Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons^™

Aging On Parole: A Thematic Analysis Of The Parole Officer’S Perspective, Angela Murolo

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"A growing proportion of people leaving prison are over 50 years old and will live at least temporarily under the supervision of a parole officer. While recidivism rates are lower for older people, there are physical, mental, and societal challenges that accompany advancing age that make successful reentry and reintegration a challenging experience compared to their younger counterparts. This presents novel challenges for parole officers who are tasked with supervising and counseling elderly people on parole. Surveys containing closed and open-ended questions were administered to N=25 parole officers to understand the differences in working with, counseling, and supervising older and …

Facing State-Created Danger In Facial Recognition Technology, Esha Jain

Washington Law Review

When the police wrongfully arrest someone, that person faces distinct harms. Various scholarship, news articles, and studies document that AI-powered facial recognition technology (FRT) disproportionately misidentifies individuals from marginalized racial groups when used irresponsibly. Many of those sources indicate that police reliance on FRT without adequate vetting results in wrongful arrests. Yet law enforcement continues to misuse FRT.

This Comment contends that the 42 U.S.C. § 1983 state-created danger doctrine offers a potential remedy for plaintiffs harmed by police reliance on FRT. To prevail under this doctrine, plaintiffs must prove affirmative conduct, deliberate indifference, and proximate causation. If successful, these …

Violent And Property Crime In The Mountain West, 2024-2025, Sydney Mitchell, Kian Parikh, Kristian Thymianos, Olivia K. Cheche, William E. Brown Jr.

Criminal Justice

This fact sheet presents 2024-2025 violent and property crime data for the Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. Crime data are sourced from the Real-Time Crime Index (RTCI) created by AH Datalytics. The RTCI table, “Reported UCR Part One Crimes Year to Date” compares violent and property crime rates during the time frames of January-October 2024 and January-October 2025 for states across the U.S. This fact sheet highlights the violent and property crime rates in each Mountain West state and considers how these data have changed between January-October 2024 and January-October 2025.

Incarcerated Youths In Canada And The United States: A Comparative Analysis, Grace A. Mastrangelo

Binghamton University Undergraduate Journal

Are children, who commit adult crimes, deserving of adult punishments? According to the United Nations, not if it harms their well-being. Article 3 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) adopted by the United Nations in November 1989, states that 1) the best interests of the child should be the primary consideration of all state actions involving children, 2) governments must allot children the protection and care necessary for their well-being, and 3) governmental institutions, services, and facilities that deal with children must uphold adequate standards for the safety, health, and supervision of children. The CRC is …

When Words Flow Like Water: How The Enbridge Line 3 Pipeline Environmental Impact Statement Failed To Prevent Hydrogeologic Harm In Minnesota, Carly Gutzmann

Journal of Earth and Life Science

For the aquifers of Minnesota, the environmental impact statement (EIS) was a promise of protection that never left the page. An environmental impact statement is meant to be an aid in the decision making process in order to ensure that projects consider potential environmental harms that may occur. However, they are often used instead as another regulatory box to check, rather than as active considerations when planning. As such, a project plan can be flawed from the start—if project developers only consider environmental impacts after they have already put considerable time, effort, and funding into their project as-is, they may …

Policy Recommendations And Ways Forward, Rachel Locke, Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum

Book Chapters

This chapter discusses how the transformative ideas presented by the contributors can be applied in concrete and meaningful ways to policy, practice, and research. The chapter begins with a discussion of principles that were both crucial to the articulation of the recommendations and are similarly crucial to any proposal to address identity-based mass violence. The human-centered values of this volume demand a focus not only on outcomes but also on process, as these principles attest. The chapter then focuses on practical areas of action, from capacity building to funding to shifting narratives, and more. This chapter shifts from prescriptive policy …

System Disparities: Racial Criminalization And The Risk Of Coerced And False Confessions In Youth, Cynthia J. Najdowski

