Legal Studies Commons^™

Police Responses To Domestic Violence And Public Perception, Kelly Stout, Alexis Kennedy

Graduate Research Symposium (2010 - 2017)

Domestic violence, also known as, intimate partner violence (IPV), has become an epidemic in the United States. This research is intended to explain the types of IPV, describe the effects of severe IPV, look at the change in public perceptions of IPV situations, and explore the police responses to such situations. Students at UNLV participated in the “Police Responses to Calls for Service” survey, that was created to determine the public’s level of awareness of IPV situations and whether that awareness increases support for police policies in responding to intimate partner violence calls.

Evaluating The Impact Of Team Policing In Las Vegas, Nevada, Natalie N. Martinez

Graduate Research Symposium (2010 - 2017)

Team policing involves the continuous geographical assignment of both patrol officers and investigators to the same, defined area, which allows them to become familiar with area residents and knowledgeable about community concerns and thus, enables them to develop individualized strategies to resolve the neighborhood problems that can lead to crime and disorder. This study evaluates the impact of a team policing intervention in Las Vegas, Nevada that combines an emphasis on community outreach with problem-focused policing strategies to determine the effectiveness of team policing as a crime control strategy. The results indicate that the team policing did not result in …

Editorial, Willard M. Oliver

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

Criminal Justice & Criminology have a long history of using qualitative methods in the conduct of research, but to date there has been neither a qualitative journal in criminal justice, nor one in criminology. That has now changed with this first issue of the Journal of Qualitative Criminal Justice & Criminology (JQCJC); and as one leading scholar recently told me, “It’s about time!”

Hearts In The Wasteland: Redeeming The Moral Self In Corrections, Allison M. Hicks

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"In this article, I examine the emotional culture of prisons as perceived by prison chaplains, a population characterized by conflicting expectations and split loyalties. Expected to enforce institutional rules and punish rule violators, chaplains are also charged with the spiritual rehabilitation of their clients. Greer (2002) argues that prisons represent rich environments for exploring emotion management, being simultaneously emotionally inciting and constraining for those individuals living and working within them. To better understand this duality, I explore chaplains’ interpersonal management of inmates’ emotions. Based on qualitative interview data, I describe some of the assumptions chaplains make about inmates’ emotions and …

Looking Back At Other People’S Money: A Qualitative Test Of Cressey’S Classic Hypothesis Of Trust Violating Behavior, Paul M. Klenowski, Heith Copes

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Cressey’s study of trust violators has had a tremendous impact on how criminologists understand white collar offenders. Despite this, few have sought to replicate or validate his findings. The aim of this study is to replicate Cressey’s classic work to determine if it still has practical theoretical value today. To do this, we relied on data collected from 25 male federally incarcerated occupational offenders using semi-structured interviews. The results indicate that there is moderate empirical support for Cressey’s hypothesis when collectively examining all three components of his hypothesis. We found only minimal support for the importance of “non-shareable problems” because …

How Families Of Murder Victims Feel Following The Execution Of Their Loved One’S Murderer: A Content Analysis Of Newspaper Reports Of Executions From 2006-2011, Corey Burton, Richard Tewksbury

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Two common assumptions are that family members of murder victims (i.e. co-victims) will achieve closure and perceive a sense of justice following the execution of their loved one’s murderer. Those acting on behalf of co-victims and purporting to represent their best interests often use closure and justice discourses to bolster their arguments in favor of capital punishment in a particular case. However to assume, unequivocally, that family members will view the execution as the last of several steps in the journey to closure and perceived justice is to ignore a significant number of co-victims who may feel differently. Drawing on …

A Formative Approach In Applying A Meta- Ethnography Across The Qualitative Professional Criminal Literature, Douglas J. Wholl, Wilson R. Palacios, John K. Cochran, Christine S. Sellers

