Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons^™

Exploring The Relationship Between Anger, Aggression, And Perpetrator Substance Use In The Commission Of Sexual Offenses, Dominique Rivera

Student Theses

This study examined the potential association between perpetrator substance use, anger, and aggressive behavior in the commission of sexual crimes. The sample included 246 adult males convicted of rape (n = 54) or child molestation (n = 192). Descriptive statistics revealed that 64.6% of the individuals in this sample (n = 159) were intoxicated at the time of the offense. Results showed that perpetrators who used substances at the time of the offense were more likely to exhibit aggressive behavior toward the victim (e.g., weapon use, verbal abuse) than those who did not. Offenders with higher pervasive anger scores were …

Seeking Clemency: A Profile On Jacob Rouse, Jocelyn A. Contreras, Sarah Gabrielli

Capstones

Jacob Rouse was 18 years old when he drove the getaway car that would define the rest of his life. He sat in his blue Ford Taurus, waiting to drive his three friends away from the scene of a robbery in Rochester, New York. Jacob was parked about a block away when one of his accomplices shot and killed 22-year-old Herschel Scriven, a local youth pastor and church organist.

He is now seeking clemency.

Seeing And Responding: How Students Perceive School Personnel To Fail To Respond To Bullying, Ethan M. Higgins, Benjamin W. Fisher, Maury Nation

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Although research has shown that students and school personnel believe that adults respond to bullying at different rates, it is unclear why these differences occur. Using open-ended survey responses from 189 students, this study investigates why students perceive that school personnel fail to respond to bullying. Students articulated a variety of reasons for school personnel’s lack of response, including ways in which they could fail to see, notice, or respond to the bullying. In turn, students used their agency to understand and counteract school personnel’s lack of response. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed."

Disparity In Context: Judges’ Perspectives On Disparities In A Sentencing Guideline System, Justin M. Smith

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Unwarranted disparity in sentencing continues to be a problem in criminal courts. Sentencing, a final step in the multi-stage process of criminal justice, is seen as such an important component of ensuring consistency that legislative policy has created guidelines to control judicial decision-making. Nonetheless, research shows that disparity under sentencing guidelines persists due to influences external to the law - referred to as substantive rationality. Sentencing research overwhelmingly utilizes quantitative analysis of official court data to produce its conclusions about the influences of disparity. The current study builds upon past research by using qualitative analysis of interviews with 20 judges …

Social Exchange And The Formation Of Prison Visitation Communities, Adam Trahan, Douglas Evans

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Family members and significant others of incarcerated individuals suffer when their loved ones are incarcerated. The loss of a parent, sibling, child, spouse, or partner to incarceration can be painful. If they wish to stay physically connected to an incarcerated individual, visitation is their only recourse. Visiting a prison can be costly in terms of the amount of time it takes to travel to the facility, the total expenses incurred during travel, and the socio-emotional effects of limited contact. On top of these costs, visitation can be an intricate process to navigate due to the multitude of facility rules and …

Perceptions Of Rehabilitative Change Among Incarcerated Persons Enrolled In A Prison-Equine Program (Pep), Joyce A. Arditti, Amy A. Morgan, Sara Spiers, Virginia Buechner-Maxwell, Vicky Shivy

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Guided by a grounded theory methodology, the authors propose a theory of rehabilitation for incarcerated persons within a prison equine program (PEP). Interviews with ten incarcerated men yielded a grounded theory of rehabilitative change centered around the importance of relationships with program staff and horses, and the uniqueness of the barn-equine environment in promoting safe attachments and positive views of self. Special emphasis is placed on the development of secure reparative attachments between men and their horses grounded in acceptance and mutual empathy, as well as the development of redemptive identities whereby participants viewed themselves as having purpose and value …

Wildlife Trade And Covid-19: Towards A Criminology Of Anthropogenic Pathogen Spillover, Piers Beirne Phd

Department of Criminology

The general remit of this paper is the role of wildlife trade in pathogen spillover. Its underlying assumption is that, so far from being the exclusive domain of the life sciences, the study of pathogen spillover will be greatly enhanced by multi-perspectival approaches, including One Health and those employed here, namely, non-speciesist green criminology and critical animal studies. The paper moves from discussions of zoonosis, anthroponosis and wildlife trade to the emergence of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China. The paper recommends the abolition of all wildlife trade and the reclamation of wildlife habitat and broaches discussion of the extension of legal …

Effects Of Eye Imagery On Criminal Justice And Forensic Students Cheating In Online Testing, Kortni Larue

