Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons^™

Fostering Resilience In Correctional Officers, Jon Thomas Arthur Gist

Theses and Dissertations

A significant portion of the literature regarding corrections emphasizes the negative factors and outcomes related to the job. The career of a correctional officer includes a stressful, demanding, and unpredictable work environment. Correctional institutions are struggling to keep a correctional staff that can adapt to internal and external forces. Several studies have shown that correctional officers frequently encounter severe inmate misconduct, resulting in high levels of stress, low job satisfaction, and intentions of leaving the job. However, research begs the question of what makes a correctional officer resilient and functional at work?

No prior study has applied a mixed-methods study …

No Path To Redemption: Evaluating Texas’S Practice Of Sentencing Kids To De Facto Life Without Parole In Adult Prison, Lindsey Linder, Justin Martinez

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

Satellite Sensory Mind Control Technology: An Examination Of The Kelly Elementary School Shooting (Carlsbad, California, October 8, 2010), Gordon A. Crews

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

•The increasing number of K-12 school violence incidents across the United States since the late 1990s seems to have only been mitigated in 2020 due to various “shelter in place” orders enacted since March requiring schools to switch to an “online format” in their teaching of students in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. •Although there have been actual “domestic acts of violence” witnessed by teachers in working with their students through online formats like Skype or Zoom. •Eventually, all students will return to the traditional classroom thus reviving the fears and concerns over violent attacks at and upon American schools. …

Child (Un)Awareness Of Parental Incarceration As A Risk Factor: Evidence From South Korea, Youngki Woo, Melissa A. Kowalski

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

A large body of research has been devoted to the relationship between parental incarceration and adverse outcomes for children, but such studies often compare children of incarcerated parents to those whose parents have never been imprisoned. Research is lacking regarding the effects of parental incarceration on children aware of their parent’s imprisonment compared to those who are unaware of their parent’s incarceration. In the current study we use propensity score weighting with a sample of 219 incarcerated Korean parents to examine differences in developmental outcomes between children cognizant of their parent’s incarceration and those who are unaware of parental imprisonment. …

Homicide And Drug Trafficking In Impoverished Communities In Brazil, Elenice De Souza Oliveira, Braulio Figueiredo Alves Da Silva, Flavio Luiz Sapori, Gabriela Gomes Cardoso

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Many studies demonstrate that homicides are heavily concentrated in impoverished neighborhoods, but not all socially disadvantaged neighborhoods are hotbeds of violence. Conducted in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, this study hypothesizes that the association between high rates of homicide and impoverished areas is influenced by the emergence of a specific type of street drug-dealing common to favelas (slums). The study applies econometric techniques to police data on homicides and drug arrests from 2008 to 2011, as well as 2010 Census data, to test its hypothesis. The findings provide insight into the development of crime prevention policies in areas of high social vulnerability.

Faith In Trump, Moral Foundations, And Social Distancing Defiance During The Coronavirus Pandemic, Amanda K. Graham, Francis T. Cullen, Justin T. Pickett, Cheryl Lero Jonson, Murat Haner, Melissa M. Sloan

Criminal Justice & Criminology: Faculty Publications

Purpose:

Over the past several months, the coronavirus has infected more than six million Americans and killed nearly 200,000. Governors have issued stay-at-home orders, and prosecutors have filed criminal charges against individuals for defying those orders. And yet many Americans have still refused to keep their distance from their fellow citizens, even if they had symptoms of infection. The authors explore the underlying causes for those who intend to defy these norms.

Methods:

Using national-level data from a March 2020 survey of 989 Americans, the authors explore intentions to defy social distancing norms by testing an interactionist theory of foundation-based …

Criminal Justice Updates - September 2020, Haley B. Shultz

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
• Highlights from Executive Order Number: 2019-06: Reducing Gun Violence
• Updates from the PA Legislature
• Criminal Law & Procedure
• Victims Issues
• Updates from the PA Courts
• PA Superior Court: Criminal Law & Procedure

The Situational Context Of Police Sexual Violence: Data And Policy Implications, Philip M. Stinson, Robert W. Taylor, John Liederbach