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"This paper aims to introduce and teach readers step-by-step how to conduct a meta-ethnography within the field of criminology. In order to accomplish this, we purposefully selected a very narrow area of study, professional criminals as presented in well-known classic criminological monographs and then further restricted it to a rational choice perspective, a theoretical rubric easily addressed via the meta-ethnography. These limiting decisions were done so that readers would not get lost in the substance of the meta-ethnography. A search of qualitative research monographs and related online bibliographic databases identified a total of 32 research monographs, 6 of which met …

Examining The Decision-Making Processes Of Sex Tourists Using On-Line Data, Thomas J. Holt, April M. Zeoli, Kathleen Bohrer

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Criminological research has increasingly focused on the decision- making processes of offenders in order to better understand criminal behavior as a whole. A small body of research has considered how the bounds or limits of offender decision-making are shaped by various factors. In addition, limited research has considered the role of preference and bounded rationality in crimes where long-range planning and careful consideration of options are possible. To that end, this study explores both the factors that influence individual decisions and the way that they interact with preference to shape the decision-making process of sex tourists or individuals who travel …

Van Den Hoonaard, D.K. Qualitative Research In Action: A Canadian Primer, Deborah Landry

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Dr. Deborah Van Den Hoonaard has made a distinguished career of applying qualitative methodologies to uncover the rich everyday experiences of marginal populations. Professor Van Den Hoonaard holds a prestigious position as Canada Research Chair in Qualitative Analysis, garnering the respect of her peers for her fieldwork. The savvy experience of a seasoned field researcher unfolds easily in this guidebook, which feels more like a documentary than a methodology textbook. Nodding to the ethnographic traditions of the Chicago School and McGill University (the Canadian version of the Chicago School), her engagement with contemporary approaches is couched in an informed historical …

Louise Westmarland, Gender And Policing: Sex, Power, And Police Culture, Maria D. H. Koeppel

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Originally released in 2001, Louise Westmarland’s Gender and Policing has been released with a new publisher. With Routledge’s rerelease of the book, it is necessary to reassess the value of its research in the field of gender and policing to determine if it is still relevant. Throughout the book, Westmarland uses qualitative data to explore gendered themes in United Kingdom police forces. More specifically, her work focuses on whether differential deployment exists in policing based on gender and explores the role of gender within policing culture in several different situations. To analyze possible gendered patterns, Westmarland bases her work on …

“We’Re All Born With Equal Opportunities”: Hegemonic Individualism And Contextual Mitigation Among Delaware Capital Jurors, Ross Kleinstuber

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"The Supreme Court has ruled that evidence derived from a capital defendant’s life history is crucial for making the reasoned moral judgment that is central to the death penalty’s constitutionality. However, Dunn and Kaplan (2009) suggested that individualism is so embedded in American culture that most people defer to it uncritically, which makes the use of such contextualizing mitigating evidence challenging. Prior studies suggest that capital jurors do not understand mitigation and focus on guilt-related issues when making their sentencing decisions, but they do not examine why this is so. This study extends these prior works by comparing the content …

Geoff K. Ward, The Black Child-Savers: Racial Democracy & Juvenile Justice, Robin D. Jackson

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Drawing on biographical details, people’s experiences, and historical documents, Geoff K. Ward examines Black child savers’ efforts and struggles to transform a Jim Crow juvenile justice system into a racially democratic model of juvenile justice. In his first book: The Black Child-Savers: Racial Democracy & Juvenile Justice, Ward describes Black child-savers as concerned Black Americans and their allies who sought racial reform in the juvenile justice system and who intervened on the behalf of Black dependent and delinquent youth. Ward also discusses “the sociocultural origins and organization of Jim Crow juvenile justice as well as the social movement by …

W.E.B. Dubois, The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study, Howard Henderson

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Criminology’s Forgotten Genesis?