Theses

Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) is a well-established subsection of environmental criminology in which aspects of the environment are altered in order to prevent crimes before they happen. This is primarily accomplished in two ways: physical and psychological. CPTED strategies often utilize both in order to prevent crime, but there is a lack of primarily psychologically based research in circulation. This includes the manipulation of the biopsychological response to gaze detection in order to increase prosocial behavior. Additionally, there is a lack of studies indicating if CPTED strategies are effective in a classroom setting and even less concerning online …

Impact Of Endangered Animal Protection Rights, Policies, And Practices On Zoonotic Disease Spread, Daniella Fedak-Lengel

Honors Projects

Building on field research in Costa Rica and Belize, this honors project analyzes environmental and endangered animal protection policies, rights, and practices in Central America and the Caribbean, and assesses the impact of veterinary science and biological research and practice, particularly conservation biology, on animal welfare concerns. Informed by the recent surge in awareness regarding zoonoses and zoonotic disease transmission, prevention and control, resulting from the current global pandemic of SARS-CoV-2, the project assesses the need for new and innovative types of collaboration, particularly involving conservation biologists, environmental scientists, public health experts, law and policy makers, and global trade and …

Criminal Justice Updates - December 2020, Haley B. Shultz

Criminal Justice Updates

The Criminal Justice Update is a monthly newsletter created by the Adams County Bar Foundation Fellow providing updates in criminal justice policy coming from Pennsylvania's courts and legislature as well as the US Supreme Court.

Contents:

• Updates from PA Governor's Office (no updates this month)
• Updates from the PA Legislature (no updates this month)
• Updates from the Courts
• U.S. Supreme Court: Criminal Law & Procedure
• PA Supreme Court: Criminal Law & Procedure
• PA Superior Court: Criminal Law & Procedure

[Preprint] University Of Missouri-St. Louis Comprehensive Safe Schools Initiative (Umsl Cssi), Finn-Aage Esbensen, Stephanie Wiley, Timothy Mccuddy, Elaine Doherty, Lee Slocum, Terrance Taylor, Kyle Thomas, Matt Vogel

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Works

This resource has not been published by the U.S. Department of Justice. This resource is being made publically available through the Office of Justice Programs’ National Criminal Justice Reference Service.

Juveniles In The Interrogation Room: Defense Attorneys As A Protective Factor, Caitlin N. August, Kelsey S. Henderson

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications and Presentations

Juveniles are more susceptible in the interrogation room than adults, due to a host of vulnerabilities that put them at risk. Scholars have suggested that requiring the presence of a defense attorney during interrogations can protect juveniles from making an unintelligent waiver; variations of this type of policy have been mandated in some states across the United States (e.g., Illinois and California). The current study takes an exploratory, qualitative approach to examine how defense attorneys may act as a protective factor in the interrogation room. We interviewed 19 juvenile defenders using a semi-structured interview method; questions focused on experiences in …

"If Consent Is Bought, It Is Not Freely Chosen": Compromised Consent In Prostituted Sex In Ireland, Ivana Bacik

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

This article offers feminist arguments for the reconsideration of consent as a legal concept, informed by insights gained through the work of the #MeToo movement and other feminist campaigns. It suggests that consent may be seen as legally compromised in certain contexts of structured gender inequality, such as domestic violence, workplace sexual harassment, and prostitution. The legal understanding of consent in such contexts is antithetical to the conception of consent as “freely and voluntarily” given within a mutual sexual relationship. This understanding of consent underpins the recent introduction of the Nordic model approach into Irish law through the Criminal Law …

Judicial Voting In U.S. District Courts Located In The Second And Fifth Circuits In First Amendment Retaliation Cases Involving Law Enforcement Officers, Selena Renee Aguirre

Criminology & Criminal Justice Theses - Archive

This study examined the influence of party affiliation, as measured by the party of the appointing president; legal precedent; judicial circuit (Second or Fifth); race; gender; and prior prosecutorial experience on voting by U.S. District Court judges in First Amendment retaliation cases brought law enforcement officials against their employers. Applying binary logistic regression analyses to a data set comprised of 163 judicial votes with pro-plaintiff and pro-defendant voting serving as the dependent measure, the results indicated that only judges’ party affiliation had a significant effect on voting (Wald= 4.469, 1 df., p= .035) president. There was a .437 decrease in …

An Examination Of School Characteristics, Shooter Characteristics, And Incidental Characteristics Of School Mass Shootings, Amber Elizabeth O'Dell

Criminology & Criminal Justice Theses - Archive

School Mass Shootings (SMS) continue to be an ongoing issue for k-12 schools, technical/vocational schools, and on college campuses in the United States. Recent studies have shown that these crimes are increasing in both frequency and lethality. However, SMS are still considered to be statistically rare events making them difficult to study quantitatively. Many extant studies use an exclusive definition of SMS where an incident must have four or more deaths to be categorized as this type of crime. The present study utilizes an inclusive definition of 2 or more deaths, where every four injuries count as a death in …