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Black youth may be even more vulnerable than other youth to admitting to crimes they did not commit in the context of police interrogations. In support, analysis of data from the National Registry of Exonerations indicates that 65% of people who were wrongfully convicted on the basis of false confessions they gave when under 18 years old are Black, whereas only 14% of the U.S. population is Black. In this chapter, I seek to understand the overrepresentation of Black youth in samples of juvenile false confessors by examining the cultural stereotype about Black criminality in relation to both investigators and …

Book Review: Automobiles, Cultures And The Question Of Law, Stephen M. Young

Journal of Law and Mobility

Unsettling Colonial Automobilities: Criminalisation and Contested Sovereignties is a compelling interdisciplinary and multileveled study that sits at the intersection of law, criminology, settler colonial studies, and cultural analysis. The authors are well-suited to this task. They include Professors Harry Blagg, with expertise in First Nations community-engaged criminology; Thalia Anthony, from legal and carceral studies; Wiradjuri scholar Juanita Sherwood, who studies Indigenous health and community research; and Kieran Tranter, an expert in cultural legal theory. Together, they offer a layered interrogation of how the motor vehicle and automobility shape the settler colonial ordering of Australia.

This review is comprised of three …

Women’S Exposure To Incel Content, Perceived Safety, And Gender-Based Violence Risk In The United States, Deja Bledsoe

Criminology & Criminal Justice Theses

The rapid proliferation of incel-related content across digital platforms has raised concerns about online misogyny and its potential impact on women’s perceived safety. However, less is known about how exposure to such content shapes women’s perceptions of risk and emotional responses in everyday digital environments. This study examines the relationship between exposure to incel-related content and women’s perceived risk of gender-based violence and safety-related anxiety. Guided by strain theory, social control theory, hegemonic masculinity, and intersectionality, the study employs an anonymous cross-sectional online survey of women aged 18 and older. Quantitative analyses were conducted to assess whether exposure to incel-related …

Male Disposability, Law, And Feminism, Edward Cantu

Faculty Works

This article explores scientific evidence that societies care more about the welfare and safety of females than that of males, and that this dynamic of "male disposability" is deeply entrenched in culture, and thus in law. The recognition and integration of male disposability theory would mean an evolutionary leap in modern theorizing about gender and the law, but it is ignored. Why? Feminist theory dominates current academic gender discourse. Far from appreciating the explanatory power of male disposability theory, feminist theorists are often invested in theorizing gendered problems in ways that mischannel compassion away from men and toward women. The …

The Psychological Effect Of Maternal Separation From A Child During Incarceration: A Survey And Critique Of Risk Needs Assessments, Samantha Yearwood

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This study examines whether frequently used correctional assessment instruments adequately capture the psychological impacts of maternal-child separation among incarcerated women. This research was conducted in response to growing criticisms that traditional risk and needs assessments fail to account for gender-specific experiences, specifically those related to caregiving roles and pregnancy. Using a qualitative analysis content analysis to assess four widely used instruments, the Women’s Risk and Needs Assessment (WRNA), Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions (COMPAS), Brief Symptom Inventory-18 (BSI-18), and Level of Service Inventory–Revised (LSI-R), the thesis  examines the inclusion of pregnancy-related variables, caregiving responsibilities, and separation-related psychological factors. …

The Influence Of Adverse Childhood Experiences On Female Violent Offending: A Scoping Systematic Review, Alexis M. Wolgemuth

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Female-perpetrated violence has exhibited concerning data trends in recent years. Prior scholarship indicates that past victimization and trauma in childhood, known as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), are highly prevalent among women offenders. However, the research concerning ACEs and violent females is scattered. This thesis provides a scoping literature review using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) updated 2020 guidelines. A systematic database search was conducted using Academic Search Complete, SAGE Journals, Springer Nature Link, and HeinOnline to identify relevant peer-reviewed journal articles. Inclusion and exclusion criteria are established, focusing on studies published after January 2015. These …

The Brady Materiality Standard, Brandon L. Garrett, Adam M. Gershowitz

Faculty Scholarship

The Brady doctrine requires prosecutors to disclose all favorable and material evidence to the defense. To effectuate that rule, the U.S. Supreme Court has defined materiality as a “reasonable probability” that the evidence would have affected the outcome at trial. But apart from that definition, the Court has resisted offering any further guidance to lower courts. While far too little is known about how Brady materiality claims are actually adjudicated, there is strong evidence that courts often reject Brady claims involving withheld evidence on the grounds that the evidence was not significant enough to be material.

