Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons^™

The Fear Factor: Exploring The Impact Of The Vulnerability To Deportation On Immigrants' Lives, Shirley P. Leyro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This qualitative study explores the impact that the fear of deportation has on the lives of noncitizen immigrants. More broadly, it explores the role that immigration enforcement, specifically deportation, plays in disrupting the process of integration, and the possible implications of this interruption for immigrants and their communities. The study aims to answer: (1) how vulnerability to deportation specifically impacts an immigrant’s life, and (2) how the vulnerability to deportation, and the fear associated with it, impacts an immigrant’s degree of integration. Data were gathered through a combination of six open-ended focus group interviews of 10 persons each, and 33 …

Ideology, Race, And The Death Penalty: "Lies, Damn Lies, And Statistics" In Advocacy Research, Anthony Walsh, Virginia Hatch

Journal of Ideology

We use the literature on race in death penalty to illustrate the hold that ideology has on researchers and journalists alike when a social issue is charged with emotional content. We note particularly how statistical evidence become misinterpreted in ways that support a particular ideology, either because of innumeracy or because—subconsciously or otherwise—one’s ideology precludes a critical analysis. We note that because white defendants are now proportionately more likely to receive the death penalty and to be executed than black defendants that the argument has shifted from a defendant-based to a victim-based one. We examine studies based on identical data …

Van Oster V. Kansas And The Unconstitutionality Of Civil Forfeiture, Thomas Senst

Undergraduate Review

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the contradictory nature of civil forfeiture through a case analysis of Van Oster v. Kansas and compare the precedent established in this case to current civil forfeiture laws. This case has not received the proper attention that it deserves in civil forfeiture scholarly literature. Van Oster represents a case in which the Supreme Court upheld civil forfeiture, yet the internal logic of their justification suggests that civil forfeiture is unconstitutional. Additionally, this paper will conceptualize judicial dictions and opinions delivered by Justice Brandeis and Justice Holmes, who both served on the Supreme …

Ua12/8 Annual Campus Safety & Security Report, Wku Police

WKU Administration Documents

A statement of current campus policies regarding procedures for students and others to report criminal actions or other emergencies occurring on campus and policies concerning the institution's response to such reports.

Legal Responses To Nonconsensual Pornography: Current Policy In The United States And Future Directions For Research, Cynthia J. Najdowski

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Technological advances have created new avenues for the perpetration of sexual violence. The widespread availability of cameras has made it easier to take covert recordings of an individual’s intimate body parts, and whether sexually explicit images are recorded with or without an individual’s consent, growing access to the Internet has facilitated the nonconsensual dissemination of those images. Yet criminal laws have not kept pace with technology in most jurisdictions across the United States, and victims of nonconsensual pornography typically have no avenue by which to seek justice. There have been efforts to reform laws in a variety of jurisdictions, some …

What Impact Is Felony Disenfranchisement Having On Hispanics In Florida?, Angel E. Sanchez

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This research produces original empirical estimates of Hispanics in Florida’s Dept. of Corrections (FDOC) and uses those estimates to measure the impact felony disenfranchisement is having on Hispanics in Florida. Research institutions find that data on Hispanics in the criminal justice system, particularly in Florida, is either lacking or inaccurate. This research addresses this problem by applying an optimal surname list method using Census Bureau data and Bayes Theorem to produce an empirical estimate of Hispanics in FDOC’s data. Using the Hispanic rate derived from the empirical FDOC analysis, the rate of Hispanics in the disenfranchised population is estimated. The …

Race And Death Sentencing For Oklahoma Homicides Committed Between 1990 And 2012, Glenn L. Pierce, Michael L. Radelet, Susan Sharp

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

This Article examines 4,668 Oklahoma homicide cases with an identified suspect that occurred during a twenty-three year period between January 1, 1990, and December 31, 2012. Among these, we identified 153 cases that ended with a death sentence. Overall we found that while the defendant’s race did not correlate with a death sentence, there was a strong correlation with the race of the victim, with cases with white victims significantly more likely to end with a death sentence than cases with non-white victims. Homicides with female victims were also more likely to result in a death sentence than other cases. …

Tradition And Culture In Africa: Practices That Facilitate Trafficking Of Women And Children, Norah Hashim Msuya