Current Sex Offender Laws: Are They Doing More Harm Than Good?, Gail Onderak

Counselor Education Capstones

Public sentiment toward sex offenders is that of hatred, contempt, and fear. These attitudes have led to the creation of sex offender legislation that is exceptionally restrictive and punitive. While best practices and current treatment models call for minimization of risk and maximization of personal fulfillment in order to reduce recidivism, sex offender laws pose as obstacles to these goals. A review of the risk-need-responsivity (RNR) principles and the Good Lives Model (GLM) treatment approach highlights the contrast between intended outcomes of these methods and the challenges that sex offender notification and registration (SORN) and residency restrictions present when trying …

Michigan Sex Offender Registry: Implications And Effects, Heather Damuth

Honors Projects

This paper discusses the Michigan Sex Offender Registry Act (SORA) and the ways that it affects offenders, the public, and society. It also discusses the conveniences and the challenges in relation to the SORA including discussions about public safety, and offender rights. The impacts on offenders, victims, and the general public are also discussed. The research was done through the Grand Valley State University Library, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Michigan Legislation. Sources were examined and combined to form an integrative research paper about the sex offender registry in Michigan.

Vocational And Life Skills Monthly Data Update: December 2020, Uno Nebraska Center For Justice Research, Katelynn Towne

Reports

Grantees use an online data management system to submit data on participants served under their Vocational and Life Skills programming. This data is due monthly and reflects all services provided during the previous month to participants. Evaluators at the Nebraska Center for Justice Research work with grantees directly to manage data entry errors on an ongoing basis during update calls and site visits.

The current data derives from an active database, from which data is being entered and updated daily. Data values, including previously submitted information, may fluctuate depending on the duration of lag between service delivery and data entry. …

Vocational And Life Skills Quarterly Report: Grant Cycle 4 Quarter 2 October-December 2020, Uno Nebraska Center For Justice Research, Katelynn Towne, Michael Campagna

Reports

This report presents quarterly data and evaluation updates for the Vocational and Life Skills Program (VLS) through Quarter Two of Grant Cycle Four. VLS was created by Nebraska Legislative Bill 907 in 2014 with the purpose of reducing recidivism and increasing meaningful employment for individuals convicted of a crime in Nebraska. The report contains 1) descriptions of the eight funded organizations across the state, 2) a snapshot of participation, 3) demographics of the participants, and 4) participation breakdowns and descriptions of the skills participants are gaining through VLS programming.

The VLS initiative is evaluated by the Nebraska Center for Justice …

Evolution Of Confession Law, Madison Macpherson

Senior Honors Theses

Many studies have been conducted to examine how false confessions occur, and what their impacts are. Throughout its history, America has instituted standards for interrogation procedures that are aligned with research findings and that build off constitutional principles. These are designed to protect individual rights while still accomplishing the goals of the judicial system. This paper discusses false confessions, interrogation laws, and how these impact a suspect, as well as the other influences acting upon suspects including plea bargaining and psychological processes. A compilation of research findings and case law culminates in the conclusion that changes must be made to …

Do Sequential Lineups Impair Underlying Discriminability?, Matthew Kaesler, John C. Dunn, Keith Ransom, Carolyn Semmler

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020, The Author(s). Debate regarding the best way to test and measure eyewitness memory has dominated the eyewitness literature for more than 30 years. We argue that resolution of this debate requires the development and application of appropriate measurement models. In this study we developed models of simultaneous and sequential lineup presentations and used these to compare these procedures in terms of underlying discriminability and response bias, thereby testing a key prediction of diagnostic feature detection theory, that underlying discriminability should be greater for simultaneous than for stopping-rule sequential lineups. We fit the models to the corpus of studies …

Policing Farm Crime: An Exploratory Study Of Agricultural Crime Units, Brianna Lynn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore the practices, perceptions, and operations of agricultural crime units. To date, there has been little research conducted on policing agricultural crimes and no known research on units specializing in investigating them. The study utilizes data gathered from qualitative interviews with agricultural crime investigators across several states to fill this gap in the literature. The results allow for an examination of the fundamental practices of agricultural units, their perceptions and their experiences. In addition, they point to several implications for both policy and practice that may serve to guide our efforts to combat …

How Perpetrator Identity (Sometimes) Influences Media Framing Attacks As “Terrorism” Or “Mental Illness”, Allison E. Betus, Erin M. Kearns, Anthony F. Lemieux