To examine how Brady …

Eroding Protections: The Decline Of Miranda Rights And Its Impact On Due Process In Contemporary America, Autumn G. Pelfrey

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This thesis examines whether the protections established in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), remain robust within contemporary criminal justice practice or have been weakened through doctrinal and practical developments. Miranda warnings were originally designed to mitigate the risk that coercive custodial interrogation would produce compelled or unreliable self-incrimination. Since 1966, however, both judicial interpretation and evolving law-enforcement practices have created a growing gap between Miranda’s formal legal promise and its practical operation in real-world interrogations.

The study evaluates the erosion of Miranda’s protective force through three primary mechanisms. First, doctrinal developments have narrowed Miranda’s scope by redefining …

Engaging Seminars: The Impact Of Storytelling In Public Safety Education, Mimi Gough, Glenn L. Walton

The Guardianship Journal

This paper examines the important role of storytelling in higher education as a technique for engaging students in course content and applies its relationship to the experiential learning theory (ELT) in which learners are actively seeking knowledge through authentic application. Storytelling can be a particularly effective method when used during live online seminars in public safety education, since this particular program of study often relies on verbally communicating realistic and credible information. Sharing various examples of actual encounters can help students better prepare for these types of situations when they face them in their future careers. Incorporating evidence to support …

A Comparative Analysis Of Domestic Violence Legislation In India And The United States: Understanding Protection Of Women Against Violence Act 2005 And Violence Against Women Act 1994, Deon Rodrigues

2025 Fall Honors Capstones Projects - Archive

Domestic violence continues to affect millions of individuals worldwide, yet legal systems respond to it in very different ways. This research compares how India’s Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (2005) and the United States’ Violence Against Women Act (1994; 2021) protect victims and hold offenders accountable. Using a comparative legal analysis, the study examines both laws’ language, enforcement mechanisms, and effectiveness through court cases, government reports, and statistical data. By identifying the strengths of the United States model such as mandatory arrest provisions and victim support systems, the study aims to propose practical reforms for India’s legal framework. …

The Role Of Artificial Intelligence In Reducing Internet Crimes Against Children, Malyssa Shaw

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

When generative artificial intelligence (AI) first surfaced and broke into the public sphere, my immediate concern was in its development, implementation, and harmful applications. I was not surprised when deepfake technology rapidly advanced alongside these new developments and impacted women and children worldwide. Disproportionately, they have been made victims of intimate media forgery as early as the 1990s, with an unprecedented uptick in recent years as a direct result of these developments. In response, I wrote "Deepfake, Real Harm: Protecting Children in the Age of AI", analyzing data specifically regarding child sexual abuse material (CSAM) created with artificial intelligence while …

Eyewitness Consent To Be Video Recorded: Implications For Identification Accuracy And Confidence, Sarah Argüelles

Student Theses

Recently, a recommendation has emerged for law enforcement to record the full eyewitness identification procedure, recognizing the critical role eyewitness testimony plays in the justice system (Wells et al., 2020). However, in some states, such as New York, law enforcement is required to seek consent from witnesses before recording (Municipal Police Training Council & Division of Criminal Justice Services, 2017). Since this practice is relatively new, there has been limited research on how obtaining consent may affect eyewitness accuracy. It was hypothesized that obtaining consent to video record could be linked to a witness’s confidence in their identification, with higher …

An Analysis Of Policies Impacting Ex-Offenders And The Barriers Created In Their Transition Into Society: A Qualitative Metasynthesis, Thomas A. Ayala

