Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons^™

Evaluating Pre-Trial Programs Using Interpretable Machine Learning Matching Algorithms For Causal Inference, Travis Seale-Carlisle, Saksham Jain, Courtney Lee, Caroline Levenson, Swathi Ramprasad, Brandon Garrett, Sudeepa Roy, Cynthia Rudin, Alexander Volfovsky

Faculty Scholarship

After a person is arrested and charged with a crime, they may be released on bail and required to participate in a community supervision program while awaiting trial. These ‘pretrial programs’ are common throughout the United States, but very little research has demonstrated their effectiveness. Researchers have emphasized the need for more rigorous program evaluation methods, which we introduce in this article. We describe a program evaluation pipeline that uses recent interpretable machine learning techniques for observational causal inference, and demonstrate these techniques in a study of a pre-trial program in Durham, North Carolina. Our findings show no evidence that …

False Accuracy In Criminal Trials: The Limits And Costs Of Cross Examination, Lisa Kern Griffin

Faculty Scholarship

According to the popular culture of criminal trials, skillful cross-examination can reveal the whole “truth” of what happened. In a climactic scene, defense counsel will expose a lying accuser, clear up the statements of a confused eyewitness, or surface the incentives and biases in testimony. Constitutional precedents, evidence theory, and trial procedures all reflect a similar aspiration—that cross-examination performs lie detection and thereby helps to produce accurate outcomes. Although conceptualized as a protection for defendants, cross-examination imposes some unexplored costs on them. Because it focuses on the physical presence of a witness, the current law of confrontation suggests that an …

The Right To A Glass Box: Rethinking The Use Of Artificial Intelligence In Criminal Justice, Brandon L. Garrett, Cynthia Rudin

Faculty Scholarship

Artificial intelligence (“AI”) increasingly is used to make important decisions that affect individuals and society. As governments and corporations use AI more pervasively, one of the most troubling trends is that developers so often design it to be a “black box.” Designers create AI models too complex for people to understand or they conceal how AI functions. Policymakers and the public increasingly sound alarms about black box AI. A particularly pressing area of concern has been criminal cases, in which a person’s life, liberty, and public safety can be at stake. In the United States and globally, despite concerns that …

The Brady Database, Brandon L. Garrett, Adam M. Gershowitz, Jennifer Teitcher

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Brady v. Maryland turns sixty this year. The Brady doctrine, which requires the government to disclose favorable and material evidence to the defendant, is one of the most frequently litigated criminal procedure issues. Yet, despite decades of Brady cases in federal and state courts, we still know relatively little about how Brady claims are litigated, adjudicated, and what such claims can tell us about the criminal justice system writ large. Scholars are in the dark about how often Brady violations occur, whether it is primarily the fault of prosecutors or the police, whether violations …

Compensating Exonerees In The United States, Brandon L. Garrett, Luke Mears

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Liberty, Safety, And Misdemeanor Bail, Brandon L. Garrett, Sandra Guerra Thompson, Dottie Carmichael, David Shi, Songman Kang

Faculty Scholarship

The highest volume of cases in the U.S. criminal system are misdemeanors, and every day, hundreds of thousands of people are detained pretrial in such low-level cases. In policy and in politics, pretrial rules have swung between a focus on protecting constitutional rights and the public safety dangers posed by releasing arrestees. The Supreme Court’s ruling in United States v. Salerno sought to promote a balance between protecting individual due process rights and public safety interests. A central constitutional and pressing policy question is what trade-off exists between pretrial liberty and reoffending. The highest profile jurisdiction to examine that question …

Judging Firearms Evidence, Brandon L. Garrett, Eric Tucker, Nicholas Scurich

Faculty Scholarship

Firearms violence results in hundreds of thousands of criminal investigations each year. To try to identify a culprit, firearms examiners seek to link fired shell casings or bullets from crime scene evidence to a particular firearm. The underlying assumption is that firearms impart unique marks on bullets and cartridge cases, and that trained examiners can identify these marks to determine which were fired by the same gun. For over a hundred years, firearms examiners have testified that they can conclusively identify the source of a bullet or cartridge case. In recent years, however, research scientists have called into question the …