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

The horrors of sexual crimes perpetrated by law enforcement officers are laid bare in this study of 669 cases of police sexual violence. Here, authors Philip Matthew Stinson, Robert W. Taylor, and John Liederbach identify three scenarios in which law enforcement officers inflict sexual violence upon their mostly-female victims: 1) “driving while female,” 2) child predation, and 3) involvement in the sex worker industry. Especially sobering is the fact that, as opposed to law enforcement doing its solemn duty to report criminality on the part of fellow police officers, “citizens rather than police initiated the detection of the crimes in …

Vocational And Life Skills Monthly Data Update: September 2020, Uno Nebraska Center For Justice Research, Katelynn Towne

Reports

Grantees use an online data management system to submit data on participants served under their Vocational and Life Skills programming. This data is due monthly and reflects all services provided during the previous month to participants. Evaluators at the Nebraska Center for Justice Research work with grantees directly to manage data entry errors on an ongoing basis during update calls and site visits.

The current data derives from an active database, from which data is being entered and updated daily. Data values, including previously submitted information, may fluctuate depending on the duration of lag between service delivery and data entry. …

Vocational And Life Skills Quarterly Report: Grant Cycle 4 Quarter 1 July-September 2020, Uno Nebraska Center For Justice Research, Katelynn Towne, Michael Campagna

Reports

This report presents quarterly data and evaluation updates for the Vocational and Life Skills Program (VLS) through Quarter One of Grant Cycle Four. VLS was created by Nebraska Legislative Bill 907 in 2014 with the purpose of reducing recidivism and increasing meaningful employment for individuals convicted of a crime in Nebraska. The report contains 1) descriptions of the eight funded organizations across the state, 2) a snapshot of participation, 3) demographics of the participants, and 4) participation breakdowns and descriptions of the skills participants are gaining through VLS programming.

The VLS initiative is evaluated by the Nebraska Center for Justice …

Pol-7200 - Minorities And The Criminal Justice System, Vanda Seward

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Development And Validation Of A Multidimensional Scale For Measuring Public Confidence In The Criminal Justice System, Jimin Pyo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Two studies were conducted with an aim of developing multidimensional measures of public confidence that are conceptually integrated, psychometrically sound, and useful in predicting individuals’ law related behaviors. Study 1 involves two-phased construction of scale in which a preliminary inventory was generated (Phase 1) and then finalized after evaluating psychometric properties based on 304 US adults recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) (Phase 2). As a result, six multidimensional scales were constructed respectively for measuring efficiency-, finality-, fairness-, strictness-, accuracy-, and transparency-oriented confidence. Despite more complexity of factor structures than originally expected, results of psychometric evaluation six scales of confidence …

Wrongful Conviction Documentaries: Influences Of Crime Media Exposure On Mock Juror Decision-Making, Patricia Y. Sanchez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Psychology and law researchers have urged colleagues to collaborate with the makers of popular media, such as documentary filmmakers, in efforts to educate the general public about wrongful convictions (Kassin, 2017; Wells et al., 2000). Recently, programs depicting wrongful convictions, such as Making a Murderer (Demos & Ricciardi, 2015) and When They See Us (DuVernay, 2019) have garnered substantial viewership. Research on general and case-specific pretrial publicity (Daftary-Kapur et al., 2014; Kovera, 2002) and the effects of crime media (Baskin & Sommers, 2010; Schweitzer & Saks, 2007) demonstrate that although consuming crime-related media and being exposed to information about a …

Examining Racial And Ethnic Disparity In Prosecutor’S Bail Requests And Downstream Decision Making, Connor Concannon

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Rigorous academic research into prosecutorial and judicial decision making has been taking place for over three decades, but a great deal remains unknown about the mechanics of prosecution. A majority of the work done by prosecutors occurs outside of public view, and most research focuses on the ‘back end’ of the adjudication process, leaving unanalyzed numerous decision points made upstream of the final plea and sentencing outcomes. Using unique data from the New York County District Attorney’s Office that tracks 43,971 felony complaints, this research examines racial and ethnic disparity at multiple decision points during case processing, with a focus …

