Law Enforcement and Corrections Commons^™

Justice In The Shadowlands: Pretrial Detention, Punishment, & The Sixth Amendment, Laura I. Appleman

Washington and Lee Law Review

In a criminal system that tips heavily to the side of wealth and power, we routinely detain the accused in often horrifying conditions, confined in jails while still maintaining the presumption of innocence. Here, in the rotting jail cells of impoverished defendants, lies the Shadowlands of Justice, where the lack of criminal procedure has produced a darkness unrelieved by much scrutiny or concern on the part of the law. This Article contends that our current system of pretrial detention lies in shambles, routinely incarcerating the accused in horrifying conditions often far worse than those of convicted offenders in prisons. Due …

Dubious Delegation: Article Iii Limits On Mental Health Treatment Decisions, Adam Teitelbaum

Michigan Law Review

A common condition of supervised release requires a defendant, post-incarceration, to participate in a mental health treatment program. Federal district courts often order probation officers to make certain decisions ancillary to these programs. However Article III delegation doctrine places limits on such actions. This Note addresses the constitutionality of delegating the "treatment program" decision, in which a probation officer decides which type of treatment the defendant must undergo; the choice is often between inpatient treatment and other less restrictive alternatives. The resolution of this issue ultimately depends on whether this decision constitutes a "judicial act." Finding support in lower court …

Supply Vs. Demand: Re-Entering America's Prison Population Into The Workforce, Marissa Leigh Enfield

Scripps Senior Theses

Because rejoining the workforce may prevent against ex-offender recidivism, securing gainful employment is one of the best indicators of successful societal reintegration for released prisoners. However, the stigma attached to a criminal history, combined with ex-prisoners’ lack of human capital, may threaten their ability to obtain a job. The present study examines hiring managers’ attitudes towards previously imprisoned offenders applying for positions in their workplace. Using a combination of brief, fictional applicant biographies and surveys, this mixed-groups factorial study explores how hiring managers (N= 28) consider gender, type of offense, and race when an ex-offender is assessed during the application …

An Examination Of Perceived Stress Levels And Coping Styles Among Rural Law Enforcement Officers, Marcos Luis Misis

Dissertations

Policing is a very stressful job. Despite the extensive body of research on police stress, the majority of studies have focused solely on officers within urban police departments. Research on stress within rural law enforcement departments is virtually non-existent even though the majority of police agencies in America serve towns and areas under 50,000 residents.

This study had four main goals: (1) to examine how work-related stress affects the levels of perceived stress, anxiety, and depression for rural law enforcement officers; (2) to explore the specific stressors affecting rural law enforcement officers; (3) to investigate how rural law enforcement officers …

Identifying Patterns Of Delinquent Trajectories And Testing Stability Of Self-Control Over Time Among South Korean Youth Using Multivariate Latent Growth Curve Modeling, Wanhee Lee

Dissertations

The South Korean yearly national report revealed that since 2006 there has been a steady increase in juvenile crimes (Seoul Police Department, 2009). In addition, the report demonstrated that South Korean juveniles' age of onset in delinquent activity has been continuously decreasing. In South Korea, the age-crime curve sharply peaks at age 16, holds constant until 19, and then begins to decline. Thus, this "peak" within the age-crime curve has been a frequently research topic. This has resulted in some empirical support demonstrating that the age in which criminal involvement peaks is considered the most dynamic period in an individuals' …

An Examination Of Factors Affecting Information Sharing Among Law Enforcement Agencies, Scott Driskill Bransford

Dissertations

The purpose of the present study was to investigate using survey data to find factors or barriers which contributed to local law enforcement participation and support of intelligence information sharing. Following the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York City and Arlington, Virginia, new homeland security initiatives and directives were created from the legislative and executive branches of the federal government. Several new initiatives and directives provided new communication opportunities for partnerships between all levels of law enforcement to combat the future threat of domestic terrorism.

The evaluation literature indicated that a majority of post-9/11, initiatives, including the creation of …

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.

Formal, Bounded, And "Hyper" Rationality In Police Processing Of Sexual Assualt Claims: Case Dispositions And Ucr Reporting, Brooke M. Wagner

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Over the past three decades, many scholars have examined the prevalence, consequences, and official sanctions of sexual violence. The following study builds on past research by quantitatively examining police and crime analyst discretion in sexual assault claims. Using recently accessed data from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department from 2008 through 2010 and utilizing labeling theory, rape myth literature, and the theoretical perspectives of justice processing outcomes, I assess the extent to which police officers and crime analysts are influenced by extralegal variables like victim and offender's race, victim's age, the location of assault, incident characteristics, and victim's background. I …

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.

