Legal Studies Commons^™

Development And Validation Of The Nebraska Department Of Correctional Services Prison Classification System, Zachary Hamilton, Alex Kigerl

Reports

Over the last 45 years, the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services (NDCS) has made two substantial changes to its classification system. The first system was created and implemented in the 1970s. In 2005, Patricia Hardyman was contracted to update and modify the classification and reclassification system. Using statistical analyses of available data, a set of prediction models were created to score inmates on items that predicted future infraction behavior. However, the primary issues of the tools were that inmates’ scores were routinely over-classified and that substantial uses of overrides (approximately 40%) were indicated. After a review of the tools’ development …

Development And Validation Of The Nebraska Department Of Correctional Services Prison Classification System, Zachary Hamilton, Alex Kigerl

Reports

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Over the last 45 years, the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services (NDCS) has made two substantial changes to its classification system. The first system was created and implemented in the 1970s. In 2005, Patricia Hardyman was contracted to update and modify the classification and reclassification system. Using statistical analyses of available data, a set of prediction models were created to score inmates on items that predicted future infraction behavior. However, the primary issues of the tools were that inmates’ scores were routinely over-classified and that substantial uses of overrides (approximately 40%) were indicated. After a review of the …

“Eye For An Eye” Or “Turn The Other Cheek?” Exploring The Moderating Roles Of Revenge And Forgiveness When Examining Death Penalty Support And Religious Fundamentalism, William Howard Whited

Dissertations

Public attitudes towards the death penalty appear to influence the usage of legislative policies about this highly debated sanction in the United States. However, existing ways of measuring public opinion about the death penalty are limited in the information they provide. As such, one purpose of the study was to further develop the Revised Attitudes towards the Death Penalty Scale (RATDP), an instrument that measures level of support for the death penalty and is inclusive of the rationales that both proponents and opponents use to justify their stance. Support for a five-factor structure of the RATDP was found in an …

The Link Between Recurrent Childhood Animal Cruelty And Recurrent Interpersonal Violence, Caleb E. Trentham

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

In the early 1960s, researchers began to examine the potential link between childhood animal cruelty and future interpersonal violence. Findings since then have been inconsistent in establishing a relationship between the two. This may be due to researchers failing to measure the recurrency of childhood animal abuse and the recurrency of later violent acts committed in adulthood. The current study, using data from 257 inmates at a medium-security prison in a Southern state, is a replication of research conducted by Tallichet and Hensley (2004) and Hensley, Tallichet, and Dutkiewicz (2009), which examined this recurrency issue. The only statistically significant predictor …

The Forgotten Signature: An Observational Study On Policy Of Securing Identity In Prevention Of Identity Theft And Credit/Debit Card Fraud At Retail Store Pos Terminals, Belinda R. Wilson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identity theft and credit and bank card fraud is increasing in America and worldwide. Given the current statistics of its prevalence and practices around the world, many in government are starting to take critical notice due to its impact on a nation’s economy. Limited amounts of research have been conducted regarding the practices of applying the Routine Activities Theory (Cohen & Felson, 1979) to better equip store managers in understanding the critical need for capable and effective point of sale guardianship for in-store prevention of credit or bank card fraud due to identity theft. This research has used qualitative observational …

Health Care Fraud Across Time And Delivery Systems: Assessing The Legal Impact Of The Affordable Care Act, Dana K. Bonnell

Masters Theses

Health care fraud is a crime that costs the United States billions of dollars each year. Health insurance fraud against government programs such as Medicaid and Medicare make up the majority of false claims. Government health care programs are particularly susceptible to fraud for three reasons: (a) high volume of claims; (b) recipient characteristics; and (c) a favorable ratio of reward to risk. Modes of fraud commission change depending on the health care delivery and payment model in use. In part, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 sought to dramatically reduce health care fraud. The Affordable Care …

School Killers Speak: A Comprehensive Examination Of Perpetrators, Events, And Characteristics Of K-12 School Violence In America, Gordon A. Crews

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

This book resulted as part of a comprehensive and ongoing research project investigating the causes of K–12 school violence and disturbance in America. Between 2008 and 2012, all publicly available lists and news reports were scoured to obtain a population of names of perpetrators who committed violence on kindergarten to 12th-grade school property or at a school function since the 1700s (approximately 500-plus incidents initially identified).