Caregivers’ Expectations, Reflected Appraisals, And Arrests Among Adolescents Who Experienced Parental Incarceration, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Melissa Noel

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

This research sought to identify a potential process by which intergenerational crime occurs, focusing on the effect of parental incarceration on adolescents’ subsequent arrests. We drew from Matsueda’s work on reflected appraisals as an explanatory mechanism for this effect. Thus, the present research examined whether caregivers’ and adolescents’ expectations for adolescents’ future incarceration sequentially mediated the effect of parental incarceration on adolescents’ actual arrest outcomes. Propensity score matching was used to examine this effect in a sample of 1,735 15- to 16-year-olds using NLSY97 data. Parental incarceration was positively related to caregivers’ expectations of adolescents’ future arrest. Moreover, caregivers’ expectations …

Beyond Social Disorganization Theory: The Influence Of Multiple Structural Determinants Of Crime On An Urban Community, Rodney C. Boyd

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

This correlational, explanatory, cross-sectional study explains the influence of neighborhoods’ structural determinants on the rate of violent crimes in New York City’s communities. Guided by the theoretical foundation of social disorganization theory, the variables in this study included the economically disadvantaged, racial/ethnic heterogeneity, residential instability/mobility, and the level of educational attainment. The statistical analysis in this study included correlational matrix and simultaneous multiple regression model (ordinary least squares). The study consisted of 59 New York City community districts (encompassing the City’s population of 8,622,698 residents) and included the violent crime rates for 2017. The findings in this study indicated that …

Examining The Effect Of Case And Trial Factors On Defense Attorneys' Plea Decision-Making, Kelsey S. Henderson

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications and Presentations

Defense attorneys are attuned to the defendant’s likelihood of conviction at trial, based on the strength of the evidence, in forming their plea decisions. A higher threshold for conviction (i.e. unanimous jury verdict rule versus majority rule), could affect defense attorneys’ willingness to take cases to trial. In this study, we examined defense attorney decision-making by presenting defense attorneys with a hypothetical case summary in which the jury verdict rule was unanimous versus majority rule (experiment one, N = 82), and the strength of the evidence was weak versus strong (experiment two, N = 81). In experiment one, there was …

College Students’ Perception Of Racism On A Predominantly White College Campus, Johnathan Garcia Ramos

Ursidae: The Undergraduate Research Journal at the University of Northern Colorado

Racism is a controversial but present topic in our society. Researchers have identified negative outcomes associated with interactions with racism, microaggression, and racist campus climate. Because universities tend to have racially/ethnically diverse student populations, students might experience racism on campus, which could negatively impact their academic performance. The purpose of this research is to examine how students at a four-year liberal arts institution in the Rocky Mountain region perceive racism on a predominantly white campus and to explore possible associations between racism problems on campus, students’ academics, experiences or witnesses of racism, students’ year in school, and college within the …

Health Implications Of Incarceration And Reentry On Returning Citizens: A Qualitative Examination Of Black Men’S Experiences In A Northeastern City, Jason M. Williams, Sean K. Wilson, Carrie Bergeson

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

While a great deal of research captures the lived experiences of Black men as they navigate through the criminal legal system and onto reentry, very little research is grounded in how those processes are directly connected to their health. Although some research argues that mass incarceration is a determinant of poor health, there is a lack of qualitative analyses from the perspective of Black men. Black men face distinct pathways that lead them into the criminal legal system, and these same pathways await them upon reentry. This study aims to examine the health implications associated with incarceration and reentry of …

The Effects Of Variations In Confession Evidence And Need For Cognition On Jurors' Decisions, Kelsey S. Henderson, Lora M. Levett

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications and Presentations

The reliability of a confession partially depends on the interrogation methods used and the confession’s content. Confronting suspects with evidence gives a suspect knowledge of nonpublic details, increasing the likelihood of a false confession (Gudjonsson & Pearse, 2011; Leo, 2009), and makes the confession harder to judge as more or less reliable. That is, if a confession is consistent with case facts but details of the crime were communicated to the suspect during interrogation, it is difficult to judge whether the confession is a product of the suspect’s knowledge of the crime or the details that were communicated during the …