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Do media frame attacks with Muslim perpetrators as “terrorism” and attacks with White perpetrators as the result of “mental illness”? Despite public speculation and limited academic work with relatively small subsets of cases, there have been no systematic analyses of potential biases in how media frame terrorism. We addressed this gap by examining the text of print news coverage of all terrorist attacks in the United States between 2006 and 2015. Controlling for fatalities, affiliation with a group, and existing mental illness, the odds that an article references terrorism are approximately five times greater for a Muslim versus a non-Muslim …

Dual Disadvantage: An Examination Of Racial Disparities In Victim And Suspect Criminal Justice Treatment, Paige Vaughn

Dissertations

During the past several decades, American criminal justice legal systems appear to have been over-punishing Black individuals as perpetrators of crime, and neglecting them as violent crime victims, perpetuating disparities that simultaneously repress and alienate Black citizens. Such complex processes of racial inequality are difficult to capture in studies that focus on single criminal justice stages and limited sets of variables. After presenting a working conceptualization of case processing that can be used across criminal justice systems, the current study uses data from the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office, and U.S. Census to assess racial …

Police Crime Against Black Victims, 2005-2014, Philip M. Stinson, Chloe Wentzlof, Steven L. Brewer

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

This study reports the findings of a pilot study to add new variables on race of victims to a larger existing data set of police crime arrest cases from years 2005-2014. The purpose of this study is to improve policing and inform the public about patterns of police crimes perpetrated against Black victims at state and local law enforcement agencies across the United States. This study aims to identify characteristics and associations of police crime arrest cases and victim race. Bivariate analyses found statistically significant associations between violence-related police crimes against black victims. CHAID regression models explored multivariate relationships.

Presented …

Budaya Penjara, Subkultur Terorisme Dan Radikalisasi: Perspektif Kriminologi Budaya, Laode Arham

Journal of Terrorism Studies

This paper aims to explain how the radicalization of prisoners in correctional institutions (Lapas) occurs through the perspective of Cultural Criminology. Radicalization takes place through a lifestyle and subculture of terrorist prisoners which is supported by the culture and the actual prison system which is the result of the interaction and agreement of the actors. All of the cultural aspects that shape radicalization are part of a unique prison culture, as the subculture of terrorism. By using qualitative methods, research data were collected through observation, interviews and the author's experience in interacting with various actors in several prisons. This paper …

“Sometimes I’M Just Wearing The Prosecutor Down”: An Exploratory Analysis Of Criminal Defense Attorneys In Plea Negotiations And Client Counseling, Jacqueline G. Lee, John W. Ropp

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications and Presentations

As plea bargains have proliferated in the criminal justice system, scholars have been working to better understand their mechanics. There have been a few recent examinations of plea bargaining, but the literature lacks qualitative research that gives the defense sufficient attention. Using a sample of courtroom practitioners in one large, urban county, we examine defense attorney bargaining and client counseling tactics. Results demonstrate that defense attorneys use a variety of strategies for negotiation, including sharing humanizing information about their clients with the prosecutor and utilizing delay tactics. Results also suggest that attorneys counsel their clients about plea offers in varying …

Substance Use And Life-Course Narratives For Criminally Involved Veterans, Tyler J. Marcheschi

Theses and Dissertations

Criminal justice involvement stemming from substance use is a common issue with whichmilitary veterans struggle. Research on substance use has indicated that a multitude of negative life-course outcomes can result for individuals who abuse substances. While prior research has studied the relationships between substance use and military veterans, there is little empirical analysis that focuses on the narrative accounts of veterans and their experiences with substance use. The goal of the current thesis is to expand on this topic by exploring how criminally involved veterans experience substance use and the perceived impact substance use has on the life-course according to …

The Prevalence Of Intimate Partner Violence And Victim Resources At Georgia Southern University, Elizabeth Lacey

Honors College Theses

The goal of this project is to measure the prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) among young adults in a college setting. Using an anonymous, self-report survey, college students at a large university in the south were asked about their experiences with IPV, as well as their knowledge and perceptions of victim’s services available on campus and in the community. Results reveal that IPV Is more prevalent among females and technology-related IPV is more prevalent among males at Georgia Southern University. In addition, the study found that compared to women, men are more informed about existing victim services.

American Police Violence, Racism, And Corruption, Ethan Gallagher

English Department: Research for Change - Wicked Problems in Our World

In this paper, I convey the serious need for change within the American police departments. In America, law enforcement has been systematically oppressed minorities for decades with no repercussions and has been protected by the corrupted system. It is time for new tactics to be implemented in America for dealing with civilians because the cops are not fulfilling their duty to protect the people anymore, they're hurting the people. Everyone in America now either hates the police or are terrified of them making a huge divide between everyone in the country. After seeing all the controversy that has transpired it's …