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Many states in Africa have adopted legislative, administrative and institutional measures to combat trafficking in human beings. These measures include, among other things, the formulation and implementation of both national and regional action plans by African states to provide for comprehensive and coordinated interventions. Many African countries have also enacted an anti-trafficking legislation at the country level. Despite these measures, African women and children have been trafficked annually worldwide for purposes of forced labor, sexual exploitation, and domestic servitude. Additionally, women and children are trafficked within their countries from rural to urban areas. Misconception and abuse of African tradition and …

Structure And Service Delivery Approach Of The Children’S Bureau’S Resource Centers And Implementation Centers, Tammy Richards, Michelle Graef, Kathy Deserly, Peter Watson, Mark Ells

Center on Children, Families, and the Law: Faculty Publications

The Children’s Bureau (CB) provides a system of training and technical assistance (T/TA) to build the capacity of state and tribal child welfare systems, with the goal of improving outcomes for children and families. During the time period of 2008-2014, this infrastructure included ten National Child Welfare Resource Centers (NRCs), five Child Welfare Implementation Centers (ICs), and a Training and Technical Assistance Coordination Center (TTACC). Individual ICs and NRCs differed in structure and content expertise, yet they served the same jurisdictions and at times provided services concurrently. To increase cohesion and consistency, the NRCs, ICs, TTACC, and CB worked together …

Sexual Misconduct In Prison: What Factors Affect Whether Incarcerated Women Will Report Abuses Committed By Prison Staff?, Sheryl Pimlott Kubiak, Hannah Brenner, Deborah Bybee, Rebecca Campbell, Cristy E. Cummings, Kathleen M. Darcy, Gina Fedock, Rachael Goodman-Williams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Dignity Is The New Legitimacy, Jeffrey A. Fagan

Faculty Scholarship

In this chapter, Jeffrey Fagan responds to Jonathan Simon’s essay by exploring the emotional dimensions of individual interactions with state actors. In a procedural justice vein, this chapter considers the dignitary implications of official maltreatment, focusing in particular on the dignity-injuring potential of unjustified, racially motivated, or otherwise abusive police stops. Such interactions not only personally humiliate, but they also deny the targeted individuals “basic and essential recognition” as social and political equals, instilling instead “a profound sense of loss.” Fagan calls for a jurisprudence that “recognizes the emotional highway between dignity and legitimacy.” This approach would “internalize[] the central …

A Comparison Of Defendants With Mental Illness Represented By Public Defenders And Private Attorneys: An Analysis Of Court-Ordered Pretrial Psychiatric Evaluations, Donald M. Linhorst, P. Ann Dirks-Lindhorst, Susan Mcgraugh, Lauren Choate, Sarah Riley

All Faculty Scholarship

This study compared the characteristics and court-ordered evaluation questions and responses among 4,430 defendants to determine if differences existed between those represented by public defenders and private attorneys when receiving trial competency or responsibility psychiatric evaluations from a state department of mental health. Defendants represented by public defenders were more likely to be younger, to have less education, to have psychotic disorders, to have a history of inpatient psychiatric treatment, to live in urban or rural counties, and to be jailed at the time of the evaluation. In addition, defendants represented by public defenders were less likely to have a …

Constructing Recidivism Risk, Jessica M. Eaglin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Courts increasingly use actuarial meaning statistically derived information about a defendant's likelihood of engaging in criminal behavior in the future at sentencing. This Article examines how developers construct the tools that predict recidivism risk. It exposes the numerous choices that developers make during tool construction with serious consequences to sentencing law and policy. These design decisions require normative judgments concerning accuracy, equality, and the purpose of punishment. Whether and how to address these concerns reflects societal values about the administration of criminal justice more broadly. Currently, developers make these choices in the absence of law, even as they face distinct …

Predictive Analytics' Punishment Mismatch, Jessica M. Eaglin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Project Safe Neighborhoods In Chicago: Looking Back A Decade Later, Ben Grunwald, Andrew V. Papachristos

Faculty Scholarship

Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) is a federally funded initiative that brings together federal, state, and local law enforcement to reduce gun violence in urban centers. In Chicago, PSN implemented supply-side gun policing tactics, enhanced federal prosecution of gun crimes, and notification forums warning offenders of PSN’s heightened criminal sanctions. Prior evaluations provide evidence that PSN initiatives have reduced crime in the first few years of their operation. But over a decade after the program was established, we still know little about whether these effects are sustained over an extended period of time. This Article examines PSN Chicago, an anti-violence program …

The American Death Penalty Decline, Brandon L. Garrett, Alexander Jakubow, Ankur Desai