Crime is a phenomenon of organized social life, and is the open rebellion of an individual against his social environment. Naturally then, if men are suddenly transported from one environment to another, the result is lack of harmony with the new conditions; lack of harmony with the new physical surroundings leading to disease and death or modification of physique; lack of harmony with social surroundings leading to crime. (DuBois, p. 235) "

Saundra D. Westervelt & Kimberly J. Cook, Life After Death Row: Exonerees’ Search For Community And Identity, Jeanne Subjack

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Life After Death Row examines how individuals wrongly sentenced to death adjust to life after their release. The idea for the book arose in 2009, after Westervelt and Cook attended a conference and learned about the different aspects related to wrongful convictions that had yet to be addressed in academia. To gain a more thorough understanding of the events the participants experienced, the authors used life history and feminist methods to conduct their research. Although the current analysis is not necessarily focused on gender, feminist methods are useful here because they can be applied when a researcher “seeks an …

Introduction To Marshall Digital Scholar/Everything You Thought You Knew About Copyright, Jingping Zhang, Monica Brooks, Paris E. Webb, Larry Sheret

MU IR Day: April 11, 2013

Copyright Primer: demystifying the law and best practices for librarians. Ignorance of the law is no longer acceptable and individuals can now be assessed astronomically high statutory damages per infringement. Join us for a frank and informative discussion regarding current copyright law and application in your library when working with digital publisher content. We don’t pretend to have all the answers but our team will share our MDS workflow for securing permissions for inclusion in the institutional repository for public access

Process Evaluation: Suffolk County House Of Correction’S Reentry Programs, Paige Ransford, Center For Women In Politics And Public Policy, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Effective reentry is an important component of the mission of the Suffolk County House of Correction and of its reentry programing. The maintenance of public safety depends largely on the institution’s ability to help offenders successfully reintegrate back into their communities. Connecting inmates to community-based programs, services, and support before they leave prison can help ensure that they will become productive members of their community.

Explaining Political Activeness And Attitudes Toward Unionization Among Nurses In The United States., Crystal L. Lesmeister

Political Science Theses and Capstones

There is no question; nurses play a key role in healthcare. Nurses provide direct care, coordinate health promotion activities, educate, and provide support and advocacy to patients. Today, there are over two million registered nurses in the United States. My research aims to determine the variables that influence some nurses to be more politically active and more engaged in unionization than their counterparts. I analyze The National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses 2004 looking at a variety of potential explanations for union participation. Findings show a strong regional variation in the percentage of unionization, however, some of the conventional explanations …

Forensic Science Forum, San Jose State University

Forensic Science Forum (Justice Studies)

No abstract provided.

A Unique Approach Against Child Sex Offenders: Jefferson County "Cheezo" Unit The Model For Success?, Sonia R. Chavez

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

Online crimes against children are a daunting problem facing law enforcement today. The Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force reported 76,961 complaints in 2010-2011. The purpose of this study was to describe the unique approach of the Jefferson County Child Sex Offender Internet Investigations (CSOII, nicknamed "Cheezo") Unit, analyze the arrest data of Cheezo, and determine if Cheezo could be used as a best methods approach against this problem. A demographic study was conducted on the Cheezo arrest data, as well as comparison analysis of arrest totals, prosecution rates, and educational presentations provided to the community. Comparisons were conducted …

Female Prisoner Attitudes Toward Sex Offenders (F-Patso): A Preliminary Comparison Using The Community Attitudes Toward Sex Offenders (Catso-R) Scale, N. A. Weihe

McNair Scholars Research Journal

This preliminary report explores female prisoner attitudes toward sex offenders (F-PATSO) held by incarcerated women at a medium security, state correctional facility. Utilizing the 18-question Community Attitudes Toward Sex Offender (CATSO-R) scale (Church, 2008) and eight demographic variables, researchers distributed selfadministered surveys to 102 female inmates over the course of two days. For the purpose of this paper, and in order to determine if there is any variation in attitudes between groups, the author examines the prevalence of lifetime sexual abuse as reported by the inmates in relation to their attitudes toward sex offenders based on one of four factored …