Empty Promises: Miranda Warnings In Noncustodial Interrogations, Aurora Maoz

Michigan Law Review

You have the right to remain silent; anything you say can be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney; if you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided to you at the state's expense. In 2010, the Supreme Court declined an opportunity to resolve the question of what courts should do when officers administer Miranda warnings in a situation where a suspect is not already in custody-in other words, when officers are not constitutionally required to give or honor these warnings. While most courts have found a superfluous warning to be …

Proportionality And Parole, Richard A. Bierschbach

Articles

Commentators analyzing the Supreme Court's watershed decision in Graham v. Florida, which prohibited sentences of life without parole for juveniles convicted of nonhomicide crimes, have generally done so in substantive proportionality terms, ignoring or downplaying parole in the process. This Article challenges that approach, focusing on the intersection of proportionality and parole as a jumping-off point. Taking parole seriously makes clear that Graham is difficult to understand solely in terms of substantive proportionality concepts like individual culpability and punishment severity. Instead, the decision can be seen as establishing a rule of constitutional criminal procedure, one that links the validity of …

Proportionality And Parole, Richard A. Bierschbach

Articles

Commentators analyzing the Supreme Court's watershed decision in Graham v. Florida, which prohibited sentences of life without parole for juveniles convicted of nonhomicide crimes, have generally done so in substantive proportionality terms, ignoring or downplaying parole in the process. This Article challenges that approach, focusing on the intersection of proportionality and parole as a jumping-off point. Taking parole seriously makes clear that Graham is difficult to understand solely in terms of substantive proportionality concepts like individual culpability and punishment severity. Instead, the decision can be seen as establishing a rule of constitutional criminal procedure, one that links the validity of …

The Literacy Practices Of Law Enforcement, Leslie Eames Seawright

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates police report writing at the Jackson Police Department in Northwest Arkansas. It presents three primary research questions which are addressed through qualitative methods of interview, observation, and discourse analysis.

1) In what ways does police training address report writing?

2) What audience awareness do police officers have when writing reports?

3)How do actual report audience members read and evaluate reports?

The police academy in this study fails to spend the necessary time discussing report writing. This is not rectified by the in-house training program, which pairs officers with Field Training Officers that are often reluctant or unqualified …

A Behavioral Approach To Modus Operandi: Incident Form Completion And Its Effect On Predictive Analysis, Sarah Elizabeth Casella

Dissertations

This study examined the effects of task clarification, group feedback, and policy change on incident form completion by police officers. Participants included all sworn officers employed in the Operations Division by the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety. The task consisted of completing the modus operandi (MO) section of the incident reports for burglary, robbery and aggravated assault. The main dependent variable was the percentage of incident reports with MO form completion. The secondary dependent variable was quality of the MOs completed in the reports; more specifically the completeness of the MO section compared to the narrative and discrepancies between the …

A Tale Of Two Sciences, Erin Murphy

Michigan Law Review

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . .. . So might one describe the contrasting portraits of DNA's ascension in the criminal justice system that are drawn in David Kaye's The Double Helix and the Law of Evidence and Sheldon Krimsky and Tania Simoncelli's Genetic Justice: DNA Data Banks, Criminal Investigations, and Civil Liberties. For Kaye, the double helix stands as the icon of twenty-first-century achievement, a science menaced primarily by the dolts (lawyers, judges, and the occasional analyst) who misuse it. For Krimsky and Simoncelli, DNA is a seductive forensic tool that is …

The American Historical Review (April 2012) (Reviewing David Garland, Peculiar Institution: America’S Death Penalty In An Age Of Abolition, John Bessler

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Madness Alone Punishes The Madman: The Search For Moral Dignity In The Court's Competency Doctrine As Applied In Capital Cases, J. Amy Dillard

All Faculty Scholarship

The purposes of the competency doctrine are to guarantee reliability in criminal prosecutions, to ensure that only those defendants who can appreciate punishment are subject to it, and to maintain moral dignity, both actual and apparent, in criminal proceedings. No matter his crime, the “madman” should not be forced to stand trial. Historically, courts viewed questions of competency as a binary choice, finding the defendant either competent or incompetent to stand trial. However, in Edwards v. Indiana, the Supreme Court conceded that it views competency on a spectrum and offered a new category of competency — borderline-competent. The Court held …

Restructuring Of State Policing Post 9/11, Joseph Iniguez

All Student Theses and Dissertations

After September 11, 2001, the United States law enforcement community found itself ill prepared to handle the range of responsibilities required in a nation under the threat of terrorism. Police organizations hastily assigned resources to help mitigate areas hit hard by the attack while dispersing investigative capital to prevent future strikes. A stark realization followed that exposed the challenges of coping with counter-terrorism while balancing finite resources aimed at traditional crime fighting. These added challenges led to the notion that American policing had entered a new era –Homeland Security. The following research explores the emergence of the new Homeland Security …

Cudgel Or Carrot: How Roper V. Simmons Will Affect Plea Bargaining In The Juvenile System , D. Brian Woo

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

In 2005, the United States Supreme Court held, in Roper v. Simmons, that the execution of convicted juveniles violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. In addressing the issue, the Court determined that a national consensus had developed against the execution of juveniles. Ultimately, a majority of the court decided that a national public consensus had been reached against the execution of juveniles under 18 in age. With Roper, no longer can juveniles of any age be executed. This decision will undoubtedly affect the entire juvenile penal system, from how cases enter the system, to …

Graham On The Ground, Cara H. Drinan

Washington Law Review

In Graham v. Florida, the U.S. Supreme Court held that it is unconstitutional to sentence a non-homicide juvenile offender to life in prison without parole. While states need not guarantee release to these juvenile offenders, they cannot foreclose such an outcome at the sentencing phase. Scholars have identified several long-term ramifications of Graham, including its likely influence on juvenile sentencing practices and on retributive justice theory. As yet unexamined, though, are the important and thorny legal questions that Graham raises for state judges and lawmakers in the very short term. To whom does the Graham decision apply? What …