Criminology Commons^™

Official Misconduct And Error Correction Mechanisms In Exonerated Death Penalty Cases, Kamali'ilani Theresa Elizabeth Wetherell

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

There has been an average of approximately 3.9 death penalty exonerations annually in the United States since 1973 (DPIC, 2021). Wrongful convictions and executions constitute grave and irreversible errors. Studies show official misconduct is one of the leading causes for wrongful convictions and exonerations. Misconduct by police, prosecutors, and judges includes a wide range of behaviors such as coercing confessions, depriving rights to legal counsel, threatening witnesses, and concealing evidence. Operating under the due process model, the adversarial legal system is designed to detect and prevent any procedural violations of defendant’s rights, including official misconduct. Utilizing Packer’s (1964) due process …

Exploring The Role Of Adverse Childhood Experiences (Aces) Among Gendered Racial/Ethnic Groups Of Justice-Involved Youth, Linsey A. Belisle

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Justice-involved youth are exposed to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) at higher rates than youth in the general public, highlighting the importance of addressing childhood trauma and adversity in juvenile justice settings. A majority of ACEs research has focused on the general population and has demonstrated the long lasting negative impact of ACEs, on mental health, physical health, and engagement in health risk behaviors. Both gender and racial/ethnic differences have been identified in ACEs literature, suggesting that not all groups in society have the same likelihood of experiencing ACEs. Additionally, ACEs may also impact individuals from racial/ethnic or gender groups differently, …

Treatment And Perceptions Of Lgbtqia+ Persons, Emily Bolshazy

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In school districts across the country, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQIA+) young adults are being bullied at alarming rates. These experiences have longterm implications for quality of life, employment opportunities, and justice system interactions. Yet, very little research is dedicated to understanding their experiences. This project includes qualitative triangulation analysis to compare common themes throughout three data sources. Research questions this project seeks to answer are 1) How do people who are anti-LGBTQIA+ policy perceive LGBTQIA+ young adults? and 2) What are the experiences of LGBTQIA+ individuals? The overall goal of this research project is to be able …

From Ex-Offenders To Hopefuls: Exploring Changing Narratives And Personal Stories Of Desistance, Darby Buckley

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Research for this thesis seeks to understand how recently incarcerated individuals understand recidivism and how they desist from criminal activities and re-offending behaviors. It seeks to understand if desistance is occurring in a re-entry organization and if so, when. Participants from a Las Vegas, Nevada re-entry organization called HOPE for Prisoners (HFP) are the focus of this research. Overall, the purpose of this study is to see how a local re-entry non-profit organization helps assist with services and opportunities for individuals who were formerly incarcerated. Analyzing the research from this project will help provide information regarding how individuals who are …

Examining Predictors Of Student Perceptions Of University Responses To Sexual Misconduct, Megan Giovannini

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The prevalence of college students’ experiences with sexual violence has been well documented (e.g., Cantor et al., 2015; Fisher, Cullen & Turner, 2000; Krebs et al., 2007), along with the negative consequences associated with sexual victimization (e.g., Campbell, Dworkin & Cabral, 2009). Court cases, student disclosures, and media coverage have brought more attention to university responses to sexual misconduct and have attempted to hold universities accountable. The purpose of this study is to examine predictors of student perceptions of university responses to sexual misconduct, therefore adding to the existing literature. It is among one of the first to examine predictors …

Bystanders’ Willingness To Report Crimes And Cooperate With Legal Authorities: The Role Of Individual And Contextual Differences, Matthew P. West

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Studies and victimization surveys suggest that many, if not most, crimes are not reported to legal authorities. The overarching aim of this project was to examine the roles of individual and contextual differences in bystanders’ willingness to report crimes to, and cooperate with, legal authorities. A sample of 1,434 adults in the U.S. completed a survey in which they read and responded to crime vignettes and responded to items theoretically measuring individual differences in legal socialization, perceived legitimacy, the need for cognitive closure, right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, and the general willingness to cooperate. Bystanders’ relationship to the victim, relationship …

Predictors Of Violent And Non-Violent Institutional Infractions Of Death Row Prisoners, Tereza Trejbalová

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Institutional misconduct has been widely researched in the criminological literature for more than 50 years, leading to an extensive knowledge about how and why different prisoners misbehave while incarcerated. Nevertheless, one correctional population has been mostly left out of these research pursuits – death row prisoners (DRPs). Although DRPs form a small fraction of the overall number of incarcerated individuals in the US, they tend to spend more than 20 years in maximum security facilities and require a considerable amount of resources. As such, it is imperative for the safety of the facility, the staff, and the prisoners themselves to …

