Legal Studies Commons^™

Policy Implications Of News Media Coverage Of The Islamic State Of Iraq And Syria., Godfred A. Ababio

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) garnered global news media attention in Summer 2014 when it seized a significant section of land in Iraq and Syria. The group then mishandled and executed its captives. There is a lack of consensus among the international community, led by Russia and the United States, on how best to address the threat posed by ISIS. An understanding of the function of Russian and U.S. news media coverage of the ISIS threat is an appropriate research topic. The purpose of this qualitative content analysis study was to explore how the U.S, Russian, and …

Understanding The Perceptions And Decision-Making Behaviors Of First Responders In The Context Of Traumatic Events And Ptsd, Sunday O. Olatunji

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Previous researchers have indicated that first responders are in an ever-changing environment, and unfortunately, the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among first responders is increasing. This study sought to better understand first responders' perceptions of emergency preparedness protocols and training, as well as the prevalence of PTSD. This study also examined first responders' thoughts, decision making processes, and protective actions information, communications necessary during situations of emergency preparedness for traumatic events, and how PTSD impacted this process. A sample of 16 first responders of various ages was recruited for the purpose of this study. The participants were made up …

Employer Attitudes And Beliefs About Hiring Post Incarcerated Offenders In Mississippi, Ora Starks

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Employer Attitudes and Beliefs About Hiring Post-Incarcerated Offenders in Mississippi

by

Ora Starks

MS, Criminal Justice, 1999

BS, Criminal Justice,1994

Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Human Services Program

Criminal Justice Specialization

Walden University

May 2018

Fair Use As Creative Muse: An Ongoing Case Study, Malin Abrahamsson, Stephanie Margolin

Publications and Research

In this chapter, the authors describe various copyright-related lessons that they've presented to faculty and students at their institution.

Perceptions Of People's Experiences Regarding Gun Violence, Charles M. Ndikum

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Gun violence is a problem in many communities across the United States that are characterized by poverty, and lack of quality education, yet little is known about the experiences of victims of gun violence in these places. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to better understand how people who have been victims of gun violence perceive problems and solutions associated with the production, distribution, and ownership of guns. Based on the theoretical framework of Rousseau's social contract theory, this study explored gun violence from the perspectives of 10 victims whose lives were directly or indirectly affected by gun violence …

A Case Study Of Overcrowding In A County Jail In The Southeast United States, Marquice Robinson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

For the past several decades, the county jail in a large metropolitan city in the southeast United States has been overcrowded, which has resulted in violence within the jail, excessive costs to the Sheriff's Office, and a requirement of Federal oversight of the jail from 2005 to 2015. In spite of these events, little is understood about why jail overcrowding is prevalent in the county and what impacts overcrowding may have on the communities around the jail. Using Shaw and McKay's social disorganization theory as the foundation, the purpose of this case study was to understand the unique circumstances around …

The Effect Of Cultural Awareness Training On Staff In Intergovernmental Service Agreement Facilities, Steven Alan Coffman

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No system-wide diversity training exists at Immigration and Customs Enforcement Intergovernmental Service Agreement (IGSA) facilities. This study was conducted to determine if diversity training has a short-term effect on cultural awareness of staff in these facilities in the midwestern United States. This information is important to administrations in IGSA facilities when deciding to include diversity training in the annual required training of staff, as the efficacy and relevance have been unknowns. The theoretical foundation of this study is Smircich's organizational culture theory. A nonequivalent control group research design was utilized to collect survey data from 48 participants at 2 midwestern …

The Lived Experiences Of African-American Male Exoffenders In The Northeast United States, Jacqueline Grant

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Discrimination, racism, and class bias affects the accessibility of resources available to African American males who are exoffenders. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of African American, male exoffenders' ability to access resources postincarceration. Guided by Bell and Freeman's critical race theory, a purposeful sample of 6 African American, male exoffenders were recruited from 2 reentry programs in the Northeast United States. A semistructured interview approach was employed to examine the life history, details of experience, and reflection on the meaning of the lived experience from the participants. The modified Stevick, Colaizzi, and Keen …

