a set of six different vignettes, varying only by victim characteristics. These vignettes featured alcohol-facilitated sexual assault between acquaintances, a common occurrence in college environments. Respondents were asked to evaluate the culpability of the victim through a blameworthiness scale. Through the incorporation of the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale, this study also measured the respondents’ propensity to assign blame …

Prison Privatization: Driving Influences And Performance Evaluation, Carla Schultz

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

United States conservatism and neoliberalism have created a market for prison privatization. The business of making money from incarcerated bodies is in direct conflict with the goals of the justice system. Driving economic and political forces are examined and used to explain the rising prison-industrial complex. Private prison performance is measured by recidivism, cost, inmate rights, and quality of confinement. This paper suggests that prison privatization must be reformed or abolished to improve the corrections system in the United States.

Police Response To Children Present At Domestic Violence Incidents, Danielle Darlene Swerin

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Police response to domestic violence incidents has continued to change and expand in the past several decades. Although domestic violence was originally considered a private matter not warranting police intervention, it now represents one of the most common calls for service received by police agencies. While police intervention in domestic violence incidents has improved substantially, response to children present remains an undeveloped area of research and practice. The present study examined 345 police reports from an agency in the Northwest in order to explore police response to domestic violence incidents and specifically their response to children. Similar to results from …

Personal Perceptions Of Privacy And Security, Jaime L. R. Grinch

Honors College Theses

The US government is utilizing multiple controversial methods to detect and prevent terrorism. Do government officers, such as police, view these programs differently than university students? What other differences may exist to explain the difference in viewpoint? Surveys were given to the students of Georgia Southern University and officers of the Statesboro Police Department. They provided their respective opinions on these programs. The data suggested that police were more open to the use of surveillance to prevent terrorism. Police were more willing to allow the government to use surveillance against Muslims, Latinos, Liberals, Christians, and Conservatives. Also between the two …

Scelus Et Poena: A Comparison Of Legal Bias In Ancient Rome And Contemporary America, Aaron R. Caffrey

Classics Honors Papers

Of the many advances made by the ancient Romans, perhaps their greatest contribution to contemporary Western society stemmed from their sophisticated legal system. Ancient senators, jurists, and eventually emperors set forth policies that encompassed the expectations of Roman citizens in respect to property, family, and behavior. Roman law allowed for the creation of an efficient government bureaucracy, promoting an unprecedented era of peace and prosperity that stretched over the first two centuries of the Common Era. This peace, however, did not apply to all individuals under control of the Roman government. While wealthy and dignified citizens enjoyed leniency in legal …

A Culture Change, Jeremy Travis

Publications and Research

Mass incarceration. In recent years it’s become clear that the size of America’s prison population is unsustainable – and isn’t needed to protect public safety.

In this remarkable bipartisan collaboration, the country’s most prominent public figures and experts join together to propose ideas for change. In these original essays, many authors speak out for the first time on the issue. The vast majority agree that reducing our incarcerated population is a priority. Marking a clear political shift on crime and punishment in America, these sentiments are a far cry from politicians racing to be the most punitive in the 1980s …

Resurrecting The "Dead" Second Amendment: How The Libertarian Legal Movement Has Shaped Gun Control Litigation, Anthony M. Sierzega

Politics Honors Papers

For nearly two centuries following its adoption, the Second Amendment was largely ignored and even referred to as a “dead amendment.” Virtually all legal scholarship considered the right protected by the amendment to be a collective right written into the Constitution to protect local militias from a powerful federal standing army. However, beginning in the late 1970s a surge of libertarian scholarship began to emerge promoting the Second Amendment as a safeguard for an individual right to bear arms without any connection to military service. Promoted by the National Rifle Association and libertarian theorists, the individual-right theory began to gain …

An Analysis And Examination Of College Undergraduates' Perceptions Of Women In Law Enforcement, William T. Stone ~

Honors College Theses

Throughout the course of history, various perceptions of gender and the roles that each gender should play have been observed. As Western society has progressed, so have the rights of women in many modern, developed nations. In America, women became an integral part of the workforce during World War II. When the war was over, however, they were expected to return to a more domestic role. Today, the number of women in the workplace continues to increase; however, many disparities continue to exist. Traditionally masculine careers, such as policing, have seen smaller increases in the number of women in these …

Program And Proceedings: Nebraska Academy Of Sciences 1880–2015, 135th Anniversary Year, One Hundred-Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting

