Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons^™

Recidivism Rates Of Committed Youth, 2006 - 2009, Becky Noreus, Robyn Dumont

Justice Policy

The Maine Department of Corrections (MDOC) Division of Juvenile Services (DJS) collaborates with the Muskie School of Public Service in a state‐university partnership to analyze juvenile recidivism rates. DJS measures juvenile justice outcomes to guide policy and program development geared toward recidivism reduction. Reduction of youth recidivism in Maine increases public safety.

This report uses multiple recidivism measures: re‐arrest, re‐adjudication/conviction, and recommitment. To be consistent with other reports, most analysis focuses on re‐adjudication/conviction.

This report measures DJS impact on youth who have been committed to a MDOC facility by examining rates of recidivism.

A Failing Correctional System: State Prison Overcrowding In The United States, Susan M. Campers

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

State prison overcrowding has grown into a detrimental problem within our American penal system, such that after decades of being ignored by politicians, media outlets, and the lower court system, it has resulted in an ineffective and overcrowded correctional system that craves reformation.

American Indian Women And Sexual Assault: Challenges And New Opportunities, Angela R. Gebhardt, Jane D. Woody

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

This article informs social workers about sexual violence against American Indian and Alaskan Native (AI/AN) women and the policy reforms in the 2010 Tribal Law and Order Act (TLOA). It describes the unmet needs of AI/AN survivors, reviews the TLOA reforms on sexual assault in relation to social work and public health principles, discusses the complementary roles for social workers and public health practitioners in reform efforts, and offers guidance for professional participation that emphasizes tribal sovereignty, indigenous capacity, and cultural competence.

How (Not) To Implement Cost As A Sentencing Factor, Ryan W. Scott

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Best Outcomes For Indian Children, Loa L. Porter, Patina Park Zink, Angela R. Gebhardt, Mark Ells, Michelle Graef

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

The Wisconsin Department of Children and Families and the Midwest Child Welfare Implementation Center are collaborating with Wisconsin's tribes and county child welfare agencies to improve outcomes for Indian children by systemically implementing the Wisconsin Indian Child Welfare Act (WICWA).This groundbreaking coUaboration wiU increase practitioners' understanding ofthe requirements of WICWA and the need for those requirements, enhance communication and coordination between all stakeholders responsible for the welfare of Indian children in Wisconsin; it is designed to effect the systemic integration of the philosophical underpinnings of WICWA.

In December 2009, Governor James Doyle signed the Wisconsin Indian Child Welfare Act, signaling …

Recidivism Rates Of Youth Discharged From Supervision 2006 - 2009, Becky Noréus, Jillian Foley Mppm

Justice Policy

The Maine Department of Corrections (MDOC) Division of Juvenile Services (DJS) collaborates with the Muskie School of Public Service in a state‐university partnership to analyze juvenile recidivism rates. DJS measures juvenile justice outcomes to guide policy and program development geared toward recidivism reduction. Reduction of youth recidivism in Maine increases public safety.

Recidivism in this report is defined as a re‐adjudication (juvenile system) or conviction (adult system) for a new offense committed by a youth in Maine within three years after release from DJS supervision. This report measures DJS impact on youth who have been released from DJS supervision by …

Prevention Of Identity Theft: A Review Of The Literature, Portland State University. Criminology And Criminal Justice Senior Capstone

Criminology and Criminal Justice Senior Capstone Project

With advances in technology and increases in impersonal electronic transactions, identity theft IT) is becoming a major problem in today’s society. One may ask why IT is growing in America. The answer is simple, as a review of literature reveals: IT is extremely hard to detect, prevent, and prosecute.

There are many ways people can protect themselves, their identities and secure their personal information; many do not concern themselves with this knowledge, however, until they become victims of this crime, themselves. With advances in technology, offenders are often turning to new methods to access information and use it for financial …

Construing The Outer Limits Of Sentencing Authority: A Proposed Bright-Line Rule For Noncapital Proportionality Review, Kevin White

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Driving Forces: Police Fatalities, Carol Servino

Graduate Research Symposium (2010 - 2017)

Law enforcement is an inherently risky occupation. The number of traffic-related fatalities for law enforcement officers in the U.S. during the past 13 years has been increasing; however, the number of fatalities for the general population in motor vehicle traffic incidents declined during the same time period.

The federal government reports that federal motor vehicle safety standards aswell as behavioral and vehicle safety programs implemented by state and local law-enforcement agencies contributed to the downward trend for the general public.

What accounts for the pattern and problem with police driving-related deaths?

