Law Enforcement and Corrections Commons^™

Defining The Opioid Epidemic: Congress, Pressure Groups, And Problem Definition, Taleed El-Sabawi

Faculty Publications

The passage of the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act of 2016 evidences a shift in federal legislative support from criminal justice oriented legislative alternatives to more health oriented legislative alternatives to addressing the ongoing Opioid Epidemic. Such a shift was preceded by a redefinition of problem drug use in the policy discourse from an issue of deviancy to a health issue. However, the redefinition of problem drug use as a health issue, has been dominated by policy narratives and causal stories that do not define problem drug use in a manner that aligns with a multi-modal public health oriented legislative …

Solitary Troubles, Alexander A. Reinert

Articles

Solitary confinement is one of the most severe forms of punishment that can be inflicted on human beings. In recent years, the use of extreme isolation in our prisons and jails has been questioned by correctional officials, medical experts, and reform advocates alike. Yet for nearly the entirety of American history, judicial regulation of the practice has been extremely limited. This Article explains why judges hesitate to question the use of solitary confinement, while also providing a path forward for greater scrutiny of the practice.

The Necessity Of The Good Person Prosecutor, Jessica A. Roth

Articles

In a 2001 essay, Professor Abbe Smith asked the question whether a good person—i.e., a person who is committed to social justice—can be a good prosecutor. Although she acknowledged some hope that the answer to her question could be “yes,” Professor Smith concluded that the answer then was “no”—in part because she saw individual prosecutors generally as having very little discretion to “temper the harsh reality of the criminal justice system.” In this Online Symposium revisiting Professor Smith’s question seventeen years later, my answer to her question is “yes”—a good person can be a good prosecutor.

Katz V. United States: Back To The Future?, Michael Vitiello

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Devil's Advocate Also Wears Prada: The Impracticality Of Adr In Counterfeiting Disputes And The Prospect Of Arbitration, Anan Kahari

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

The purpose of this Note is to posit that arbitration, tailored for counterfeiting disputes, could potentially serve as a reliable method for fashion companies to combat counterfeiting. Part II discusses the background of IP rights and the relationship between counterfeiting and fashion. Part III highlights the traditional advantages of ADR and how some of those advantages may become disadvantages when applied to counterfeiting disputes. Lastly, Part IV argues that arbitration can be designed to be applicable to counterfeiting disputes described in this Note.

Resolving The Circuit Split Over Consent Based Searches In Shared Living Spaces, Christopher Grimaldi

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review

The note argues that the police, not citizens, should bear the responsibility of resolving ambiguities in consent to search cases under the Fourth Amendment. It advocates for a solution that aligns with Supreme Court precedent, particularly Rodriguez and Salinas-Cano, to ensure constitutional protections while maintaining efficient law enforcement. The proposed approach emphasizes the importance of police inquiry to clarify authority over jointly used property, balancing individual privacy rights with practical law enforcement needs.

The Violence Against Women Act, Implicit Bias, And Judicial Training, Lorena Espino-Piepp

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The note argues that the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) must be amended to include implicit bias training for Family Court judges and staff to address the systemic barriers faced by undocumented Latina immigrant women in accessing justice. These women often face compounded discrimination based on race, ethnicity, and immigration status, which undermines their ability to obtain immigration relief through VAWA protections. The author contends that without such training, the judicial system perpetuates inequities, as judges and court personnel rely on stereotypes that disproportionately harm women of color.

How And Why Is The American Punishment System "Exceptional"?, Christopher Slobogin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Anyone interested in American criminal justice has to wonder why we have so many more people in prison—in absolute as well as relative terms—than the western half of the European continent, the part of the world most readily comparable to us. This book, consisting of eleven chapters by eminent criminal law scholars, criminologists and political scientists, provides both a detailed look at how U.S. punishment is different and an insightful analysis of why that might be so. While many chapters in the book describe previously declared positions of the authors, there is also much that is new in the book, …

Criminal Employment Law, Benjamin Levin

Publications

This Article diagnoses a phenomenon, “criminal employment law,” which exists at the nexus of employment law and the criminal justice system. Courts and legislatures discourage employers from hiring workers with criminal records and encourage employers to discipline workers for non-work-related criminal misconduct. In analyzing this phenomenon, my goals are threefold: (1) to examine how criminal employment law works; (2) to hypothesize why criminal employment law has proliferated; and (3) to assess what is wrong with criminal employment law. This Article examines the ways in which the laws that govern the workplace create incentives for employers not to hire individuals with …

The Consensus Myth In Criminal Justice Reform, Benjamin Levin

Publications

It has become popular to identify a “consensus” on criminal justice reform, but how deep is that consensus, actually? This Article argues that the purported consensus is much more limited than it initially appears. Despite shared reformist vocabulary, the consensus rests on distinct critiques that identify different flaws and justify distinct policy solutions. The underlying disagreements transcend traditional left/right political divides and speak to deeper disputes about the state and the role of criminal law in society.

The Article maps two prevailing, but fundamentally distinct, critiques of criminal law: (1) the quantitative approach (what I call the “over” frame); and …

Shooting Down Oliphant: Self-Defense As An Answer To Crime In Indian Country, Adam Crepelle

Lewis & Clark Law Review

Crime is a dire public safety problem in Indian country as Indians suffer violent crime at twice the rate of any other racial group. Indian country’s unique and confusing jurisdictional scheme combined with a shortage of police leave Indians easy targets for those looking to commit crimes. A largely unexplored answer to crime in Indian country is self-defense. This Article posits that the United States self-defense jurisprudence may make self-defense the most practical solution to crime in some parts of Indian country.