Restoration Of A Nation, Deshauna Williams

Honors College Theses

Restorative justice is a growing school of penal thought which places emphasis on restoration and healing rather than punitive solutions. The purpose of this study is to assess whether prior experience with the criminal justice system, either as a victim, as an offender, or as an employee, affects perceptions of the foundations of restorative justice. These foundations include ideas such as punishment, retribution, and victim involvement. Additionally, this study examines how these perspectives influence the respondents’ perception of effectiveness or “justness” of the criminal justice system. Findings reveal that offenders have more negative views of punishment as a method of …

What Do They Know? Police Experiences With Hate Crime In Arkansas, Randi Marie Latiolais

Theses and Dissertations

Hate crimes are likely underreported due to victim’s understanding and reluctance to reporting hate crimes. Few studies have looked at how police attitudes and experiences can affect the way officers report incidents, especially for hate crimes. This Thesis explored police definitions and perceptions of hate crime to ascertain the degree to which these experiences might affect police responses to hate crime (e.g., reporting, investigation, protective actions for victims) and their interactions with victims. A thematic content analysis identified patterns in the definitions and experiences police officers from Pulaski County (AR) have regarding hate crimes. A snowball sampling technique resulted in …

A Qualitative Examination Of Homeless Lgbtq+ Adults In Arkansas, Trye Price

Theses and Dissertations

In the United States, LGBTQ+ individuals are disproportionately represented among the homeless population. While homeless, members of the LGBTQ+ community are more likely to face discrimination, stigmatization, and victimization than their heterosexual counterparts. Although previous research on homelessness among the LGBTQ+ community has been insightful, we know little about the lived experiences of homeless LGBTQ+ adults in Arkansas. Therefore, the current study sought to understand the life experiences of LGBTQ+ adults in Arkansas who are or were homeless at one time in their adult lives. More specifically, this study focused on how individuals enter and exit homelessness, incidents of physical …

“Can You Make It Out Alive?” Investigating Penal Imaginaries At Forts, Sanitaria, Asylums, And Segregated Schools, Linda Mussell, Kevin Walby, Justin Piché

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"We draw from literature on penal imaginaries to examine representations at fright nights and other staged cultural scenes from across Canada and the United States that reproduce justifications for imprisonment and punishment. Based on an analysis of online content and news coverage of fright nights organized at forts, sanitoria, psychiatric institutions/asylums, and segregated schools, we demonstrate that these displays mobilize stereotypes and shame to denigrate prisoners and naturalize imprisonment. Moreover, we show that these displays invoke health tropes concerning contagion to intensify fears regarding prisoners by portraying them as a threat to the social body, further rationalizing the existence of …

Do I Report This? Understanding Variation In The Content Of State Mandatory Reporting Laws, Robert D. Lytle, Dana L. Radatz, Lisa L. Sample, Randi M. Latiolais

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Since accusations went public that administrators at Pennsylvania State University ignored reports of child abuse during the Jerry Sandusky trial almost a decade ago, several educational and state agencies have reinterpreted aspects of their respective laws requiring certain persons to report suspected child maltreatment (mandatory reporting laws). These reinterpretations were possible due to the ambiguity of statutory language used in the law and, subsequently, may have exposed individuals to a legal responsibility to report to which they were previously unaware. In this study, we use a thematic content analysis to examine variation across state mandatory reporting statutes from all fifty …

Domestic Violence Calls For Help Increased During The Pandemic – But The Answers Haven’T Gotten Any Easier, Tara N. Richards, Justin Nix

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Policing Perspectives Concerning Confusion And Uncertainty In Policing Practices With “Honour”- Based Crimes And Forced Marriages, Wendy Aujla

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Police regularly deal with various forms of violence against women and girls, such as domestic violence, family violence, and intimate partner violence in police work. However, since certain kinds of violence require a more nuanced approach to investigations, this paper reports on the experiences and challenges in policing different types of violence, such as “honour”-based crimes (HBCs), including forced marriages (FMs), within the broader Canadian discourse and political stances informing law and policy decisions. As well as what is still needed to improve responses to HBCs and FMs, it is important to consider the impact of laws and policy changes …

“It’S Not A Conversation Starter.” Or Is It?: Stigma Management Strategies Of The Formerly Incarcerated In Personal And Occupational Settings, Nicholas Park, Grant Tietjen

