Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons^™

Corporate Crime And Punishment: An Empirical Study, Dorothy S. Lund, Natasha Sarin

All Faculty Scholarship

For many years, law and economics scholars, as well as politicians and regulators, have debated whether corporate criminal enforcement overdeters beneficial corporate activity or in the alternative, lets corporate criminals off too easily. This debate has recently expanded in its polarization: On the one hand, academics, judges, and politicians have excoriated enforcement agencies for failing to send guilty bankers to jail in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis; on the other, the U.S. Department of Justice has since relaxed policies that encouraged individual prosecutions and reduced the size of fines and number of prosecutions. A crucial and yet understudied …

Race, Gender, And Domestic Violence, Faith Harris, Katrina Cokain

Fall Showcase for Research and Creative Inquiry

Race and gender, as significant social locations, have an impact on many facets of life. One of these areas is the experience of victimization, particularly Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). Race and gender impact who perpetrates, their views towards IPV, who is victimized, the victim's experiences with the Criminal Justice System, and the preparedness of supportive services to assist these victims.

Using Google Alerts To Study Police Crime, Chloe Wentzlof, Philip M. Stinson, John Liederbach

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Presentation from the annual meeting of the Criminology Consortium on October 18, 2021.

The Fast & The Furious…Torturous?: Examining The Impact Of Torture Scenes In Popular Films On Public Perceptions Of Torture Policy, Erin M. Kearns, Casey Delehanty

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Entertainment media regularly depict torture as effective. Indeed, most popular films contain torture—often outside of counterterrorism-specific plotlines. In the counterterrorism-specific context, watching a scene where torture works increases support for the practice. Yet counterterrorism-specific media is a niche genre, and we do not know if this holds for torture scenes more generally. We address this gap with a 4 (movie rating) x 3 (scene type) experiment with U.S. adults. While participants recognized that torture scenes are in fact torture, viewing these scenes did not impact support for the practice. Findings suggest that media’s influence on views about torture is more …

Gender And Criminal Justice Responses To Terrorism In The United States, Summer Jackson, Jeff Gruenewald, Katie Ratcliff

Research Projects

This brief summarizes findings from a recent study published in Crime & Delinquency titled "Gender and Criminal Justice Responses to Terrorism in the United States" (available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/00111287211047535 ). Using data from the American Terrorism Study (ATS), this study examine show gender varies across federal terrorism cases, how gender shapes federal terrorism case outcomes, and how combinations of relevant case attributes uniquely impact court outcomes for males and females.

Data include a sample of 2,147 defendants in terrorism-related cases across several types of legal measures: charge type, number of charges, whether or not the prosecutor references terrorism (e.g., relying on …

On-Duty Fatal Police Shootings:Patterns Of Officers Charged With Murder Or Manslaughter, 2005-2020, Chloe Wentzlof, Philip M. Stinson

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Midwestern Criminal Justice Association in Chicago, IL, on September 24, 2021.

Bench Vs. Jury Trials: Sentencing And Conviction Outcomes For Criminally Charged Police Officers, Bethany R. Sager, Chloe Wentzlof, Philip M. Stinson

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Midwestern Criminal Justice Association in Chicago, IL, on September 24, 2021.

Racial Disparities In Police Crime Victimization, Philip M. Stinson, Chloe Wentzlof, John Liederbach, Steven L. Brewer

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

After The Crime: Rewarding Offenders’ Positive Post-Offense Conduct, Paul H. Robinson, Muhammad Sarahne

All Faculty Scholarship

While an offender’s conduct before and during the crime is the traditional focus of criminal law and sentencing rules, an examination of post-offense conduct can also be important in promoting criminal justice goals. After the crime, different offenders make different choices and have different experiences, and those differences can suggest appropriately different treatment by judges, correctional officials, probation and parole supervisors, and other decision-makers in the criminal justice system.

Positive post-offense conduct ought to be acknowledged and rewarded, not only to encourage it but also as a matter of fair and just treatment. This essay describes four kinds of positive …

First Amendment Knowledge And Competence In United States Residents, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Kimberly M. Bernstein

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Lacking adequate knowledge about one's rights could inhibit the likelihood of exercising one's rights or lead one to unwittingly violate laws that place legitimate limits on these rights. Thus, the present research examines First Amendment knowledge as well as competence to apply this knowledge in relevant circumstances. Results revealed that one-quarter of participants failed a test of objective knowledge on First Amendment rights. Furthermore, participants' belief in their ability varied depending on their level of knowledge, in line with the Dunning–Kruger effect. Participants also failed to transfer their limited objective knowledge to “real-world” situations, exhibiting impaired First Amendment competence. These …