Nebraska Academy of Sciences: Programs and Proceedings

Program

Aeronautics and Space Science

Chemistry and Physics

Collegiate Academy: Biology

Collegiate Academy: Chemistry and Physics

Anthropology

Biological and Medical Sciences

Junior Academy, Senior High Competition

Aeronautics and Space Science, Poster Session

Maiben Memorial Lecture: “Nebraska Biocontainment Unit Planning and Response to Ebola,” Ebola team, University of nebraska medical Center

Applied Science and Technology

Earth Science

Teaching of Science and Math

Junior Academy, Junior High Competition

Editorial, Willard M. Oliver

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Welcome to the third volume of the Journal of Qualitative Criminal Justice & Criminology. I am pleased to report that the journal is still going strong and manuscripts continue to be submitted on a regular basis. The journal continues to hold its authors to a high standard and as you will note for this issue’s updated analytics, the journal is currently holding a 16.9% acceptance rate. I believe you will see the satisfactory results of maintaining the high standards in this first issue of Volume 3. Lisa Kort-Butler and Michael Killingsworth lead off with a historical analysis of media-crime …

“Were You Drunk At The Time?”: The Influence Of Parole Boards On Accounts And Neutralization Techniques In State Parole Hearings, Danielle Lavin-Loucks, Kristine Levan

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"This paper examines the collaborative nature of accounts and neutralization techniques that are employed in parole hearings. Prior research using neutralization theory has largely overlooked the role of other actors in the development of neutralizations, examining them through interviews or narratives where interaction is either scripted or limited and thus has little bearing on the production of such accounts. In contrast, this study evaluates real time interaction, examining how parole board members propose, respond to, and modify neutralizations issued by inmates seeking parole. Ethnographic observations of 438 regular parole and parole revocation hearings, videotapes of 40 such hearings from the …

Becoming A Hacker: Demographic Characteristics And Developmental Factors, Kevin F. Steinmetz

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Hackers are not defined by any single act; they go through a process of development. Building from previous research and through ethnographic interviews and participant observation, the current analysis examines characteristics which may influence an individual’s development as a hacker. General demographic characteristics are analyzed, the participants’ school experiences are discussed, and perceived levels of parental support and influence are defined. Finally, descriptions of first exposures to technology, the concept of hacking, and the hacking community are presented. The study concludes with theoretical implications and suggestions for future research."

Summer Cop: A Qualitative Study Of Summer Police Officers, Brad Campbell

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"There are approximately 18,000 police agencies employing 750,000 police officers in the United States in order to police a population over 300 million citizens. In addition, sketchy estimates state there are 400,000 police reserves assisting full-time sworn officers in their duties. One major subgroup of these police reserves are summer police officers (“summer cops”) who serve full-time during the tourist season in mostly beach communities. There has been little to no research into this subpopulation of police officers and little is known about their background and reasons for becoming summer reserve officers. In order to fill this gap in the …

From Burlesque To Grand Theft Auto: An Historical Analysis Of The Treatment Of The Media-Crime Relationship In Criminology Texts, Lisa A. Kort-Butler, Michael Killingsworth

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"The degree to which criminological scholarship on the mediacrime relationship has been subject to the tides of moral panics is not well-understood, although there are theoretical reasons to hypothesize about the role of scientists in moral panics. Textbooks are one location in which a discipline chronicles its scholarly history and speaks to the public, making texts an important site for understanding how scholars interpret the media-crime relationship. A content analysis of over 200 criminology texts, ranging in publication dates from 1880 to 2012, was conducted. Almost half the texts covered the media-crime relationship. These texts often appeared to be responding …

Sharon S. Oselin, Leaving Prostitution: Getting Out And Staying Out Of Sex Work, Melisa M. Jaris

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Leaving Prostitution highlights the critical role that prostitute-serving organizations (PSO) can play in prostitutes’ efforts to leave the sex industry. PSOs can provide prostitutes subsidized housing, employment opportunities, food, transportation, counseling, education, and mentoring. These fundamental amenities offer prostitutes the life choices and confidence needed to leave the sex industry."