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Mass incarceration and its ill effects remains a major social problem in the United States. Those exiting the criminal justice system reenter society with the label of exconvict, a label that is permanent, highly stigmatized in American society, and has serious potential ramifications for successful reintegration, including: access to employment, higher education, and housing; acceptance in their communities; and successful personal relationships. The purpose of this study was to explore (1) anticipated stigma, (2) actual experienced stigma, and (3) the stigma management strategies that formerly incarcerated individuals employed in their personal and occupational lives. Drawing from a modified labeling theory …

The Future Is Female: An Examination Of Officer-Offender Relationships Using A Sample Of Justice-Involved Women, Darian Hailes

Master of Science in Criminal Justice Theses & (Pre-2016) Policy Research Projects

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact that officer-offender relationships have on the rehabilitation of justice-involved women. Though there has been an overall decline of individuals involved with the justice system over the last decade, researchers have found that the rate of justice-involved women has increased (Alper et al., 2018; Kaeble & Alper, 2020). Likewise, the use of community corrections as punishment has increased as an alternative to traditional incarceration. As recently as 2020, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported an increase in women entering the national jail system. This increase of justice-involved women, coupled with concerns …

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

Criminology and Criminal Justice 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 …

Police Shootings In The Mountain West, 2015 - 2021, Elia Del Carmen Solano-Patricio, Madison Frazee-Bench, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Criminal Justice

The Washington Post publishes and regularly updates a dataset regarding the use of deadly force by police since 2015. This fact sheet extracts data for each state in the Mountain West (Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah), and presents a regional perspective on the total number of individuals shot and killed by police, including demographic variables such as race, gender, and age. Two additional variables are included in this examination: the presence or absence of mental illness in the individual killed by police, and the presence or absence of a body-worn camera in incidents of deadly force by police.

Variants Of Social Disorganization: A Comparison Of Community Characteristic Measures On Crime Between Urban And Rural Counties In The United States, Shun Q. Feng

Student Theses

Abstract

Statement of Problem: This research examines the difference in the predictive nature of conventional social disorganization measures on seven (7) different crime types between urban and rural counties in the United States during 2014. There is a well-developed body of criminological research examining the effect of neighborhood disadvantage on crime through the social disorganization framework. However, social disorganization has been tested almost exclusively in urban or metropolitan areas, suggesting the current framework explaining criminal incidents through conventional measures of neighborhood disadvantage may be limited by “urban bias”. The present study seeks to test the conventional measures of social disorganization …

Career Preperation Capstone, Jennifer M. Combs

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A capstone submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education in the Ernst and Sara Lane Volgenau College of Education at Morehead State University on April 14, 2021.

Employment And Recidivism: An Analysis Of A Faith-Based Reentry Program, Emily Friedman, Caitlin J. Steckley, Rachel Simmons

Showcase of Osprey Advancements in Research and Scholarship (SOARS)

Project of Merit Winner

Recently released criminal offenders are generally subjected to heavy stigma as they reenter society which is compounded by the general isolation that many feel upon release. Because of these difficulties, re-entry programs can be an effective, prosocial way for ex-offenders to reintegrate back into the community and workforce. This project was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of a local faith-based, non-profit re-entry program in Duval County between 2015 and 2019. Prisoners of Christ (POC) services both low and high-risk offenders through their employment assistance and residential housing programs. We conducted quantitative research on POC participants utilizing …

Noble Intent Is Not Enough To Run Veterans Court Mentoring Programs: A Qualitative Study Of Mentors’ Role Orientation And Responsibilities, Anne S. Douds, Eilenn M. Ahlin, Cassandra Atkin-Plunk, Michael Posteraro

Public Policy Faculty Publications

Mentoring is a key component of veterans treatment courts, a diversionary problem-solving court for justice-involved military veterans. Mentoring programs are unique to veterans’ courts; no other problem-solving courts systematically include them as critical components of their court programming. Despite their prominence in veterans courts, little is known about mentor program operations and court expectations for mentors’ roles and responsibilities. This study examines mentors’ roles and responsibilities as perceived by mentees, mentors, and veterans treatment court staff. Using in-depth interview data from respondents from each of these groups, supplemented by observational data from court hearings and pre-court meetings, we identify three …

Catholics And Capital Punishment: Do Pope Francis’S Teachings Matter In Policy Preferences?, Francis T. Cullen, Amanda Graham, Kellie R. Hannan, Alexander L. Burton, Leah C. Butler, Velmer S. Burton Jr.