Faculty Scholarship

American death sentences have both declined and become concentrated in a small group of counties. In his dissenting opinion in Glossip v. Gross in 2014, Justice Stephen Breyer highlighted how from 2004 to 2006, "just 29 counties (fewer than 1% of counties in the country) accounted for approximately half of all death sentences imposed nationwide." That decline has become more dramatic. In 2015, fifty-one defendants were sentenced to death in thirty-eight counties. In 2016, thirty-one defendants were sentenced to death in twenty-eight counties. In the mid-1990s, by way of contrast, over 300 people were sentenced to death in as many …

Convicting The Innocent Redux, Brandon L. Garrett

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Fostering Legal Cynicism Through Immigration Detention, Emily Ryo

Faculty Scholarship

Every year, tens of thousands of noncitizens in removal proceedings are held and processed through an expanding web of immigration detention facilities across the United States. The use of immigration detention is expected to dramatically increase under the Trump administration’s mass deportation policy. I argue that this civil confinement system may serve a critical socio-legal function that has escaped the attention of policymakers, scholars, and the public alike. Using extensive original data on long-term immigrant detainees, I explore how immigration detention might function as a site of legal socialization that helps to promote or reinforce widespread legal cynicism among immigrant …

Jailhouse Informants In Canadian Criminal Courts, Olena Beshley

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Criminal justice systems in Canada and around the world have been established to deal with matters that require attention, punishment, and justice. An important function of criminal justice systems is the evaluation of evidence presented in the court of law. Evidence from jailhouse informants who testify that they have been privy to confessions of crimes is a contentious issue. Much of the scholarly literature available to date on wrongful conviction cases focuses on causes of insufficient and unreliable evidence obtained through different techniques and from different sources. Despite the high number of investigations into wrongful conviction cases, the subject of …

Contemporary Soviet Criminal Law: An Analysis Of The General Principles And Major Institutions Of Post-1958 Soviet Criminal Law, Chris Osakwe

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

In The Wake Of Broken Windows Policing How Aggressive Policing Contributed To East Harlem Residents Distrust Of Police, Stephanie Daniel, Nicole Lewis, Kalalea Kalalea

Capstones

In 2015, the East Harlem neighborhood – specifically the 25th Precinct – had the highest rate of criminal court summonses amongst residential areas. At 145 summonses for every 1,000 residents, it was more than four times the citywide average, according to an analysis of data obtained from the NYPD.

Since 2010, summonses have declined as the NYPD moves towards a more community-based approach to policing. But the Broken Windows theory has left a lasting and often negative effect on the East Harlem community.

This past fall, CUNY reporters investigated how summonses have affected the relationship between East Harlem residents and …

Effective Social Media Use By Law Enforcement Agencies: A Case Study Approach To Quantifying And Improving Efficacy And Developing Agency Best Practices, David T. Snively

Master of Public Administration Practicums

In the wake of protests against law enforcement for an array of reasons, law enforcement officers and agencies have a responsibility to recognize and utilize the available mediums of communication with which they may best develop a connection to the communities they serve. Furthermore, law enforcement agencies must be informed that established, traditional methods of news dissemination – such as press conferences and printed articles – are now both ineffective and under-utilized, replaced in large part by social media live-time reports. For that reason, law enforcement agency executives must address both the responsibility to provide appropriately timed updates to critical …

Punishing Genocide: A Comparative Empirical Analysis Of Sentencing Laws And Practices At The International Criminal Tribunal For Rwanda (Ictr), Rwandan Domestic Courts, And Gacaca Courts, Barbora Hola, Hollie Nyseth Brehm

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This article compares sentencing of those convicted of participation in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. With over one million people facing trial, Rwanda constitutes the world’s most comprehensive case of criminal accountability after genocide and presents an important case study of punishing genocide. Criminal courts at three different levels— international, domestic, and local—sought justice in the aftermath of the violence. In order to compare punishment at each level, we analyze an unprecedented database of sentences given by the ICTR, the Rwandan domestic courts, and Rwanda’s Gacaca courts. The analysis demonstrates that sentencing varied across the three levels—ranging from limited time …

Policing Postsecondary Education: University Police Legitimacy And Fear Of Crime On Campus, Christina N. Barker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Assessing the perceptions that students have of the university police officers charged with ensuring student safety is important to maintaining the overall safety of the campus. The current study sought to assess the relationship between student perceptions of university police and the fear of crime felt by students while on campus. Data collection was conducted through a survey methodology using a convenient sample of students in which a self-report survey was sent to the university email addresses of all students enrolled in a southeastern university (n=260). Through the employment of a scale developed to assess the perceptions of university police …