Then the deceased, released, un-adjudicated, and otherwise un-locatable individuals were eliminated from the sample (decreasing cases to approximately 120 incidents). Finally, state correctional systems were extensively searched to determine the number of these offenders …

Cufa: A More Formal Definition For Digital Forensic Artifacts, Vikram S. Harichandran, Daniel Walnycky, Ibrahim Baggili, Frank Breitinger

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

The term “artifact” currently does not have a formal definition within the domain of cyber/ digital forensics, resulting in a lack of standardized reporting, linguistic understanding between professionals, and efficiency. In this paper we propose a new definition based on a survey we conducted, literature usage, prior definitions of the word itself, and similarities with archival science. This definition includes required fields that all artifacts must have and encompasses the notion of curation. Thus, we propose using a new term e curated forensic artifact (CuFA) e to address items which have been cleared for entry into a CuFA database (one …

Deleting Collected Digital Evidence By Exploiting A Widely Adopted Hardware Write Blocker, Christopher S. Meffert, Ibrahim Baggili, Frank Breitinger

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

In this primary work we call for the importance of integrating security testing into the process of testing digital forensic tools. We postulate that digital forensic tools are increasing in features (such as network imaging), becoming networkable, and are being proposed as forensic cloud services. This raises the need for testing the security of these tools, especially since digital evidence integrity is of paramount importance. At the time of conducting this work, little to no published anti-forensic research had focused on attacks against the forensic tools/process.We used the TD3, a popular, validated, touch screen disk duplicator and hardware write blocker …

Juvenile Transfer To Adult Court: Ongoing Search For Scientific Support, David Myers

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

(From p. 3) The basic question addressed in this body of research is as follows: Does transferring juvenile offenders to the adult criminal justice system produce a specific deterrent, criminogenic, or null effect? Unfortunately, despite two decades of research and the meta-analytic techniques employed in this study, a definitive answer to this question remains unclear. Nevertheless, when the results of this meta-analysis are considered along with findings from other relevant research conducted during the past 20 years, it seems clear that the practice of treating juveniles as adults should be limited to the most serious, violent, and chronic offenders, who …

Does Gender Still Matter? Child Custody Bias In The Illinois Family Court System, Derek K. Ronnfeldt

Theses and Dissertations

Over the last several decades, nearly all of the states have formed task forces to look at the perception of a gender bias within the family court systems as they pertain to child custody. This self-scrutiny has included the attitudes of judges and attorneys within the system and the need of reform of our family courts. This research focused on replicating a study conducted by Dotterweich and McKinney that was completed in 2000 that compiled statistics from four different state task forces in Maryland, Missouri, Texas, and Washington. This research focused on Illinois judges and attorneys, using the same questions …

The Role Of Gender In Self-Control And Intimate Partner Violence, Laura Marie Gulledge

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study focuses on the interrelationships between gender, self-control and intimate partner violence (IPV). The sample consists of 960 undergraduate and graduate university students who are currently in a dating relationship. A series of bivariate and multivariate analyses are used to: 1) determine if self-control and IPV vary across gender and 2) assess the effect of gender on the relationship between self-control and IPV. Overall, results provide partial support for Gottfredson and Hirschi’s (1990) general theory of crime. Self-control operated similarly on IPV for both males and females, supporting the gender-neutrality of their theory. However, the gender gap in crime, …

The Applicability Of Criminology To Terrorism Studies: An Exploratory Study Of Isis Supporters In The United States, Amanda Marie Sharp Parker

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the years following the 11 September 2001 attacks, research in the area of terrorism expanded exponentially. However, the changing nature of terrorism and lack of available data make it a difficult topic for criminologists to study; as academics we do not have access to the governmental data and data that is publicly available is often restricted due to the sensitive nature of national security issues. As first hand data is not available, an alternate data source, court records, may provide insight to the profile of current terrorists/terrorist supporters in the United States. Using court data from 71 cases of …

Introduction: Imagining Post-Neoliberal Regulatory Subjectivities, Mika Viljanen Dr, Mikko Rajavuori, Tal Kastner

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

To explore these tentative diagnoses and conceptualizations we called for papers engaging different aspects of law's subjectivity turn. A selection of papers that map the possible genealogies for the emergence of post-neoliberal law, address the implications of anthropomorphic corporate regulation, or analyze transformations in sovereign subjectivities is now published in this symposium issue. The papers take up and make salient an array of the big questions of our day.

