Legal Studies Commons^™

Mass School Shootings: Predicting The Usage Of Firearms In Acts Of School Violence, Melanie A. Hart

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Due to increased media attention and associated fear, school shootings have become a major concern for the public. Attempts to predict and prevent shootings have been developed by a variety of government agencies such as the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. A psychological profile, however, has yet to be established. This study uses demographic and behavioral characteristics of perpetrators and school characteristics to predict the likelihood of a perpetrator’s usage of firearms. A total of 345 perpetrators of mass school violence incidents are examined, including 266 who used firearms. White perpetrators and those …

Although The “Get-Tough” Approach Is Popular Among The American Public And Policymakers Alike, Incarceration Does Not Reduce Crime, Marika Dawkins-Cavazos

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

The prevalence of crime has been of great concern to policymakers for decades, with many factors being blamed and many solutions suggested. Since the 1970s’ punitive incarceration policies have found favor, and are now being replicated for juvenile offenders as well. Using state-level data on crime and juvenile residential placement (which have now become very similar in their operations to those of adult facilities), Marika Dawkins finds that such placements do not lead to a reduction in juvenile offending or crime. She argues that, in this light, community-based sanctions as well as greater support for families should take precedence over …

Grappling At The Grassroots: Access To Justice In India's Lower Tier, Jayanth K. Krishnan, Shirish N. Kavadi, Azima Girach, Dhanaji Khupkar, Kilindi Kokal, Satyajeet Mazumdar, Nupar, Gayatri Panday, Aatreyee Sen, Aqseer Sodhi, Bharati Takale Shukla

Articles by Maurer Faculty

From 2010 to 2012, a team of academic and civil society researchers conducted extensive ethnographies of litigants, judges, lawyers, and courtroom personnel within multiple districts in three states: Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Himachal Pradesh. This Article provides an in-depth account of the everyday struggles these actors face in the pursuit of their respective objectives. The findings illustrate a complex matrix of variables-including infrastructure, staffing, judicial training and legal awareness, costs and continuances, gender and caste discrimination, power imbalances, intimidation and corruption, miscellaneous delays, and challenges with specialized forums-impact access to justice in the lower tier. The results of this study offer …

Cross-Border Targeted Killings: "Lawful But Awful"?, Rosa Brooks

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Since September 11, the United States has waged two very open wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. These two wars have killed nearly 7,000 U.S. military personnel and left some 50,000 American troops wounded; they have also left an unknown number of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers and civilians dead or wounded. But alongside these two costly and visible wars, the United States has also been waging what amounts to a third war.

This third war is a secret war, waged mostly by drone strikes, though it has also involved a smaller number of special operations raids. The author calls this third …

Symbolic Imprisonment, Grief, And Coping Theory: African American Women With Incarcerated Mates, Avon Marie Hart-Johnson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

African American men have been incarcerated at unprecedented rates in the United States over the past 30 years. This study explored how African American females experience adverse psychosocial responses to separation from an incarcerated mate. The purpose of this qualitative grounded theory (GT) study was to construct a theory to explain their responses to separation and loss. Given the paucity of literature on this topic, helping professionals may not understand this problem or know how to support these women. Disenfranchised grief and the dual process model of bereavement were used as a theoretical lens for this study. Data were collected …

Role Conflict And Nonsexual Boundary Violations Among Correctional Officers, Ronald M. Ruggiero

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Role Conflict and Nonsexual Boundary Violations Among Correctional Officers

by

Ronald Ruggiero

Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Human Service--Criminal Justice

Walden University

May 2014

Abstract

Despite the growing presence of prisons in American society, little is known about challenges experienced in the job performed by correctional officers (COs); specifically, no research has investigated how their intermediary status between inmates and prison management can result in role conflict. This descriptive case study explored role conflict among 10 retired CO's and the presence of inmates who enter prison with a high public …

An Empirical Study Of Appointed Counsel Effectiveness In Jury Trials, James Patrick Hall