Volume 6, Issue 1 (2023) Criminal Justice Agents And Responsibility, Colleen Berryessa, Elizabeth Griffiths, Kaitlen Hubbard, Deena A. Isom, Kateryna Kaplun, Hiuxuan Li, Siyu Liu, Esther Nir, Heather L. Scheuerman, Rachel Schumann, Sandy Xie, Carolyn Yule

International Journal on Responsibility

This special issue of the International Journal on Responsibility (IJR) advances scholarship on the various ways responsibility infuses the roles of criminal justice agents. As the inaugural issue of my tenure as Editor-in-Chief, Volume 6 deepens our understanding of responsibility in the context of the criminal justice system, thereby fulfilling IJR’s aim and scope. Specifically, the articles highlight issues of responsibility within each component of the criminal justice system: police, courts, and corrections.

Do Judges Understand Technology? How Attorneys And Advocates View Judicial Responsibility In Cyberstalking And Cyberharassment Cases, Kateryna Kaplun

International Journal on Responsibility

As new technologies emerge and are increasingly used to commit interpersonal cybercrimes like cyberstalking and cyberharassment, the legal system lags in assisting victims in obtaining justice in these types of experiences. This qualitative research study explores how attorney and advocate interviewees from Illinois, New Jersey, and New York view judges’ responsibility to the law in cyberstalking and cyberharassment cases. This study finds three themes: judges’ lack of understanding of technology and its harms, discretion, and law on the books versus law in action as important factors and frameworks that contribute to why judges do not consider the importance of technology …

The Influence Of Prior Legal Background On Judicial Sentencing Considerations, Esther Nir, Siyu Liu

International Journal on Responsibility

State court judges are influenced by a myriad of factors during criminal case processing. To study the influence of prior legal background on judicial decision-making at sentencing, we performed in-depth qualitative interviews of 39 trial court judges presiding over criminal cases in a Northeastern U.S. state. We find that judges are influenced by their former legal experiences and most judges are cognizant of this influence. While certain sentencing considerations are prioritized for almost all judges (e.g., criminal history, seriousness of the offense), prioritization and processing of many other sentencing criteria are correlated with prior legal background. Former defense attorneys tend …

Region-Specific Structural Covariates Of Homicide Rates In Latin America: State Legitimacy And Remittances, Guillermo Escano, William Alex Pridemore

School of Criminal Justice Other Graduate Student Scholarship

The goal of this study was to examine region-specific structural covariates of homicide rates in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). LAC nations possess 8% of the global population but 33% of homicides, yet the region receives limited attention in studies of social structure and violence. Prior literature suggests two separate social forces particularly relevant to the region, state legitimacy and monetary remittances. Theory from multiple fields provides distinct pathways through which each may influence LAC violence rates, suggesting a negative legitimacy-homicide association but competing hypotheses about the remittances-homicide association. Our unit of analysis was the nation-year, and our sample …

Denied, Disrespected, Doubted, And Discarded: Women's Criminal Convictions And Experiences Of Discrimination, Brian Wyant, Holly Harner, Brian Lockwood

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

This study surveyed over 400 incarcerated women in a medium-maximum security prison in the United States to assess their experiences of discrimination due to their criminal conviction. Over 60% of the participants indicated they had been discriminated against due to their felon status. Binary logistic models revealed that discrimination based on prison status can occur both inside and outside of prison but varies by race and length of stay. Similarly, qualitative results showed that during and after their incarceration, these women reported being denied jobs, disrespected and viewed as incapable of changing. Some women even anticipated they would experience discrimination …

Aspirations Of Hispanic Criminal Justice Students To Join Law Enforcement: An Empirical Investigation, Yudu Li, Lucas Espinoza, Charlotte Hu, Fei Luo

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

This study investigates the job preferences of criminal justice (CJ) students and potential factors that may impact their application for law enforcement positions. Existing research has shown that factors like gender, race, and class standing influence career choices among CJ majors. To contribute to this body of knowledge, this study focuses on CJ students’ attitudes toward the police and willingness to engage in community policing programs. The research examined 231 CJ students in a Hispanic serving university situated along the US-Mexican border. Research findings indicate that CJ students are less likely to pursue law enforcement careers if they hold less …