While overlapping, the papers can be broadly divided into two categories. The first category consists of papers that explore the internal make-up of legal and regulatory subjectivities. Drawing on history, queer …

Puzzling Out Law's Person, David A. Wishart

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

How is the person to be conceptualized in law? Is it subject or object, what is its ontology and teleology? These are old questions, but ones newly raised by changing ideas of the province of the state, technology, and the extension of legality. Examples include the protection of the fetus in utero; contractualization of relationships, including those of welfare; the regulation of intimacy; the idea of government business; interventions in the business of the firm; and challenges to legal entitihood as constructing personhood. Much discussion of these is incommensurable in terms of place, culture, and discipline. This article ventures a …

Nebraska Department Of Correctional Service Vocational & Life Skills Program Quarterly Report And Final Report, Uno Nebraska Center For Justice Research

Reports

This report provides an overview of data points for the first vocational and life skills grant. The following pages provide more information on the data collection and evaluation process as well as program specific participant information for the last quarter and overall grant cycle. In the first Vocational and Life Skills grant cycle, there were 2,449 individual participations across all reentry programs. All of these individuals are unique to the program, though some individuals were served in multiple programs. This means that the numbers provided represent participations in programs and not necessarily unique individuals across programs. 186 individuals participated in …

Where Is The Survivor’S Voice? An Examination Of The Individual And Structural Challenges To The Reintegration Of Immigrant Human Trafficking Survivors, Michelle Cristina Angelo Dantas Rocha

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The United States is one of the top destination countries for human trafficking, and Florida has the third highest number of reported cases of human trafficking. Despite the severity of this issue, Florida anti-trafficking legislation, reintegration programs, and awareness campaigns tend to contribute to the invisibility of the victims and undermine their recovery and reintegration into society, especially when the victims are immigrants. This project uses a multi-method approach including content analysis of anti-human trafficking campaigns to argue that portrayals of a “perfect victim” only amplify stigmatization and discrimination against immigrant victims. Through in-depth interviews and ethnographic observation highlighting the …

A Power Conflict Approach To Animal Cruelty: Examining How Economic Power Influences The Creation Of Animal Cruelty Laws, Leonard J. Genco

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The current study examines the association of macro-level economic factors and the creation or enactment animal cruelty laws across the states at a fixed time. Criminologists have postulated that economic factors influence the legal system (Chambliss and Seidman, 1971). This thesis addresses whether state-level economic and related macro-level factors influences the amount and types of state animal cruelty legislation lawmakers enact. To do so, this thesis examined animal cruelty legislation and their association with measures of agricultural and farm production, Democratic Party, Republican Party, and pro-animal interest groups across all states of the United States for the time period (2012-2013). …

Assessing The Relevance Of Statistics And Crime Analysis Courses For Working Crime Analysts, Jonathan A. Kringen, Christopher M. Sedelmaier, Elink-Schuurman-Laura

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Crime analysts study criminal activity and police function to improve performance. Analysts inform operations, aid resource allocation, and evaluate programs. These tasks require high levels of statistical literacy. Given that most analysts are college-educated civilians, college coursework in statistics and/or crime analysis may represent the foundational knowledgebase within the profession. However, little research has attempted to determine if coursework teaches the skills needed by analysts. Underlying this issue is a limited understanding about what technical skills crime analysts regularly use. Analyzing parallel surveys of 98 criminal justice educators and 146 crime analysts, this study compares the skills taught in undergraduate-level …

The Effects Of Racial Bias On Perceptions Of Intimate Partner Violence Scenarios, Batya Yisraela Rubenstein

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore how racial bias affects perceptions of intimate partner violence (IPV). Public perceptions of IPV have been studied under numerous contexts to ascertain how characteristics of victim and the offender can affect these attitudes. A portion of this body of research has been dedicated to understanding the role of race in perceptions of IPV and a large portion of the findings have been mixed due to the interaction of biases and attitudes about race and IPV. Very few studies have looked at multiple forms of IPV in comparison with one another while also …