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Articles 211 - 240 of 253

Full-Text Articles in Criminology

Race And Justice Outcomes: Contextualizing Racial Discrimination And Ferguson, Jason M. Williams Apr 2017

Race And Justice Outcomes: Contextualizing Racial Discrimination And Ferguson, Jason M. Williams

Ralph Bunche Journal of Public Affairs

While scores of literature may hint at the tumultuous relationship between the criminal justice system and Blacks, such literature, however, fail to assess, comprehensively, the intersectional purpose of present criminal justice processes and race. This paper will examine contemporary applications of justice along racial lines. It is argued that current justice outcomes are advantageous to the status quo. It is no secret that the American system of justice has a race problem; however, if the goal is to administer justice then, as this paper argues, the current system needs to be seriously examined and rebuilt. The paper also argues that …


Twenty Reasons To Publish In Dignity, Donna M. Hughes Apr 2017

Twenty Reasons To Publish In Dignity, Donna M. Hughes

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.


The Fear Factor: Exploring The Impact Of The Vulnerability To Deportation On Immigrants' Lives, Shirley P. Leyro Feb 2017

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 …


Cognitive Sociology, Michael W. Raphael Jan 2017

Cognitive Sociology, Michael W. Raphael

Publications and Research

Cognitive sociology is the study of the conditions under which meaning is constituted through processes of reification. Cognitive sociology traces its origins to writings in the sociology of knowledge, sociology of culture, cognitive and cultural anthropology, and more recently, work done in cultural sociology and cognitive science. Its central questions revolve around locating these processes of reification since the locus of cognition is highly contentious. Researchers consider how individuality is related to notions of society (structures, institutions, systems, etc.) and notions of culture (cultural forms, cultural structures, sub-cultures, etc.). These questions further explore how these answers depend on learning processes …


Welcome To Dignity, Donna M. Hughes Nov 2016

Welcome To Dignity, Donna M. Hughes

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.


How The City Of Indianapolis Came To Have African American Policemen And Firemen 80 Years Before The Modern Civil Rights Movement., Leon E. Bates Aug 2016

How The City Of Indianapolis Came To Have African American Policemen And Firemen 80 Years Before The Modern Civil Rights Movement., Leon E. Bates

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explores a series of events that occurred in the spring of 1876. The relationship between the Indianapolis city government, the Marion County Courts, the Indianapolis Police Department, and the African American community came together to usher in changes never before envisioned. The Indianapolis Police Department (IPD) was formed in 1855, then disbanded 12 months later in a political dispute. From 1857-to-1876, the IPD was all white. These changes took place as the Reconstruction era was coming to a close. The first Ku Klux Klan was at its apex, terrorizing black communities, and Jim Crow was coming into its …


United States Interventions: Power Vacuums And The Rise Of Extremist Groups, Sarah Nicole Pedigo Jul 2016

United States Interventions: Power Vacuums And The Rise Of Extremist Groups, Sarah Nicole Pedigo

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine U.S. foreign policy in Iraq and Syria and the rise of violent extremist groups such as ISIS. By utilizing the integrated theory of violations of international criminal laws and the realpolitik theoretical frame, this qualitative case study analysis will explore how the U.S. foreign policy, driven by realpolitik and neo-liberalism in Iraq and Syria, resulted in the rise of violent extremist groups such as ISIS. It was concluded that if the United States were to remove the Assad regime and dismantle the Alawite ruling class as it did with the Hussein regime …


Revitalizing The Ethnosphere: Global Society, Ethnodiversity, And The Stakes Of Cultural Genocide, Christopher Powell Ph.D. Jun 2016

Revitalizing The Ethnosphere: Global Society, Ethnodiversity, And The Stakes Of Cultural Genocide, Christopher Powell Ph.D.

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This paper uses the concepts of ethnosphere and ethnodiversity to frame the stakes of cultural genocide in the context of the emerging global society. We are in an era of rapid global ethnodiversity loss. Global ethnodiversity is important because different cultures produce different solutions to the subjective and objective problems of human society, and because cultures have an intrinsic value. Rapid ethnodiversity loss is a byproduct of the expansion of the modern world-system, and Lemkin’s invention of the concept of genocide can be understood as a dialectical reaction to this tendency. The current phase of globalization creates pressures towards global …


A Quantitative Analysis Of Sex Trafficking Law On The Decriminalization Of Youth Involved In Commercialized Sex, Nay Petrucelli Jun 2016

A Quantitative Analysis Of Sex Trafficking Law On The Decriminalization Of Youth Involved In Commercialized Sex, Nay Petrucelli