Police Homicide: Race And Ethnicity, Christine Henderson, Aimee Quinn, Charles E. Reasons, Veronica Salas, John Vinson, Brittney Warf

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

During the pandemic, routines were interrupted lives were changed and during this time, many individuals spent more time watching the news to learn more about how long it would take to resume normalcy. When George Floyd was murdered by four police officers, time stood still and the world watched. Outrage was immediate. The pandemic offered everyone the opportunity to witness tragedy unfold in front of them a brutality which happens every day, yet is easily ignored. This article examines the incidence of police homicides of people of color, the lack of law enforcement to seek solutions to their own internal …

Pandemic Emotions: The Extent, Correlates And Mental Health Consequences Of Personal And Altruistic Fear Of Covid-19, Melissa M. Sloan, Murat Haner, Amanda K. Graham, Francis T. Cullen, Justine T. Pickett, Cheryl L. Jonson

Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology Faculty Publications

COVID-19 has had unprecedented effects on populations around the world. Given the political context of the pandemic and the nation’s response to it, this study sought to assess the extent of Americans’ personal fear about the virus as well as their fear for others (altruistic fear), identify potential predictors of these fears, and examine the mental health impact of heightened COVID-19 fears. Overall, a majority of respondents worried about various aspects of the virus, from being exposed to dying, and reported often worrying about others, including family, the elderly, and healthcare professionals. Building on the fear of crime literature, we …

To What Extent Is The Death Penalty A Tool Of Racial Terror In America, And How Can We Fix It?, Gabrielle Boileau

Honors Projects

In this project, I seek to answer the question: To what extent is the death penalty a tool of racial terror in America, and how can we fix it? America has long been plagued by the legacy of slavery and white supremacy. In the reconstruction era, when slavery was no longer legal, angry white citizens would simply round up African-Americans and lynch them if they felt they had done something “wrong”. However, in the modern era, such blatant displays of racism are illegal, and the racist views of society are subverted into the court system. Black men are disproportionately arrested …

Racial Sympathy And Support For Capital Punishment: A Case Study In Concept Transfer, Kellie R. Hannan, Francis T. Cullen, Leah C. Butler, Amanda K. Graham, Alexander L. Burton, Velmer S. Burton Jr.

Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology Faculty Publications

Beliefs about race, especially racial resentment, are key predictors of public support for capital punishment and punitiveness generally. Drawing on a conceptual innovation by political scientist Jennifer Chudy, we explore the utility of transferring into criminology her construct of racial sympathy – or Whites’ concern about Blacks’ suffering. First, across three data sets, we replicate Chudy’s finding that racial sympathy and resentment are empirically distinct constructs. Second, based on a national-level 2019 YouGov survey (n = 760 White respondents) and consistent with Chudy’s thesis, racial sympathy is then shown to be significantly related to the race-specific view that capital punishment …

Criminal Mental Health, Tabitha Oliver

Senior Honors Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to assess and address the prevalence of mental health issues among incarcerated individuals in America. There are multiple internal and external contributing factors to the disproportionately high numbers of mentally ill inmates. Comparing the United States prison system with other countries such as Norway allows for possible paths to improving the mental health crisis that we are currently experiencing. This thesis looks at the principles and practices used in Norway's prisons as well as how they affect inmate's mental health. By comparing Norway's prison policies and design, this thesis will suggest changes in staff …

A Comprehensive Evaluation Of An Offender-Focused Domestic Violence Policing Strategy Using The Emmie Framework, Sara C. Mcfann

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As the emphasis on increasing the body of evidence for (or against) policing interventions grows, so does scholars' responsibility to identify not only what works but why, for whom, and in what contexts. An emerging police approach to domestic violence (DV) using offender-focused strategies has grown in popularity. However, the evidence base is small and does not explore inside the “black box” of the main strategic activities. To address this evidence deficiency and provide the first-ever primary study of this type of program, a comprehensive evaluation of a focused deterrence-based policing intervention for DV situated around the EMMIE (Effects, …

Intergroup Images Mediate The Relationships Between Government Abuse, Sociopolitical Orientations, And Political Action, Erin M. Kearns, Christopher Federico, Victor Asal, James Igoe Walsh, Allison E. Betus, Anthony F. Lemieux

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

What factors impact how people mobilize against state human rights abuses? Drawing on Image Theory, we examine how perceptions of an out-group, government abuse, and sociopolitical orientations impact political action. Using an online survey-embedded experiment with a sample of 2,932 U.S. adults, we manipulated two factors: (1) the level of government abuse and (2) the risk of punishment for taking action against the state, while also including social dominance orientation (SDO) and right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) as covariates. Participants indicated their propensity to engage in and justify both protest and violence. Participants rated the out-group as oppressive and evil. State abuse …

Who Wears The Maga Hat? Racial Beliefs And Faith In Trump, Amanda K. Graham, Francis T. Cullen, Leah C. Butler, Alexander L. Burton, Velmer S. Burton Jr.

Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology Faculty Publications

On the basis of a 2019 YouGov survey of white respondents (n = 734), the impact of racial beliefs on support for Donald Trump was explored. The analysis revealed that in addition to racial resentment, white nationalism—a desire to keep the United States white demographically and culturally—was strongly related to faith in Trump. Analyses based on a 2019 Amazon Mechanical Turk survey yielded similar results and also showed that white nationalism increased willingness to wear a MAGA hat. Future research on the political consequences of racial beliefs should focus on what whites think not only of blacks but also …

“Born Under My Heart”: Adoptive Parents’ Use Of Metaphors To Make Sense Of Their Past, Present, And Future, Lucas Hackenburg, Toni Morgan, Eve Brank

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

Metaphors provide the opportunity to make sense of our experiences and share them with others. The current research qualitatively examined interviews with adoptive parents who had adopted through intercountry or private adoptions. Throughout their interviews, each participant used at least one metaphor in describing their experiences of adopting and raising their child. Overarchingly, the metaphor of “Adoption is a journey” encapsulated parents’ experiences. To demonstrate the journey, parents used metaphors to describe the past, present, and future. Metaphors of the past focused on their child’s trauma and the origin of how the child came to join their family. Metaphors used …

The Development And Validation Of The General Attitudes Toward Police (Gap) Questionnaire, Rachel Greis

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Previous studies have examined the relationships between various demographic characteristics (e.g., race/ethnicity, prior arrest experience, residential living area, political affiliation) and various measures of attitudes toward police (e.g., trustworthiness, legitimacy; Brown & Benedict, 2002; Hindelang, 1974; Rizer & Trautman, 2018; Schuck et al., 2008). However, a measure of overall general attitudes toward police has not been established. The main goal of the present research was to fill this gap in the literature by creating and validating a brief questionnaire that effectively captures respondents’ general attitudes toward police. In Study 1, a brief 14-item questionnaire that captured general attitudes toward police …

The Trouble With Numbers: Difficult Decision Making In Identifying Right-Wing Terrorism Cases. An Investigative Look At Open Source Social Scientific And Legal Data, Daniela Peterka-Benton, Francesca Laguardia

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Terrorism research has gained much traction since the 9/11 attacks, but some sub genres of terrorism, such as right-wing terrorism, have remained under-studied areas. Unsurprisingly data sources to study these phenomena are scarce and frequently face unique data collection obstacles. This paper explores five major, social-scientific terrorism databases in regards to data on right-wing terrorist events. The paper also provides an in-depth examination of the utilization of criminal legal proceedings to research right-wing terrorist acts. Lastly, legal case databases are introduced and discussed to show the lack of available court information and case proceedings in regards to right-wing terrorism.

9/11 Impacts On Muslims In Prison, Spearit

Articles

This essay is part of a volume that reflects on the 20-year anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001. The work examines the impacts this event had on the management of Muslims in prison. Soon after the attacks, the culture war against Muslims in the United States began to seep into prisons, where Muslims faced heightened levels of Islamophobia, which cut across several areas of existence: the ability to access religious literature, religious leaders, and paraphernalia, in addition to the federal creation of Communication Management Units. There was also heightened hysteria about the idea of Muslim radicalization in prison, …

Indoctrination And Social Influence As A Defense To Crime: Are We Responsible For Who We Are?, Paul H. Robinson, Lindsay Holcomb

All Faculty Scholarship

A patriotic POW is brainwashed by his North Korean captors into refusing repatriation and undertaking treasonous anti-American propaganda for the communist regime. Despite the general abhorrence of treason in time of war, the American public opposes criminal liability for such indoctrinated soldiers, yet existing criminal law provides no defense or mitigation because, at the time of the offense, the indoctrinated offender suffers no cognitive or control dysfunction, no mental or emotional impairment, and no external or internal compulsion. Rather, he was acting purely in the exercise of free of will, albeit based upon beliefs and values that he had not …

Prisons, Nursing Homes, And Medicaid: A Covid-19 Case Study In Health Injustice, Mary Crossley

Articles

The unevenly distributed pain and suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic present a remarkable case study. Considering why the coronavirus has devastated some groups more than others offers a concrete example of abstract concepts like “structural discrimination” and “institutional racism,” an example measured in lives lost, families shattered, and unremitting anxiety. This essay highlights the experiences of Black people and disabled people, and how societal choices have caused them to experience the brunt of the pandemic. It focuses on prisons and nursing homes—institutions that emerged as COVID-19 hotspots –and on the Medicaid program.

Black and disabled people are disproportionately represented in …