A Critical Analysis Of Humanitarian Intervention As A Source Of Reputational Credibility, Margaux Arntson

CMC Senior Theses

Since his election into office, a cloud of uncertainty has surrounded President Trump’s foreign policy ambitions. Much of today’s scholarship concerns its unpredictable nature and scope. President Trump, like previous presidents who have come before him, entered office with very little foreign policy experience. A key feature of his non-principled, fast-alternating foreign policy is that few people know exactly what he is going to propose next in terms of his international strategy. Coupled with this strategy is Trump’s desire for international credibility and a strong reputation. This desire seems fundamentally at odds with his foreign policy strategy, as Trump proposes …

Canadian Legal Professionals' Information Activities: What Do They Do, And How Do They Tweet, Hannah Steeves

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The use of social media in professional settings has increased significantly over the past decade. This article presents the results of a statistical analysis performed on a sampling of Canadian legal professionals’ Twitter accounts between 2015 and 2016. A series of tweets were reviewed and subsequently categorized to determine the most common types of information activities occurring on social media accounts, specifically Twitter, from legal professionals.

L’utilisation des médias sociaux dans les milieux professionnels a considérablement augmenté au cours de la dernière décennie. Cet article présente les résultats d’une analyse statistique réalisée sur un échantillon de comptes Twitter de professionnels …

The Perception Of Community Oriented Policing From A Law Enforcement Organization's Perspective, James Wyatt Roberts

Doctor of Education (Ed.D)

Community-oriented policing surfaced in the 1980s as a new philosophy in policing. Despite the widespread community support for community policing, the perceptions of this philosophy from a law enforcement organization’s perspective remain unclear. This quantitative, non-experimental research study utilized a survey method to address seven research questions. One large law enforcement organization (sworn and civilian members) in Central Florida was invited to complete a survey to assist in better understanding the role of community-oriented policing and its impact on bridging the gap between law enforcement and the community. This study seeks to better understand a law enforcement organization’s perception of …

Qualitative And Quantitative Elemental Composition Analysis Of The Surrounding Pollen Coating Via Icp-Ms, Brandy Voyer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pollen evidence has proven to be a powerful forensic tool to trace a suspect or item to a victim or a crime scene. This is possible because it is microscopic, abundant in nature, resistant to degradation and decay; it presents dispersal patterns that can be used to generate a 'fingerprint' within specific areas, and has illustrated a unique morphology that can be used to classify species. While the pollen grain morphology has been extensively used to characterize the specific species, not much has been investigated as pertains to the coating that surrounds the pollen grain aside from it being categorized …

The Silence Penalty, Jeffrey Bellin

Faculty Publications

In every criminal trial, the defendant possesses the right to testify. Deciding whether to exercise that right, however, is rarely easy. Declining to testify shields defendants from questioning by the prosecutor and normally precludes the introduction of a defendant’s prior crimes. But silence comes at a price. Jurors penalize defendants who fail to testify by inferring guilt from silence.

This Article explores this complex dynamic, focusing on empirical evidence from mock juror experiments—including the results of a new 400-person mock juror simulation conducted for this Article—and data from real trials. It concludes that the penalty defendants suffer when they refuse …

Incarceration Of Nonviolent Offenders At The High Court In Oyo State, Nigeria, Olugbenga Rotimi Akanji

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The nonuse of community correction in the Nigeria criminal justice system has led to increased recidivism, contributed to prison congestion, introduced the risk of prison victimization, and lacked the provision of a rehabilitative structure for nonviolent offenders. The purpose of this phenomenological research study was to explore Nigerian judges' use of alternatives to incarcerations for nonviolent offenders. Dolinko retributive punishment theory provided the theoretical framework for this study. Ten participant judges comprised the study sample from a purposeful and criterion random sampling method. Data were collected from participants through structured interviews and were coded manually, sorted, and analyzed using the …