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Anecdotal evidence supports the belief among indigent individuals who are assigned defense counsel that they would be better represented by privately retained counsel. This perspective jeopardizes attorney effectiveness by reducing communication and trust between the attorney and client. Research on the effectiveness of counsel is sparse. The purpose of this quantitative study was to bridge this gap in knowledge by comparing the effectiveness of privately retained and publicly appointed counsel between 2008 and 2013, both before and after the imposition of state-wide compensation limitations on publicly appointed defense counsel. The theoretical framework was Stuntz's theory, which stresses that one part …

Juries And Social Media: Northwest Ohio's Response To This Phenomenon, Erica Lunderman

Honors Projects

The 21^st century is an era in which the dependence on technology is at an all-time high. The availability of information on social networking sites has recently sparked a debate in regards to jury impartiality. Over the last few years states such as Florida, Michigan, and New York have received scholastic attention for making changes to local jury instructions to ensure defendant’s rights of an impartial jury guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. Federal national jury instructions addressing juror social media usage has also drawn attention. Little, however, scholastic attention has been directed towards Northwest Ohio. This project will look …

Intellectual Diversity In The Legal Academy, Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Elite law faculties are overwhelmingly liberal. Jim Lindgren has proven the point empirically. The author adds his impressions from Georgetown Law School to reinforce the point. Georgetown Law School is a faculty of 120, and, to the author's knowledge, the number of professors who are openly conservative, or libertarian, or Republican or, in any sense, to the right of the American center, is three—three out of 120. There are more conservatives on the nine-member United States Supreme Court than there are on this 120-member faculty. Moreover, the ideological median of the other 117 seems to lie not just left of …

Artificial Meaning, Lawrence B. Solum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This Essay investigates the concept of artificial meaning, meanings produced by entities other than individual natural persons. That investigation begins in Part I with a preliminary inquiry into the meaning of “meaning,” in which the concept of meaning is disambiguated. The relevant sense of “meaning” for the purpose of this inquiry is captured by the idea of communicative content, although the phrase “linguistic meaning” is also a rough equivalent. Part II presents a thought experiment, The Chinese Intersection, which investigates the creation of artificial meaning produced by an AI that creates legal rules for the regulation of a hyper-complex conflux …

Resources In English On The Criminal Justice System Of The People’S Republic Of China, Ellen Sexton

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Prosecutorial Discretion In Three Systems: Balancing Conflicting Goals And Providing Mechanisms For Control, Sara Sun Beale

Faculty Scholarship

In regulating the authority and discretion exercised by contemporary prosecutors,national systems balance a variety of goals, many of which are in tension or direct conflict. Forexample, making prosecutors politically or democratically accountable may conflict with theprinciple of prosecutorial neutrality, and the goal of efficiency may conflict with accuracy. National systems generally seek to foster equal treatment of defendants and respect for theirrights while also controlling or reducing crime and protecting the rights of victims. Systems thatrecognize prosecutorial discretion also seek to establish and implement policy decisions aboutthe best ways to address various social problems, priorities, and the allocation of resources. …

A Side Of Justice Rarely Seen: Professional Perspectives Toward Youth Justice And Sentencing Procedures In The Exploratory Context Of Canada And Russia, Serge Lokshin M.A.

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis contributes to the growing body of literature on comparative youth justice and policy. By analyzing dilemmas faced by youth in justice systems from the perspective of Canada and Russia, the study argues that professional outlooks have a considerable significance for understanding the legal system and its function, and play an important role in shaping judicial administration concerning juveniles. An investigation into professional perspectives on youth justice is used to formulate an understanding of the issues for young people within the legal systems of the respective regions, the sentencing procedures, and the social and procedural contentions facing youth on …

La Tirania De La Invisibilidad: La Necesidad De Reconocer Y Analizar La Violencia De Genero En La Argentina, Laura Mallison

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines gender violence in Argentina in the context of the historic continuum of gender inequality, with a more in-depth analysis of gender violence during the 1976-1983 dictatorship. I argue that gender violence is perpetuated and normalized by its lack of recognition as a political issue with ramifications extending to daily life. I use the construction of a collective memory of the Dictatorship as a framework for making the intricacies of gender violence more visible and provide a detailed analysis of two laws against gender violence to demonstrate its systematic nature. Ultimately, laws are not sufficient to address such …