Rachel Zimmer Schneider, Battered Women Doing Time: Injustice In The Criminal Justice System, Cortney A. Franklin

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Advocacy and scholarly attention directed toward the plight of battered women began in the mid-1970s (del Martin, 1975). Since that time, a host of research has been conducted on the incidence and prevalence of domestic violence, the dynamics of battering relationships (LaViolette and Barnette, 2014), the predictors of why men batter, and the risk of increasing harm for survivors who are courageous enough to leave domestically violent relationships. As Lenore Walker (1977) so insightfully recognized in her early work using a sample of sheltered women who had escaped a domestically violent partner, these relationships are characterized by specific stages and …

Nickie D. Phillips & Staci Strobl, Comic Book Crime: Truth, Justice, And The American Way, Jordan E. Mazurek

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"In what can be described as an ethnographic content analysis of (super) heroic proportions, Nickie D. Phillips and Staci Strobl’s Comic Book Crime: Truth, Justice, and the American Way provides an in-depth exploration of crime and justice discourses presented in the medium of the comic book in the first decade of the 2000s. The authors employ years of in-depth participant observation in the comic book subculture along with group interviews to inform their analysis of the story arcs in two hundred popular comic book series, along with a number of graphic novels, in the post-9/11 American context. Drawing on a …

S.F. Sharp, Mean Lives, Mean Laws: Oklahoma’S Women Prisoners, Kerri Bellamy

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Using a feminist strain approach, Susan Sharp’s Mean Lives, Mean Laws: Oklahoma’s Women Prisoners, investigates the impact of incarceration on women in the Oklahoma prison system and their families. Oklahoma incarcerates women at a rate of 135 per 100,000, the highest in the nation. The book examines this high incarceration rate by investigating factors such as childhood abuse and neglect which may continue into adulthood and that contribute to women’s imprisonment. Sharp makes it clear that once in prison there are few avenues for the women to obtain education and healthcare or to maintain relationships with family on the …

Sutherland, Edwin H., The Professional Thief, Jurg Gerber

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Perhaps because he was the son of a minister and raised in a very traditional home (Geis & Meier, 1977, p.24), Edwin Sutherland (1883-1950) had a populist streak and is known for two major contributions to American criminology: the theory of differential association (DA) and the concept of white collar crime (WCC). His classic book entitled The Professional Thief is at the intersection of these two interests, although its influence has been more acknowledged with respect to DA than WCC. This review traces scholarly reactions to the book and its enduring contributions to American criminology."

Alice Goffman, On The Run: Fugitive Life In An American City, Dzhamilia Makashova

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Alice Goffman’s On the Run is an ethnographic study of the impacts of the war on drugs and policing in an American urban neighborhood. Her research started during her sophomore year at the University of Pennsylvania in Dr. David Grazian’s urban ethnography class. As a part of the class, Goffman’s assignment was to pick a site to observe and take notes, and she got a job at a cafeteria at the west edge of Penn’s campus with Miss Deena, a Black woman in her sixties who managed the staff. Through this job, Goffman was introduced to Miss Deena’s family and …

An Evaluation Of The Utah First District Mental Health Court: Gauging The Efficacy Of Diverting Offenders Suffering With Serious Mental Illness, Stephen Guy Vangeem

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The decision to establish a mental health court in Utah's First District was largely a political one prompted by the growing popularity of problem-solving courts throughout the country. Because this motivation was policy-driven and not needs-driven, the court was established without an ongoing data collection schedule. As a result, barring anecdotal evidence from program participants, the current impact of the court on two key goals-- reducing recidivism and increasing community-based treatment contact--is entirely unknown. The current study aims to provide a summative program evaluation of the first sixty-eight months of specialty court operation by (1) estimating basic demographic and clinical …

Nebraska Transcript (University Of Nebraska College Of Law), Volume 48, Number 1, Spring 2015

Nebraska Transcript

2 Dean’s Message

Faculty Updates

4 Lenich: Preparing Students for Practice

6 Faculty Notes

16 Medill Recognized for Performance in Employee Benefits Law

17 Bornstein Named Director of Law-Psychology Program

Feature: 18 Chief Justice Roberts Visits College

Around the College

22 Law-Psychology Program Celebrates 40th Anniversary

24 3Ls Boal, Odle Argue before United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit

24 EClinic Rural Tour

25 Community Legal Education Project Leads Constitution Day Outreach Effort

26 Haugen Spends Summer at International Law Firm in Uruguay

28 Nebraska Law Client Counseling Competition Named for Professors Frank, Lawson

30 December Commencement Pictorial …