Theses & Dissertations

In 2018, more than six million people in the United States were under correctional supervision, including incarceration, probation, or parole, equivalent to 1 in 40 adults (Maruschak & Minton, 2020). While this reflects a decline from previous years, prison populations reversed course in 2022, increasing by 2% nationwide, with 36 states and federal facilities reporting higher inmate counts (Nellis, 2024). Since 1973, policy shifts have fueled the rise of mass incarceration (Nellis, 2021; O’Brien, 2020). According to the Pew Center, the United States remains a global outlier, holding 5% of the world’s population, but incarcerates 25% of the 9 million …

Embodied Overcrowding And Sensory Tensions: A Carceral Autoethnography Of Philippine Jails, Dwayne Antojado

Ateneo School of Government Publications

In this paper, I undertake a sensorially oriented autoethnography of two Philippine jails, illuminating the visceral textures of carceral life that conventional sociological or criminological discourses often overlook. Drawing inspiration from Jewkes and Young's (2021) examination of Kyoto Prison, I foreground the overlapping realms of sight, sound, smell, and touch, arguing that incarceration is inherently a profoundly embodied phenomenon. By weaving personal reflections, field observations, and broader scholarly insights, I reveal how overcrowded dormitories, suffocating heat, and lingering bodily odours converge to redefine detainees' spatial, temporal, and psychosocial realities in ways rarely captured by quantitative metrics. While mindful of Nelken's …

Fighting Death: A Critique Of Kentucky's Death Penalty System, Pamela R. Goodwine

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Healing Through Acknowledgment: The Role Of Naturalistic Restorative Justice And Twentieth Century Genocide Recovery, Julia R. Swirbalus

The Graduate Review

This article defines and explores the application of restorative justice principles in the context of twentieth century genocide acknowledgments. The genocides used as case studies in this article include the Holocaust, Cambodian genocide, and Rwandan genocide. This article examines how survivors have utilized restorative practices to facilitate healing, the importance of historical site preservation, and governments acknowledging their wrongdoings. The importance of acknowledgment and making amends to facilitate healing is highlighted throughout the article. The findings underscore the complexity of applying restorative justice to genocide and the necessity of proper acknowledgment for true reconciliation and healing to occur. This article …

Reforming Abolition, Daniel Fryer

Michigan Law Review

Abolition is an elusive concept, which allows people with various political views to identify with the idea. This Article unpacks some of the conceptual features that lead to its elusiveness. This imprecision has empowered some to point out the diverse—if not inconsistent—positions that self-identified abolitionists take when articulating the contemporary abolition movement’s demands. The question then becomes whether the movement could protect itself from being a rootless position with insufficient tools to guide change. I suggest that it can. Rather than getting caught up in debates about abolition’s ends, I propose that more attention be paid to abolition’s grounds. By …

Adjudicating Atrocity: Reading Hitesh Verma V State Of Uttarakhand As A "Landmark" Case In The Judicial Discourse On Caste Violence, Tejaswi Chhatwal

Socio-Legal Review

This article critically examines the Supreme Court’s judgment in Hitesh Verma v State of Uttarakhand (2020) and argues for reading it as a “landmark trial” in the judicial undoing of reform—namely, the statutory changes introduced by the 2016 Amendment to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989. Existing socio-legal scholarship on atrocity jurisprudence has shown that the judicial understanding of caste violence and doctrinally instituted evidentiary standards have historically operated to invisibilise caste from crime’s framework. As a result, most instances of caste-based discrimination and violence have not been named as offences of “atrocity” under the …

Rape Myth Acceptance, Pretrial Publicity, And Decision-Making: An Examination Of Perceptions Of Victim Credibility And Perpetrator Guilt In A Real-World Sexual Assault Case, Lindsey Strouse