Criminal Justice Update - December 2023, Delaney Rabenold

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 new updates this month)

• Updates from the PA Legislature

• Updates from the Courts

  • U.S. Supreme Court (no updates this month)

  • PA Supreme Court (no updates this month)

  • PA Superior Court

A Policy Evaluation For California’S Care Act And The Application Of The Social Determinants Of Health, Adelina Mercedes Lang

Capstone Experience: Master of Public Health

In 2022, California passed a legislative bill, SB 1338: the Community Assistance, Recovery, and Empowerment (CARE) Act, which created a new statewide procedure for treating mentally ill homeless adults diagnosed with psychotic disorders through a court-ordered CARE plan. SB 1338 intends to alleviate the mental health and homeless crisis. This capstone project provides an early assessment of SB 1338 using a modified formative policy evaluation methodology, including a scoping literature review and applying a policy assessment using the CDC's Policy Evaluation Framework. A stakeholder survey was also applied to gather stakeholders' perspectives on SB 1338. The literature review supported the …

The Legislative Impacts Of The Trafficking Victims Protection Act And The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act Of 2017, Kathryn Thompson

ALL - Honors Theses

In the past two decades, the issue of human trafficking has grown more prominent around the world (Mollema, 2015). According to the Polaris Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting human trafficking as well as educating the world on the dangers of human trafficking analyzed data from the Human Trafficking Hotline found that in the year 2021, there were roughly 10,359 cases of human trafficking in the United States with about 16,554 victims (Polaris Project,2022). Out of these cases, approximately 72% (7,498) of them were related to sex trafficking, with the top type of trafficking out of all cases being …

An Analysis Of The Impact And Effectiveness Of Human Trafficking State Laws And Policies In Missouri And Nebraska, Madeleine Mather

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

Human trafficking is the use of force, fraud, or coercion to use another person for sex or labor. Human trafficking is a prevalent issue within the United States that is not talked about enough. This leads to a misrepresentation of facts about human trafficking that can lead to common myths related to human trafficking. It is each state’s responsibility to develop laws and policies that protect victims and prosecute offenders justly according to the crime. This research delves into an analysis of Missouri and Nebraska state statutes to determine their effectiveness and assess the level of awareness among residents of …

Crossover Youth: The Relationship Between Juvenile Dependency And Delinquency, Victoria Davenport

University Honors Theses

This literature review looks at the relationship between juvenile delinquency and juvenile dependency. Specifically, it evaluates the existence of "crossover youth", minors who have been involved with both systems in their lifetime. The review considers thirteen different studies, literature reviews, and databases to determine risk factors in maltreated youth that cause them to offend. The review also looks at the impact that second-generation parents have on likelihood of offending as juveniles, as well as the importance of welfare worker perception on parental involvement with dependency agencies. Finally, the review considers potential interventions to crossover youth, determining how to assist maltreated …

Human Trafficking In The Americas: Comparison Of Original Source Compilation Versus Unodc Data, Ivette Avila Jimenez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

International human trafficking (IHT) is a type of criminal activity that involves groups and individuals who facilitate the global movement and exploitation of people, often by illegal means. Estimates show that, worldwide, there are over 25 million victims of human trafficking at any given time; however, estimates are prone to under and overcounting. Focusing on the Americas, this study compared the quality of two data sources that could be used to observe IHT. Country-to-country IHT networks generated from 9 years of researcher compiled governmental and non-governmental data (2008-2017) was compared with networks generated from data downloaded from the United Nations …

A Comparison Between A Terrorist Leader And A Lone-Wolf Operative In Bangladesh, Fatema Islam

Journal of Terrorism Studies

The article compares the biography and terrorist portrait of two terrorists of Bangladesh: Mufti Abdul Hannan, a pioneer leader of the prominent terrorist organization Huji-B, and a lone wolf operative named Faizul Hasan. The study reveals the existence of the multifaceted dynamics of the leader (Mufti) and lone wolf (Faizul) encompassing organizational affiliation, operational independence, radicalization processes, motivations, objectives, and the scale of their operations. The study also finds that the pattern of operation of a terrorist leader (Mufti) and the lone wolf terrorist (Faizul) differed significantly in terms of planning, execution, and level of organizational support. While the terrorist …