Theses and Dissertations

Legislators have been responding to the growing push to treat youth in the sex industry as victims of a crime instead of perpetrators. Recent legislative changes have occurred in every state and nationally as part of anti-trafficking legislation, not prostitution law directly. While the content of these laws has been studied, its outcomes for youth have not. This study uses a cross-sectional time-series model to test the impact that changes to state trafficking law has had on juvenile prostitution arrest rates. Findings support the hypothesis that legislation passed with a juvenile protection component decreases the juvenile prostitution arrest rate. It …


The Political Implications Of Felon Disenfranchisement Laws In The United States, Katharine G. Connaughton Jan 2016

The Political Implications Of Felon Disenfranchisement Laws In The United States, Katharine G. Connaughton

CMC Senior Theses

This empirical study analyzes the political implications for presidential election outcomes that stem from varying felon disenfranchisement laws within the United States. In the past decade incarceration rates have drastically increased, consequently augmenting the disenfranchised population. This paper focuses on presidential election outcomes and state political party majorities in the election years 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012. I use demographic characteristics to calibrate assumptions for voter turnout and political party choice among the disenfranchised populations within each state. I then apply these voting populations to historical election outcomes and find that three state political party outcomes change, as well as …


Are Hispanics Discriminated Against In The Us Criminal Justice System?, Maria A. Eijo De Tezanos Pinto Jan 2016

Are Hispanics Discriminated Against In The Us Criminal Justice System?, Maria A. Eijo De Tezanos Pinto

Graduate Research Posters

Recent publications have contributed to increase the perception among Hispanics of an unfair and unequal treatment of this community by the US Criminal Justice System. One of the major concerns was the claim that Hispanics are incarcerated before conviction nearly twice as often as Whites. Unfair treatment perception by the population reduces legitimacy of police and government, and thus, it is imperative to analyze these uninvestigated allegations. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to address said allegations of discrimination against Hispanics and analyze with updated and reliable statistics whether Hispanics are incarcerated before conviction more often than Whites. There …


Climate Change And Interpersonal Violence: A "Global" Estimate And Regional Inequities, Dennis Mares, Kenneth W. Moffett Nov 2015

Climate Change And Interpersonal Violence: A "Global" Estimate And Regional Inequities, Dennis Mares, Kenneth W. Moffett

SIUE Faculty Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

This study estimates the predicted impact of climate change on levels of violence in a sample of 57 countries. We sample western and non-western countries and perform a multilevel ARFIMA regression to examine if warmer temperatures are associated with higher levels of homicide. Our results indicate that each degree Celsius increase in annual temperatures is associated with a nearly 6% average increase in homicides. Regional variation in this predicted effect is detected, for example, with no apparent effects in former Soviet countries and far stronger effects found in Africa. This variation indicates that climate change may acutely increase violence in …


Book Review: Warning Signs Of Genocide: An Anthropological Perspective, Christopher Powell Ph.D. Jun 2015

Book Review: Warning Signs Of Genocide: An Anthropological Perspective, Christopher Powell Ph.D.

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.


Challenging The Political Assumption That “Guns Don’T Kill People, Crazy People Kill People!”, Heath J. Hodges, Mario Scalora Jan 2015

Challenging The Political Assumption That “Guns Don’T Kill People, Crazy People Kill People!”, Heath J. Hodges, Mario Scalora

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Every time an infamous mass shooting takes place, a storm of rhetoric sweeps across this country with the fury of a wild fire. “Why are we letting these people carry guns?” “Why were they not hospitalized?” “The government needs to crack down on this issue!” What is the government’s response to these cries of concern? Politicians and the media attempt to ease public fears by drawing tenuous connections among a handful of poorly understood tragedies. The salient commonality is that these high-profile shooters had some history of mental illness. A cursory review of the Internet will paint a troubling picture …


Racism Vs. Social Capital: A Case Study Of Two Majority Black Communities, Bruce W. Strouble Jan 2015

Racism Vs. Social Capital: A Case Study Of Two Majority Black Communities, Bruce W. Strouble

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Several researchers have identified social capital as a means to improve the social sustainability of communities. While there have been many studies investigating the benefits of social capital in homogeneous White communities, few have examined it in Black homogeneous communities. Also, there has been limited research on the influence of racism on social capital in African American communities. In this dissertation a comparative case study was used within a critical race theory framework. The purpose was to explore the role of racial oppression in shaping social capital in majority African American communities. Data were collected from 2 majority Black communities …


Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission: An Analysis Of Sentence Fairness And Prison Population, Andrew J. Morley Apr 2014

Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission: An Analysis Of Sentence Fairness And Prison Population, Andrew J. Morley

Celebrating Scholarship & Creativity Day (2011-2017)

This article and accompanying poster observe the success of the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission by viewing the consistency of prison sentences and rate of prison population growth after implementation. I hypothesize that the sentecing guidelines allow for fairer sentences and manageable prison capacities. Prior research has shown the success of the determinate sentencing system. The research begins in 1979 with the Commission's conception. The results of research demonstrates that the Guidelines do in fact achieve consistency in sentencing and manageability in prison capacities.