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

In the United States, Catholics make up more than 50 million members of the adult population, or about one in five Americans. It is unclear whether their religious affiliation shapes Catholics’ views on public policy issues, ranging from the legality of abortion to criminal justice practices. Capital punishment is especially salient, given that Pope Francis announced in 2018—as official Catholic Church teaching—that the death penalty is “inadmissible” under all circumstances. Based on two national surveys, the current project explores Catholics’ support for state executions before (2017) and after (2019) the Pope’s momentous change in the church’s Catechism. At present, little …

Noble Intent Is Not Enough To Run Veterans Court Mentoring Programs: A Qualitative Study Of Mentors’ Role Orientation And Responsibilities, Anne S. Douds, Eileen M. Ahlin, Cassandra Atkins-Plunk

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Mentoring is a key component of veterans treatment courts, a diversionary problem-solving court for justice-involved military veterans. Mentoring programs are unique to veterans’ courts; no other problem-solving courts systematically include them as critical components of their court programming. Despite their prominence in veterans courts, little is known about mentor program operations and court expectations for mentors’ roles and responsibilities. This study examines mentors’ roles and responsibilities as perceived by mentees, mentors, and veterans treatment court staff. Using in-depth interview data from respondents from each of these groups, supplemented by observational data from court hearings and pre-court meetings, we identify three …

Cyberbullying: Its Social And Psychological Harms Among Schoolers, Hyeyoung Lim, Hannarae Lee

International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime

Criminal justice around the world has prioritized the prevention and protection of bullying and its victims due to the rapid increases in peer violence. Nevertheless, relatively few studies have examined what treatments or assistance are effective for peer victims to reduce and recover from their social and psychological suffering, especially in cyberbullying cases. Using data derived from the National Crime Victimization Survey-School Crime Supplement data in 2011 and 2013 (N=823), the current study examined the impact of two emotional support groups (i.e., adult and peer groups) on cyberbullying victims' social and psychological harm. The findings indicated that both adult and …

Cyber-Victimization Trends In Trinidad & Tobago: The Results Of An Empirical Research, Troy Smith, Nikolaos Stamatakis

International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime

Cybertechnology has brought benefits to the Caribbean in the form of new regional economic and social growth. In the last years, Caribbean countries have also become attractive targets for cybercrime due to increased economic success and online presence with a low level of cyber resilience. This study examines the online-related activities that affect cybercrime victimization by using the Routine Activity Theory (RAT). The present study seeks to identify activities that contribute to different forms of cybercrime victimization and develop risk models for these crimes, particularly the understudied cyber-dependent crimes of Hacking and Malware. It also aims to explore if there …

Assessing The Credibility Of Cyber Adversaries, Jenny A. Wells, Dana S. Lafon, Margaret Gratian

International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime

Online communications are ever increasing, and we are constantly faced with the challenge of whether online information is credible or not. Being able to assess the credibility of others was once the work solely of intelligence agencies. In the current times of disinformation and misinformation, understanding what we are reading and to who we are paying attention to is essential for us to make considered, informed, and accurate decisions, and it has become everyone’s business. This paper employs a literature review to examine the empirical evidence across online credibility, trust, deception, and fraud detection in an effort to consolidate this …

Prisoners’ Perspectives On Limited Rehabilitative Program Opportunities, Kerry Edwards Phd

The Qualitative Report

Approximately 1.5 million persons are incarcerated in American prisons (Carson, 2020), and the rate at which persons who have been incarcerated reoffend (recidivism) is high (Alper et al., 2018, p. 1). This has propelled the effort to help offenders change their trajectory. Rehabilitative programs are used to help prisoners gain skills and strengths necessary to succeed in the community after their release. Yet, these high recidivism rates persist. Why do some prisoners not benefit from these programs? Although many researchers have studied the efficacy of programs over the past six decades, less attention has been directed towards access to prison …

The Martin Institute: Prints, Spring 2021, Stonehill College: The Martin Institute For Law And Society

The Martin Institute: Prints

No abstract provided.

Migrant Or Menace: Media Representations Of The Migrant Caravan, Elizabeth Twitty, Erica Bower

College of Arts and Letters Posters

In March 2018, the Pueblo Sin Fronteras migrant caravan began making their way to the U.S. border, drawing political and media attention from the United States. News coverage of immigrants and migration events have historically been linked to negative topics and framed as threats to the American way of life. These negative themes emerged against the backdrop of the Trump administration’s response to the caravan, describing migrants as threats to U.S. border security. To examine how the news media portrayed this event, we conducted a summative content analysis of online news articles from CNN and Fox News covering the 2018 …