Contemporary Terrorism Paradigm: Terrorist Attacks On Transportation Systems, Gabbi Berlanti

Honors Theses

The Contemporary Terrorism Paradigm has been examined in concept, but little research has applied the theory to specific targeting of terrorist organizations. To build on this limited research, the current study analyzed the number of terrorist incidents targeting the transportation infrastructure in North America, Western Europe, and East Asia between 2001 and 2016 to ascertain if the Contemporary Terrorism Paradigm explains the variance between number of incidents and number of casualties. The use of North America, Western Europe, and East Asia created an opportunity to examine vulnerabilities in the transportation infrastructure and identify areas in the United States transportation infrastructure …

Political Opportunism, Position Taking, And Court-Curbing Legislation., Laura Moyer, Ellen M. Key

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Although there is extensive scholarship on court-curbing efforts directed at the U.S. Supreme Court, much less is known about bills targeting the lower federal courts. This article argues that members of Congress also engage in position taking with respect to the U.S. Courts of Appeals, by proposing legislation to divide up the Ninth Circuit. Over seven decades, no other circuit has attracted as much court-curbing legislation as the Ninth Circuit, and yet no bill has succeeded. What accounts for this persistent focus on one court? We argue that bill sponsors are motivated primarily by electoral considerations and capitalize on the …

Developmental Patterns Of Religiosity In Relation To Criminal Trajectories Among Serious Offenders Across Adolescence And Young Adulthood, Siying Guo

Theses and Dissertations

The knowledge about the relationship between changes in both religiosity and crime over time remains limited. This dissertation aims to add to the existing body of literature and fill the gaps in prior studies by examining the religiosity-crime relationship in a sample of adjudicated adolescents studied in the Pathways to Desistance Study, a seven-year longitudinal dataset. Using Group-Based Trajectory Models and Growth Curve Models, this dissertation identifies distinctive trajectories of religious attendance, religious importance, and spirituality and their dynamic relationships with changes in different types of substance use and criminal behavior. Given the initial level of substance use and criminal …

The Importance Of Outcome Fairness: Revisiting The Role Of Distributive Justice, Kyle Mclean

Theses and Dissertations

Distributive justice, or the perceived fairness of outcomes, has played a minimal role in research into procedural justice and legitimacy in policing. However, allegations of racial bias that have contributed to the present legitimacy crisis in policing are more consistent with the concept of distributive justice than procedural justice. As such, the present study attempts to re-orient distributive justice within policing research. This study proposes that individuals infer the fairness of outcomes from the treatment that they receive from police officers. These judgments about outcome and treatment then combine to influence individuals’ perceptions of the legitimacy of police. In addition …

Ghosting: It’S Time To Find Uniformity On Ghostwriting, Jona Goldschmidt

Criminal Justice & Criminology: Faculty Publications & Other Works

There is no way of knowing how many, and for how long, lawyers and nonlawyers have engaged in ghostwriting pleadings to assist pro se litigants — indigent or nonindigent. It is reasonable to assume that many lawyers and others have acted as ghostwriters in order to facilitate greater access to the court, rather than for personal gain. Despite the laudable motives of ghostwriters, ghostwriting has historically been considered an illegitimate form of unbundling legal services because of the spate of federal court opinions opposing the practice on ethical and Rule 11-violation grounds. This article addresses the current anomalous situation in …

If I Had A Million Cryptos: Cryptowallet Application Analysis And A Trojan Proof-Of-Concept, Trevor Haigh, Frank Breitinger, Ibrahim Baggili

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

Cryptocurrencies have gained wide adoption by enthusiasts and investors. In this work, we examine seven different Android cryptowallet applications for forensic artifacts, but we also assess their security against tampering and reverse engineering. Some of the biggest benefits of cryptocurrency is its security and relative anonymity. For this reason it is vital that wallet applications share the same properties. Our work, however, indicates that this is not the case. Five of the seven applications we tested do not implement basic security measures against reverse engineering. Three of the applications stored sensitive information, like wallet private keys, insecurely and one was …