Juvenile Diversion Programs: High-Risk Youth And Their Effect On Offense Targeting, Chelsey R. Warner Apr 2014

Juvenile Diversion Programs: High-Risk Youth And Their Effect On Offense Targeting, Chelsey R. Warner

Political Science Theses and Capstones

One of the largest problems that plague the juvenile justice system today is how to better handle juvenile crime without causing the juvenile to revert back to that behavior, but still helping them understand and acknowledge the crime they have committed. The state of Minnesota has created juvenile diversion programs as an attempt to aid in that endeavor. These programs however are under researched. The goal of this article is to shed some light on what those programs look like and how some counties programs vary from other programs on other counties; specifically focusing on the variation between offense-targeting for …


The Darfur Name Game: Use Of Realpolitik By The United Nations In Decision-Making And Intervention, Angela Overton Jan 2014

The Darfur Name Game: Use Of Realpolitik By The United Nations In Decision-Making And Intervention, Angela Overton

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

Violence has plagued the westernmost region of Sudan, known as Darfur, since 2003. The conflict contains elements of political and ethnic divisiveness, desertification, and resource scarcity. The violence there continues to date. Many have declared genocide in Darfur while others maintain that the conflict is instead a crime against humanity. The labeling of the conflict is critical because this process determines the interventions available. This paper focuses on the decision-making process of the United Nations and its Security Council to determine if the labeling of the conflict impacted the discourse and intervention decisions by those bodies. Discourse analysis results indicate …


Racial Discrimination And The Death Penalty: An Analysis Of The United States' Judicial System, Jessica Recarey, Nerses Kopalyan Jan 2014

Racial Discrimination And The Death Penalty: An Analysis Of The United States' Judicial System, Jessica Recarey, Nerses Kopalyan

McNair Poster Presentations

Racial discrimination plays a role in the administration of the death penalty. This research analyzes the history, and past scholarly research, of the death penalty. The purpose of this research is to understand the correlation between racial discrimination and those sentenced to death. This study includes a literature review regarding the different aspects of the death penalty and race. Following the literature review, an analysis is performed of both previous literature and current death penalty statistics that augments the discussion of the death penalty.


Slavery In Europe: Part 1, Estimating The Dark Figure, Monti Narayan Datta, Kevin Bales Nov 2013

Slavery In Europe: Part 1, Estimating The Dark Figure, Monti Narayan Datta, Kevin Bales

Political Science Faculty Publications

The estimation of the “dark figure” for any crime (the number of actual instances of a specific crime committed minus the reported cases of that crime within a population) has primarily rested on the ability to conduct random sample crime surveys. Such surveys are based on the assumption that victims experience crimes that are discrete, time-bound, and of relatively short duration. The crime of enslavement, however, presents a special challenge to estimation because it is of indeterminate duration. This challenge is compounded by the fact that victims of slavery are also often isolated by the stigma linked to sexual assault, …


Managing The Polarities Of Democracy: A Theoretical Framework For Positive Social Change, William J. Benet Jan 2013

Managing The Polarities Of Democracy: A Theoretical Framework For Positive Social Change, William J. Benet

Journal of Sustainable Social Impact

People around the globe have embraced democracy to bring about positive social change to address our environmental, economic, and militaristic challenges. Yet, there is no agreement on a definition of democracy that can guide social change efforts. The Polarities of Democracy model is a unifying theory of democracy to guide healthy, sustainable, and just social change efforts. The Polarities of Democracy model consists of ten elements, organized as five polarity pairs: freedom & authority, justice & due process, diversity & equality, human-rights & communal-obligations, and participation & representation. In this model each element has positive aspects and negative aspects and …


Law Enforcement Personnel And Lawmaking, Katrina Roberts Jan 2013

Law Enforcement Personnel And Lawmaking, Katrina Roberts

A with Honors Projects

Police officers have the difficult job of reconciling two deeply held but conflicting values: our desire to be safe and secure and our strong belief in the right of individuals to be free from government coercion and excessive control. How law enforcement officers and departments handle this conflict has a direct bearing on how the public sees them. As a culture, we expect our police officers to be able to balance these goals, but when they veer off too far we criticize them. At the extreme, too heavy a focus on order and safety may border on police brutality.


Greece In Crisis: An Interview With Despina Lalaki, Despina Lalaki Jan 2013

Greece In Crisis: An Interview With Despina Lalaki, Despina Lalaki

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.