Facebook And The Police: Communication In The Social Networking Era, Mari Sakiyama, Deborah K. Shaffer, Joel D. Lieberman

Graduate Research Symposium (2010 - 2017)

An increasing number of police departments are using Facebook to communicate with the public. As with any emerging communications technology, there is considerable variation in the usage of this medium. This study reports the results of a content analysis designed to determine how police departments are using Facebook.

Modifying The Restrictions On Sentence Modification: United States V. Cobb, Jackie Bosshardt

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sidestepping Deference: How United States V. Ressam Encourages Overly Stringent Review Of Sentencing Decisions, Joseph Leavitt

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Assessing The Impact Of Police Order Maintenance Units On Crime: An Application Of The Broken Windows Hypothesis, Steven Andrew Pace

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

High levels of violent crime and disorder area concentrated within certain neighborhoods of northwest Las Vegas, Nevada. In April 2009 a police order-maintenance unit designed to reduce minor and major offenses was initiated in these areas. Drawing on the Broken Windows Hypothesis, the unit combined detailed crime analysis with extensive police efforts to address specific community problems. This paper discusses the implementation and impact of the police order-maintenance unit during its operation.

Blameworthiness And Dangerousness: An Analysis Of Violent Female Capital Offenders In The United States And China, Courtney Lahaie

Graduate Research Symposium (2010 - 2017)

The United States and China represent two of the leading nations that retain the death penalty in both law and practice. Research suggests that judges’ sentencing decisions are based primarily on two factors, blameworthiness and dangerousness. Studies involving gender and sentencing in capital punishment cases tend to provide inconsistent findings. The current study uses case narratives to examine the direct and conjunctive effects of various factors on the sentencing decisions of violent female capital offenders in the United States and China. The findings suggest that the concepts of blameworthiness and dangerousness are distinctly defined in the United States and China. …

Adjustment To Correctional Confinement: Investigating The Correlates Of Violence And Disorder In A Jail Environment, Fred W. Meyer Iii

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study examines the individual- and institutional-level variables that are correlated with violence and disorder within a jail facility. Previous research indicates that deviant behavior is one of the main challenges that negatively impacts the safe and effective management of correctional facilities. While many studies have been conducted on prison populations, few studies have focused upon jail populations. Using official institutional data, this study explores the factors associated with general infractions and violent misconduct among a stratified random sample of inmates (n=447) incarcerated during a one year period in a large county jail facility. The logistic regression and conjunctive analyses …

Drug Law Reform—Retreating From An Incarceration Addiction, Robert G. Lawson

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Now, thirty years into the "war on drugs," views about the law's reliance on punishment to fix the drug problem are less conciliatory and more absolute: "[t]he notion that 'the drug war is a failure' has become the common wisdom in academic ... circles." Those who have most closely studied the results of the "war" believe that it has "accomplished little more than incarcerating hundreds of thousands of individuals whose only crime was the possession of drugs." More importantly, they believe that it has had little if any effect on the drug problem: "Despite the fact that the number of …

The Swinging Pendulum Of Sentencing Reform: Political Actors Regulating District Court Discretion, Lydia Brashear Tiede

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

Managing Performance [In Child Welfare Supervision], Megan E. Paul, Michelle Graef, Erika J. Robinson, Kristin Saathoff

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

One of the primary roles of a supervisor is to manage worker performance. Performance management is the "continuous process of identifying, measuring, and developing the performance of individuals and teams and aligning performance with the strategic goals of the organization" (Aguinis, 2007, p. 2). Supervisors must regularly assess current performance levels and take steps to improve performance in a way that is congruent with agency goals. The ultimate goal is to achieve agency objectives through individual and team performance.

To effectively manage performance, supervisors must know what the performance expectations are for workers and clearly communicate these expectations to workers. …

Recruiting And Selecting Child Welfare Staff, Michelle Graef, Megan Paul, Tara L. Myers

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

In this chapter, the focus is on recruiting and selecting new staff and on the steps agencies can take to ensure that they are doing the best possible job to attract and hire a high-performing, committed workforce. This chapter reviews a number of strategies for improving recruitment and selection processes and provides case examples from the authors' work with child protection agencies in several states. These projects have been accomplished by a team of researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Center on Children, Families, and the Law (CCFL). Some of the techniques described here will be familiar, whereas others are …

The Unjust Selection Of Justice Professionals: Balancing Fairness For Police Officer Applicants And The Potential Citizens They Will Serve, Robert W. Boyle

Master's Theses

This paper examines the effects on the community when its police officers are held to different physical standards based upon their sex. Through a Platonic analysis of the modern day "guardians of the city," it can be seen that the community is deprived of the strongest and best police force when the department compensates individuals based upon a "weakness" that thier class of applicants possesses. This process proves to be unfair to both the applicants and to the citizens they may subsequently serve.