Education And Training Of Specialist Sexual Offence Investigators In Victoria, Australia From 2009 To 2011, Jennifer Anne Turnley

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The topic of training specifically designed for investigators of sexual offences has received little attention from academic researchers to date. Previous studies have not described training provided to police investigators of sexual offences in Australia. This thesis developed Turnley’s Framework for the Examination of Police Training in Sexual Assault Investigation, to examine and describe a Sexual Offences and Child Abuse Investigative Teams (SOCIT) Course, provided to Victorian Police from 2009 to 2011. This entailed triangulation of findings from non-participant observations of one SOCIT Course, with quantitative and qualitative data sourced though an in-depth interview with course trainers; feedback sheets voluntarily …

The Accessibility Of In-Prison Programming For Female Offenders And Their Gender Specific Needs, Kelli Reynolds

Honors Program Theses and Projects

With the rates of female incarcerations on the rise, it is important that we examine programs available to female offenders in prison, and programs available to female offenders as they exit prison and re-enter society. Programs developed specifically for these females to fit their needs are important in their rehabilitation progress and should help in keeping their recidivism rates low. I expect to find a disconnect between the needs of female offenders and the programs meant to serve and rehabilitate them. I also expect the review of literature to support that a majority of female offenders have histories of victimization …

How Do Specialized Units Affect The Outputs Of Police Organizations?: Investigating The Effect Of Community Policing Units On Community Policing Activities In Local Police Departments, Hyon Namgung

Dissertations

A review of modern police history shows the trend of increased division of labor within police agencies. However, police organizations are often criticized for creating specialized police units when they are faced with specific problems or are not effectively tackling local problems. Other challenges from within the profession include potential inter-unit conflicts or indifference of officers from other units that may hinder program implementation by specialized units. The present study looked into the changing characteristics of specialized units within police departments between 2000 and 2007. This research also examined whether creation of specialized community policing units (CP Units) influences the …

Lightning Strikes Twice: An Examination Of The Political Factors Associated With State-Level Death Sentences And Executions In The United States, 1930-2012, Ethan Christopher Amidon

Dissertations

Over the course of the last 50 years, scholars have emphasized the role that political processes play in shaping the nature of capital punishment practices. Empirical studies that have examined the relationship between political factors and capital punishment have attributed variation in the imposition of death sentences and the execution of offenders across jurisdictions in the United States to the politicization of criminal justice policies and practices and the shift in public sentiment towards more punitive ideologies that began in the 1970s. Even though historians have argued that capital punishment practices have always been shaped by political considerations, empirical research …

Brave New World Reloaded: Advocating For Basic Constitutional Search Protections To Apply To Cell Phones From Eavesdropping And Tracking By Government And Corporate Entities, Mark Berrios-Ayala

HIM 1990-2015

Imagine a world where someone’s personal information is constantly compromised, where federal government entities AKA Big Brother always knows what anyone is Googling, who an individual is texting, and their emoticons on Twitter. Government entities have been doing this for years; they never cared if they were breaking the law or their moral compass of human dignity. Every day the Federal government blatantly siphons data with programs from the original ECHELON to the new series like PRISM and Xkeyscore so they can keep their tabs on issues that are none of their business; namely, the personal lives of millions. Our …

Eternal Recurrence In A Neo-Kantian Context, Michael S. Green

Faculty Publications

In this essay, I argue that someone who adopted a falsificationism of the sort that I have attributed to Nietzsche would be attracted to the doctrine of eternal recurrence. For Nietzsche, to think the becoming revealed through the senses means falsifying it through being. But the eternal recurrence offers the possibility of thinking becoming without falsification. I then argue that someone who held Nietzsche’s falsificationism would see in human agency a conflict between being and becoming similar to that in empirical judgment. In the light of this conflict only the eternal recurrence would offer the possibility of truly affirming life. …