The Article discusses the history of self-defense laws and the relationship between self-defense laws and firearms. The Article …

What Happens When Police Robots Violate The Constitution?, Vid Sankar

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Public concern surrounding excessive use of force by police officers and the overmilitarization of the police continues to grow. The use of police robots, both with and without artificial intelligence capabilities, is already transforming the practice of policing. Police use of robots gained national attention on July 7, 2016, when Dallas police used a robot to disarm and kill an active shooter who killed five and injured several others in a hostage situation. The qualified immunity doctrine was designed to protect police officers, but under the Supreme Court's current qualified immunity framework, police robots may pose a challenge to accomplishing …

Crisis Intervention Team Training And The Protection Motivation Theory, Monique Allen, Greg Campbell

Journal of Sustainable Social Impact

The problem addressed in this phenomenological study was the lack of documentation that supported the lived experiences of crisis intervention team (CIT)-trained police officers related to their field encounters with persons with mental illnesses. The purpose of the study was to explore the lived experiences of officers among CIT-trained police officers to address the problem. The protection motivation theory was aligned closest with the teachings of CIT training as described by the study participants’ lived experiences. Participants provided the study’s collected data, which was composed of completed questionnaires and transcribed interviews. The empirical theoretical framework method of analysis used was …

Deterrence, David Crump

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming

Parallel Enforcement And Agency Interdependence, Anthony O'Rourke

Journal Articles

Parallel civil and criminal enforcement dominates public enforcement of everything from securities regulation to immigration control. The scholarship, however, lacks any structural analysis of how parallel enforcement differs from other types of interagency coordination. Drawing on original interviews with prosecutors, regulators, and white-collar defense attorneys, this Article is the first to provide a realistic presentation of how parallel enforcement works in practice. It builds on this descriptive account to offer an explanatory theory of the pressures and incentives that shape parallel enforcement. The Article shows that, in parallel proceedings, criminal prosecutors lack the gatekeeping monopoly that traditionally defines their relationships …

[Review Of The Book Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, And Punish The Poor By V. Eubanks], Dawn Betts-Green

STEMPS Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) With technological ubiquity and improvements comes the misguided notion that automated systems are more objective and less prone to error than the human element. While this may be true with calculations, when it comes to decisions involving the multilayered human experience, it becomes abundantly clear that this is not universally true. Increasingly, there has been a push for higher levels of automation and decreasing human involvement in the provision of government services such as Social Security, veterans’ benefits, and welfare. Automation provides a way to slash payroll spending and, ostensibly, improve services by making them more objective, and, …

Democratizing Proof: Pooling Public And Police Body-Camera Videos, Mary D. Fan

Articles

There are two cultural revolutions in recording the police. From the vantage of police departments, there is the rapidly spreading uptake of police-worn body cameras. On the public side, community members are increasingly using their cell phone cameras to record the police. Together, these dual recording revolutions are generating important new questions and possibilities regarding the balance of power in producing proof and illuminating contested encounters. This Essay is about how pooling police body camera and public videos can address three emerging challenges in the police recording revolution. The first challenge is the controversy over failures to record contested encounters …

What Motivates Legislators To Act: Problem Definition & The Opioid Epidemic, A Case Study, Taleed El-Sabawi

Faculty Publications

This article explores why federal legislators may have been motivated to treat the current opioid crisis as a health issue, when past drug problems have been treated as a criminal justice issue. Using theories from political science, policy studies and sociology, this article summarizes leading theories of legislative behavior and applies them to the current opioid crisis, in an effort to better understand what motivates legislators to enact legislation to solve pressing social problems in a way that reframes the problem. Part II of this article provides an overview of the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, its significance, and how …

Fiscal Pressures And Discriminatory Policing: Evidence From Traffic Stops In Missouri, Allison P. Harris, Elliott Ash, Jeffrey A. Fagan

Faculty Scholarship

This paper provides evidence of racial variation in traffic enforcement responses to local government budget stress using data from policing agencies in the state of Missouri from 2001 through 2012. Like previous studies, we find that local budget stress is associated with higher citation rates; we also find an increase in traffic-stop arrest rates. However, we find that these effects are concentrated among White (rather than Black or Latino) drivers. The results are robust to the inclusion of a range of covariates and a variety of model specifications, including a regression discontinuity examining bare budget shortfalls. Considering potential mechanisms, we …

Dorothy Moser Medlin Papers - Accession 1049, Dorothy Moser Medlin

Manuscript Collection

(The Dorothy Moser Medlin Papers are currently in processing.)

This collection contains most of the records of Dorothy Medlin’s work and correspondence and also includes reference materials, notes, microfilm, photographic negatives related both to her professional and personal life. Additions include a FLES Handbook, co-authored by Dorothy Medlin and a decorative mirror belonging to Dorothy Medlin.

Major series in this collection include: some original 18th century writings and ephemera and primary source material of André Morellet, extensive collection of secondary material on André Morellet's writings and translations, Winthrop related files, literary manuscripts and notes by Dorothy Medlin (1966-2011), copies …