Legal Studies Commons^™

Are We Safe In The Digital World? Why We Still Fall Victim To Cybercrime, Kevin Le

Honors Papers and Posters

Cybersecurity has only recently gained press coverage as millions of individuals are victimized by cyberattacks. While current cybersecurity measures offer some protection, human error has been the number one cause of cyberattacks for the past eight years (Verizon, 2024). Cybercrime continues to evolve in complexity, leveraging advanced technology and human psychology to bypass traditional security systems. This study examines why individuals still fall victim to cyberattacks. It explores the psychological and cognitive factors that make individuals vulnerable, focusing on social engineering techniques such as phishing and pretexting. This study also analyzes factors from psychological theories, including Protection Motivation Theory, Routine …

Analysis Of Shotshell Breech Face Impressions Using A Computer-Based Algorithm, Carly Renee Smith

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Forensic firearm analysis involves the comparison of test fires from a suspect firearm to an unknown sample, typically collected from a crime scene. Test fires and the unknown sample are examined for agreement in class characteristics and sufficient agreement in individual characteristics using a comparison microscope. The forensic analysis of firearms has been challenged both in court and by governmental organizations for its subjective nature and the inability to accurately report error rates.

To combat these challenges, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has proposed using computer-based algorithms, such as Congruent Matching Cells (CMC). These CMC algorithm calculates …

Police Abuse In America And The Search For Remedy, Howard Ryan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The dissertation contends that, despite many diligent efforts—from mass protests to a presidential task force—America is not yet on path to remedying its outsized patterns of police abuse. The abuse problem is broadly characterized herein through a “triad” of over-enforcement, excessive force, and racial discrimination. The Washington Post’s “Fatal Force” database, covering the years 2015 through 2024, is offered as a bellwether of American progress in addressing its police abuse; and, it is observed, the nation’s yearly count of fatal police shootings of civilians has been increasing, rather than decreasing.

To help make sense of our lack of national progress, …

Breaking A Criminal Mind: Leveraging Habit Breaking/Building For Crime Reduction, Dru Gerace

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Criminal behavior is often shaped by a complex interaction between psychological processes, habitual actions, and neurobiological mechanisms. This research explores how habitual decision-making and reinforcement patterns contribute to criminal tendencies, integrating insights from neuroscience and psychology. The study examines how early-life experiences, cognitive biases, and environmental factors shape habitual behaviors that may predispose individuals to criminal activity. It also discusses the role of executive functioning, impulse control, and neuroplasticity in breaking maladaptive patterns. By analyzing contemporary theories of habit formation and their neurological underpinnings, this paper offers a multidimensional perspective on the development of criminal behavior. Furthermore, implications for rehabilitation …

Aviation Guilt: The Role Of Human Factors In Airline Incidents, Alexander Silva

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Human factors play a central role in aviation safety, influencing entire processes in an aviation environment. This paper reviews human factors in aviation as a whole to create a picture of what causes many aviation accidents. Models such as the SHEL model, Swiss Cheese Model, and Wickens MRT will be introduced to illuminate both the ways in which a flight deck should operate and why certain decisions are made in critical situations. Some of the deadliest aviation accidents have resulted from human error, such as the Tenerife airport disaster and AF447. These disasters were seminal in the development and execution …

Studying Repeat Victimization: A Consideration Of Measurement Issues, Christi Metcalfe, Robert Brame, Tara E. Martin, Angela R. Gover

Faculty Publications

Decades of research have recognized the phenomenon of repeat victimization and its policy relevance. Although there are continuing efforts to explain the theoretical underpinnings of repeat victimization, there are still measurement-related issues that limit our understanding of the topic and ability to inform interventions, including varying operational definitions, data constraints, and sampling and nonsampling error. In this article, we review theoretical advances in the literature over the past decade, propose operationalizations that can foster greater consistency across studies, comprehensively assess the data constraints around commonly used public data sources to study repeat victimization, and empirically demonstrate how one of these …