Student Theses

This study explores how the media narratives and political perspective of pretrial publicity (PTP) can influence jurors’ perceptions in sexual assault cases, raising significant concerns about justice in courtrooms. Specifically, it examines whether media framing of a real-life sexual assault case — through varying media narratives, with media that either challenges or endorses rape myths, and media source (liberal vs. conservative) — affects mock jurors’ rape myth acceptance (RMA), views of victim credibility, and judgements of perpetrator guilt. Participants first completed a RMA scale, then read mock news articles varying in media narrative and political affiliations (media source), followed by …

#Falseflag: Exploring Themes In Conspiracy Theory Tweets Regarding The Robb Elementary School Active Shooter Event, Madison K. Doyle, Carolyn Willis

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Little is known about the content of conspiratorial posts on social media, specifically regarding active shooter events. This study explores the content of conspiracy theory tweets during the six months following the active shooter event at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. 194 tweets were analyzed. The analysis resulted in two main themes: False Flag and Hypothesized Reasoning. These themes represent the similarities and variations in content among the tweets. In line with research suggesting that people are most vulnerable to conspiratorial thinking when trying to explain unusual and unsettling events, results indicate that many posts were attempting to provide …

“Oh, Are You Gay?”: An Exploration Of Lgbtq+ Students’ Lived Experiences With Microaggressions And Finding Safety On A University Campus, Christina Policastro, Courtney Crittenden, Jadon Clark, Rileigh Arrington

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Studies demonstrate that LGBTQ+ college students experience explicit and covert discrimination with research documenting various microaggressions reported by university students whose gender and/or sex identities are minoritized. Building off existing models of LGBTQ microaggressions, the current study adds to this literature by utilizing focus groups to explore campus safety perceptions among a sample of U.S. undergraduate students who identify as LGBTQ+. Findings highlight the diverse microaggressions experienced by students at the interpersonal and environmental level. Moreover, the results displayed the mechanisms students employed to avoid or disengage from situations where microaggressions may be encountered, as well as underscored ways in …

Are Cyber-Investigators Resilient In The Face Of Adversity? An Inductive Qualitative Analysis Exploring Investigators’ Perceptions Regarding The Challenges And Successes In Online Crime Police Investigations, Julien Chopin, Camille Faubert, David Décary-Hétu, Benoît Dupont, Jerry Ratcliffe, Aili Malm

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Cybercrime investigations continue to pose a significant challenge for most law enforcement agencies. Specifically, these investigations present knowledge, legal, and forensic challenges that hinder police officers’ ability to successfully complete their tasks and develop a sense of well-being on the job. Studies have shown that in the face of such adversity, individuals exhibit a positive coping capacity known as the resilience process. In this research, we set out to improve our understanding of both the difficulties police officers face when investigating online crimes and their ability to cope by analyzing their perceptions of success. To do this, we conducted interviews …

Prosecution In The Eyes Of The Justice-Involved: A Community-Based Participatory Research Approach, Belén Lowrey-Kinberg

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Community based participatory research (CBPR) centers the voices of community members in the research process. Long used in the field of healthcare, criminal justice researchers have employed CBPR only in limited contexts, and never in the context of prosecution research. This paper reports on findings from a CBPR study that employed focus groups with justice-involved individuals to identify their perceptions of the pre-trial process, prosecutors’ priorities, and recommended directions for research. The findings from these focus groups were used as the basis for developing interview questions for prosecutors, which were subsequently implemented in two larger research projects examining prosecutor discretion. …

Communication Inhibitors: Dilemmas In Community Partnerships Amidst Mental Health Crises In Texas, Alessa Juarez, Kendra N. Bowen, Johnny Nhan

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Community partnerships between police departments, social services, and healthcare providers continue to struggle in various ways, with mental health crisis response remaining a primary yet fragmented service delivery. Using the nodal governance perspective, this paper provides qualitative insight into the existing communication and resource barriers between law enforcement personnel and social service providers in a large urban county in Texas. Four key themes are presented: staff and resource availability, continuity of care, staff personnel and characteristics, and communication efficiency. Policy implications are also discussed, with the study’s findings supporting the prioritization of building stronger communication between existing social service providers, …