Environmental Justice & Sociology, Brenna E. Regan May 2012

Environmental Justice & Sociology, Brenna E. Regan

Honors Scholar Theses

This thesis compared the patterns influencing the creation of Native American reservations and the prison industrial complex in the United States. I argue that the country is controlled by people who create a physical and socio-political environment that caters to their certain positionality, adversely effecting and pushing marginalized groups into confined, controlled spaces in their own home. Ultimately, environmental justice, or equal control of people over their environment, is a vital factor in ending structural and physical violence against marginalized groups in the United States.


Phenomenological Theories Of Crime, Peter K. Manning, Michael W. Raphael Jan 2012

Phenomenological Theories Of Crime, Peter K. Manning, Michael W. Raphael

Graduate Student Publications and Research

The distinctive aspect of phenomenological theories of crime is that they are based upon a stated epistemology: how things are known and a specific ontology—the nature of social reality. This specificity aligns itself with neo-Kantian concern with forms of knowing, interpretation, and meaning, as well as with 20th-century concern with perception, cognition, and the framing of events. While there are influences of phenomenological thinking on varieties of theorizing, such as symbolic interactionism, critical theory, queer theory, and gender-based theories of crime, these ideas are refractions and are inconsistent in their reference to and understanding of the foundational phenomenological works. A …


Play Fair With Recidivists, Richard Dagger Jan 2012

Play Fair With Recidivists, Richard Dagger

Political Science Faculty Publications

Retributivists thus face a difficult challenge. Either we must go against the social grain, and perhaps our own intuitions, by insisting that a criminal offense carry the same penalty or punishment no matter how many previous convictions an offender has accrued; or we must find a way to justify the recidivist premium. I shall take the second route here by arguing that recidivism itself is a kind of criminal offense. In developing this argument, I shall rely on Youngjae Lee's insightful analysis of "recidivism as omission." I shall complement his analysis, however, by grounding it in a conception of criminal …


Through The Looking Glass: Finding And Freeing Modern-Day Slaves At The State Level, Michelle L. Rickert Jul 2010

Through The Looking Glass: Finding And Freeing Modern-Day Slaves At The State Level, Michelle L. Rickert

Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article delves into the interaction between federal and state laws prohibiting human trafficking. The article advocates for comprehensive human trafficking laws at the state level, including police training, victim aftercare, forfeiture, and prosecution as essential elements. It looks comprehensively at the existing state laws prohibiting human trafficking. Additionally it examines the five existing models for state law and suggests benefits and potential improvements for each model. The article concludes y advocating a holistic law prohibiting human trafficking in the Commonwealth of Virginia.


Taking Money: The Politics Of Asset Forfeiture In The State Of Minnesota, Chad Hedman Apr 2010

Taking Money: The Politics Of Asset Forfeiture In The State Of Minnesota, Chad Hedman

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Is there a reason why a particular county might use asset forfeiture more than others? Asset forfeiture, in short, is law enforcement confiscating any items used in the act of committing a crime. As many governments face more budget crunches and deficits all means of revenue will become more vital to everyday operations. Everything gets reported back to the Minnesota State Auditor, where I was able to get complete data on every county. For variables such as education, race and others I drew from numerous government websites. I wanted to see if certain variables correlated with higher incidence of forfeiture. …


Three Worlds Of Western Punishment: A Regime Theory Of Cross-National Incarceration Rate Variation, 1960-2002, Matthew Demichele Jan 2010

Three Worlds Of Western Punishment: A Regime Theory Of Cross-National Incarceration Rate Variation, 1960-2002, Matthew Demichele

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation offers an explanation of cross national incarceration rate variation for 17 industrialized countries for the second half of the 20th century. Both historical case studies and time-series cross-section analyses are used to provide an institutional explanation of incarceration rate differences. Borrowing from Weber’s Sociology of Law and comparative legal scholarship, it is suggested that three types of legal thinking exist among western democracies—Common, Romano-Germanic, and Nordic law. A regime approach commonly applied in political economic explanations of welfare state development is used to quantify the legal and criminal justice institutional differences between 1960 and 2002 to assert …


Fear Or Rage?: Assessing Public Opinion And Policy Responses To Terrorist Attacks, Gabriel Rubin Sep 2009

Fear Or Rage?: Assessing Public Opinion And Policy Responses To Terrorist Attacks, Gabriel Rubin

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Mass fear has been posited as the main emotional outcome of terror attacks. Indeed, the term “terrorism” itself emphasizes that such attacks are meant to stoke fear. Yet, a critical piece of the post-terror attack dynamic has been largely ignored: the public rage that comes in response to terror attacks. Witness the call for politicians to step down after the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai or the placard reading “Nuke ‘Em Till They Glow” at the 2001 World Series. It is the contention of this paper that, after a major terror attack has occurred, the public is more angry than …