Internal Or External: An Exploration Of The United States Police Chief Hiring Process, Kayleigh Walker

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This paper explores the hiring processes of police chiefs across the United States, focusing on internal versus external hiring practices. The goal of this research was to identify common trends, legislative barriers, and the impact of leadership on the hiring process through historical context, legal analysis, and case studies. The findings suggest that internal hires dominate chief appointments, though external hires are often sought during crises. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research and highlights the need to more fully understand this phenomenon. Understanding the processes and limitations surrounding the appointment of new leadership is critical to reform and …

Analyzing Car Theft Trends In Central Texas: A Comparative Study Of Waco, College Station, And Killeen, Daniel Njogu

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This study examines motor vehicle theft (MVT) trends from 2019 to 2023 in three Central Texas cities—Waco, College Station, and Killeen—using temporal analysis, geospatial hotspot mapping, and make/model data. In Killeen, thefts generally rose over the period, with notable peaks in October and on Mondays. College Station saw an overall decline in thefts but experienced a seasonal spike each March, and Waco’s thefts increased until around 2021 before beginning to fall. Local festivals—such as the Spirit of Texas in College Station and the Heart O’ Texas Fair in Waco—appear to coincide with these seasonal upticks. Hyundais and Kias were most …

London's Murderous Mothers: How Charitable And Medical Advancement Influenced Infanticide Indictments During The Long 18th Century, Brandon Gamman

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

No abstract provided.

Special-Purpose Governments, Conor Clarke, Henry Hansmann

Scholarship@WashULaw

When one thinks of government, what comes to mind are familiar general-purpose entities like states, counties, and cities. But more than half of the 90,000 governments in the United States are strikingly different: They are “special-purpose” governments that do one thing, such as supply water, fight fire, or pick up the trash. These entities have expanded far more rapidly than any other form of government. Yet they remain understudied, and they present at least two puzzles. First, special-purpose governments are difficult to distinguish from entities that are typically regarded as business organizations—such as consumer cooperatives—and thus underscore the nebulous border …

The Illusion Of Inclusion: The False Promise Of The New Governance Project For Content Moderation, Brenda Dvoskin

Scholarship@WashULaw

Because private companies now control the most prominent communication platforms, the most pressing question in the field of content moderation is how to ensure that the governance of public discourse responds to public values. The prevailing approach, given that the state cannot regulate speech directly, is that state regulation can be substituted with audited self-regulation, broad stakeholder participation, and negotiated rulemaking. In this model, which this article refers to as the “new governance model for content moderation,” companies include advocates as representatives of the public in their processes to govern online speech. Ideally, they negotiate policy goals and share responsibility …

The Keys To The Kingdom: The Unexpectedly Unsettled Definitions Of Security And Sale And The Overruling Of Chevron, Joel Seligman

Scholarship@WashULaw

This article explores two important unresolved questions for the Federal Securities regulation under the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The definition of security and the definition of sale were increasingly contested and potentially unstable before the United States Supreme Court decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo overruled the Chevron doctrine.

The Employment Benefits Of Law Clinics And Externships, Robert R. Kuehn

Scholarship@WashULaw

One of the reasons law students enroll in a law clinic or externship is the belief that the experience will improve their marketability. In a nationwide survey asking what was driving demand for their courses, 94% of externship directors and 66% of law clinic directors said it was, in part, because students believe those courses improve employment opportunities. Surveys of recent law graduates and employers show that students' perceptions of the positive impact of a clinic or externship experience on their job opportunities upon graduation are well founded. Research shows that clinics and externships do aid graduates in obtaining their …

Tortious Interference Revisited, Danielle D'Onfro, Cathy Hwang

Scholarship@WashULaw

Tortious interference with contract has bedeviled legal commentators for over a century. It can provide relief in some situations where straightforward contract breach cannot reach. But these claims have also been derided for threatening competition, at-will employment, free speech, and important guardrails on other private law claims. The doctrine is also difficult to square with theories of efficient contract breach and the long-held view that contracts on their own are not property interests.