A Validation Study Of Risk Management Systems, Bridget Kelly

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this study was to examine the predictive validity of Risk Management Systems (RMS) as a risk assessment instrument. To date, a published validation study does not exist for the RMS. The study employs secondary data analysis to examine the predictive validity of RMS recidivism and violence scores on three outcomes: arrest, unsuccessful termination from supervision, and technical violations. The study sample consisted of 830 probationers from the United States Probation Office, District of Nevada. The analyses showed that RMS recidivism and violence scores were moderately predictive of all three outcomes.

Happiness And Punishment, John Bronsteen, Christopher Buccafusco, Jonathan Masur

Faculty Scholarship

This Article continues our project of applying new findings in the behavioral psychology of human happiness to some of the most deeply analyzed questions in law. When a state decides how to punish criminal offenders, at least one important consideration is the amount of harm any given punishment is likely to inflict. It would be undesirable, for example, to impose greater harm on those who commit less serious crimes or to impose harm that rises to the level of cruelty. Our penal system fits punishments to crimes primarily by adjusting the size of monetary fines and the length of prison …

Sobriety Checkpoints: The Case For Implementation In Rhode Island, Scott Naso

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

A survey was prepared and conducted to investigate the viability of implementing sobriety checkpoints in Rhode Island. The survey was designed to make a comparison between a state which has found sobriety checkpoints to be constitutional, Massachusetts, and a state that has found sobriety checkpoints to be unconstitutional, Rhode Island. The survey's findings indicate that Rhode Island would benefit from the implementation of sobriety checkpoints.

Cunningham V. California: The U.S. Supreme Court Painted Into A Corner, Jacob Strain

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

An Evaluation Of Operation Street Sweeper - 2006, Andrew Giacomazzi, Jeremy D. Ball

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications and Presentations

Operation Street Sweeper (OSS) was a multi-level, interagency collaboration with multiple purposes. According to OSS documents, Operation Street Sweeper goals included the following: (1) to reduce gang-related criminal and violent activity in Nampa and Caldwell, Idaho through aggressive, proactive, and coordinated street enforcement between the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) and local law enforcement; (2) to deter criminal activity through high profile enforcement activity; (3) to develop and/or increase the number of positive community contacts; (4) to show the community and gang members that law enforcement is serious about reducing gang and violent crime in the area; and …

Development And Confirmatory Factor Analysis Of The Community Norms Of Child Neglect Scale, Rebecca Goodvin, David R. Johnson, Sam A. Hardy, Michelle Graef, Jeff M. Chambers

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

This article describes the development of the Community Norms of Child Neglect Scale (CNCNS), a new measure of perceptions of child neglect, for use in community samples. The CNCNS differentiates among four subtypes of neglect (failure to provide for basic needs, lack of supervision, emotional neglect, and educational neglect). Scenarios ranging in seriousness for each subtype were presented to a large community sample (N = 3,809). Confirmatory factor analyses indicated that a four-factor model provided a better fit to the data than did a model specifying only one overall neglect factor, suggesting this sample distinguished among the four subtypes of …

"Does It Take One To Know One?" A Comparison Of Police Recruits' And Sergeants' Perceptions Of A Good Police Officer, Kara K. Hoofnagle

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

Police departments strive to hire good officers. However, there is difficulty in defining what constitutes a good police officer. The literature is rife in defining what constitutes a good police officer and characteristics indicative of a good officer. Past research suggests that characteristics of a good police officer may be more than the characteristic itself and that officers' may form their perception of what characteristics good officers harbor based on socialization, the police subculture, and the official police organization.

As such, this study sought to explore the following research question: What differences, if any, exist between police recruits' and sergeants' …

Juvenile Fear Of Crime And Attitudes Towards The Police: The Effect Of Implementing A School Resource Officer Program In Alaska High Schools, Sean A. Case

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper presents data concerning the effect uniformed police officers have on attitudes towards the police and fear of crime within the high school setting. Two identical surveys were administered to 522 high school students at two periods during a school year. The primary purpose was to determine whether placing uniformed police officers, called School Resource Officers, in high schools would improve attitudes towards the police and reduce the fear of crime. Although opinions towards the police were positively affected and the fear of crime was reduced, neither was affected significantly. The primary implication drawn from this research is that …

Probation Violators: An Examination Of Felony Male Adult Probation Violators In The State Of Nevada, Stefanie Wilson Palacio

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

No abstract provided.

Ua12/8 Annual Crime Awareness & Campus 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. Includes statistics on the types of crimes which were reported from 2001-2003.