Persona Non Grata: The Marginalization Of Legal Scholarship In Criminology And Criminal Justice Journals, Brenda I. Rowe, Wesley S. Mccann, Craig Hemmens

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications (Archived)

Recently, concern has been voiced within the academy regarding the marginalization of legal scholarship within the criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) discipline. Although conventional wisdom and anecdotal evidence indicate that it is difficult to get legal scholarship published in CCJ journals, there is a dearth of empirical evidence on the representation of legal scholarship in CCJ journals. The present study assesses the representation of legal scholarship in 20 CCJ journals from 2005 through 2015, examining both trends over time and variation across journals. Findings indicate legal scholarship comprises a very small portion of articles published, there has been a steep …

The School-To-Prison Pipeline: How Roles Of School-Based Law Enforcement Officers May Impact Disciplinary Actions, Kathy Martinez-Prather, Joseph M. Mckenna, Scott W. Bowman

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"The presence of law enforcement officers in schools has generated an overwhelming amount of concern among educators, parents, researchers, and policy-makers. It is believed their mere presence in schools is associated with the school-to-prison pipeline (STPP), which suggests that the use of police criminalizes minor student behavior and pushes them into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. However, it remains unclear as to what impact law enforcement officers truly have on this phenomenon. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of law enforcement officers on the STPP in relation to the roles they are assigned. We argue …

The Emergence Of Contemporary Bestiality Law: Applying The Integrative Conflict Model To The Enumclaw Case, Jason S. Ulsperger, Kristen L. Ulsperger, Cole Smith

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"This article examines the social construction of bestiality law in the United States using the Integrative Conflict Model of law formation. With qualitative findings from a media content study including newspaper articles, a documentary transcript, and a variety of online data sources, it explores the dynamics behind the formation of bestiality law in the state of Washington. The research specifically uses the circumstances surrounding the death of Kenneth Pinyan, and the subsequent Enumclaw horse sex scandal that took place in the summer of 2005, to support the idea that bestiality law can emerge due to specific factors: structural foundations, perceptions …

Lois Presser And Sveinung Sandberg (Eds), Narrative Criminology: Understanding Stories Of Crime, Adam Veitch

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Over the last two decades there has been an epistemological push in the social sciences to bring narrative into the methodological fold. Narrative social science is steeped in theories of humans as story tellers. The foreword to Narrative Criminology argues that this theoretical line of thought originates in Jean-Paul Sartre’s belief that people are fundamentally storytelling creatures, or “homo narrativus.” The guiding thought here is that stories are central to understanding how and why we act in society. We are all storytellers, and we enjoy sharing tales with an audience. Furthermore, the way that we construct stories of our social …

Fugitive Safe Surrender: A Qualitative Analysis Of Participants’ Reasons For Surrender And Anticipated Outcomes To Inform Program Evaluation, Joseph D. Galanek, Janelle Duda, Daniel J. Flannery, Jeff Kretschmar, Frederick Butcher

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"The Fugitive Safe Surrender (FSS) program is a means for individuals with outstanding warrants to turn themselves in at a non-law-enforcement setting. Challenges remain in evaluating FSS program outcomes. Based on n = 211 participants’ demographic data and qualitative, open-ended written responses collected during an FSS event in a mid-sized Midwestern city, we analyze participants’ reasons for surrendering and anticipated outcomes of surrendering. Utilizing inductive thematic analysis of participants’ responses, we identify individual-level program outcomes that can be used for evaluating FSS. We additionally identify the intersection of codes amongst participant responses to demonstrate the inter-connectedness of FSS participants’ reasons …

Framing Legitimacy: A Qualitative Analysis Examining Local Print-Media Portrayals Of An Immigrant Family Detention Center In Texas, Layne Dittmann, Jurg Gerber

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Research suggests that media portrayals can impact the opinions of adults (Dizard, 2000). However, media reports on aspects of our criminal justice system, such as corrections, are an understudied topic (Marsh, 1989), especially regarding the use of private prisons. The current study examines a sample of 12 local Texas newspapers that reported on the T. Don Hutto Facility in Taylor, Texas, between January 1, 2000, and December 31, 2013. This facility was once a state prison for males and local jail inmates before being converted into an undocumented immigrant family detention facility and later into a detention center for undocumented …