Perhaps because of its intellectual awkwardness, tortious interference claims were relatively rare until the twenty-first century. In the last twenty years, the doctrine has exploded in popularity, …

Safe Sex In The Age Of Big Tech Feminism, Brenda Dvoskin, Thomas E. Kadri

Scholarship@WashULaw

Lawmakers and technology companies are regulating online sexuality in the name of feminism. Whereas libertarian ideals dominated early debates about internet governance, “safety” became a rallying cry to regulate online activity in the age of Big Tech. As these regulatory paradigms now clash once again, one trend remains: legislators across the political spectrum and companies around the world are devising interventions that purportedly keep people—and especially women—safe from the risks of online sexuality. Through law and technology, they are targeting everything from privacy invasions to unwanted messages to sexual deepfakes. We call this regulatory and ideological trend Big Tech feminism. …

Venturing Into Health, Rachel Sachs

Scholarship@WashULaw

In recent years, the landscape of venture capital (VC) investment in healthcare technologies has been altered by the introduction of new types of VC firms: those that have emerged from hospital systems and health insurers. However, the legal literature has not yet analyzed these new VC firms, the role they may play in healthcare innovation, and how innovation law and policy ought to consider their involvement. Hospital system and health insurer VC firms operate very differently than do traditional VC firms, even those that have historically developed healthcare specializations. Instead of simply investing capital into start-up firms, hospital system and …

A New Framework For Drug Pricing Law And Policy, Rachel Sachs

Scholarship@WashULaw

Scholars and policymakers have expressed concern about the impact of high prescription drug costs on patients and healthcare budgets. This Article presents a new theoretical framework for evaluating both the problem to be addressed by drug pricing reforms as well as the efficacy of potential solutions. In seeking to solve “the drug pricing problem,” our legal system has given primacy to competition rather than regulation to drive down drug prices. This Article disaggregates the broader concept of “the drug pricing problem” into four steps, each of which must be addressed and each of which elevates different institutional actors to key …

The Other Delaware Effect, Jens Frankenreiter

Scholarship@WashULaw

This paper examines the effects of Delaware’s 2015 ban on fee-shifting provisions in corporate charters and bylaws, a significant legislative intervention in corporate law aimed at curbing managerial powers. The Delaware Supreme Court had approved these provisions just one year earlier as part of a series of measures aimed at curbing shareholder litigation. Because of their perceived substantial potential to reduce wasteful litigation, the Delaware legislature’s ban led many to predict an exodus of corporations from Delaware and the continued spread of fee-shifting provisions in other states.

Contrary to these predictions, this study finds that the ban did not trigger …

Algorithmic Governance And Nondiscrimination Rights In The Workplace, Pauline Kim

Scholarship@WashULaw

This chapter analyzes existing legal responses to the problem of discriminatory algorithms in the workplace. As firms increasingly rely on algorithms or automated decision systems, a type of artificial intelligence, to manage their workforces, concerns have grown that these tools can systematically exclude historically disadvantaged groups. One response is to rely on traditional anti-discrimination law. These laws clearly prohibit certain forms of algorithmic discrimination; however, the complex, opaque nature of algorithms makes identifying and proving discriminatory harms challenging. Another response looks to broader frameworks of data protection and algorithmic regulation to protect against workplace discrimination. These initiatives are promising, but …

Disentangling Safety And Accountability In Criminal Justice Policy, Benjamin Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

In this Article, I argue that the U.S. criminal system and debates about criminal justice reform reflect an elision of two largely distinct social functions: ensuring public safety and imposing accountability for harmful conduct. Despite deep disagreement about the specifics, most commentators seem to accept that these are both important social functions. Abolitionists claim that the criminal system doesn’t keep people safe and provide accountability. Instead, it harms—and perhaps is meant to harm—people from marginalized communities and protects the interest of socially dominant groups. Reformers contend that the criminal system can and should serve the safety and/or accountability interests, but …