Criminology Commons^™

Urban And Rural Comparisons Of Attitudes Toward Medically Assisted Treatment For Pregnant And Postpartum Women With Oud In Appalachia, Anna Reeves

Online Theses and Dissertations

The opioid crisis has plagued the United States but disproportionately affects the often-overlooked Appalachian region. This area faces unique barriers preventing better access to quality Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) treatment facilities despite opioid-related deaths continuing to rise. An especially vulnerable population in this region are pregnant and postpartum women who face even more challenges acquiring proper drug treatment. Medically Assisted Treatment (MAT), also called Medications for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD), is considered the standard of treatment for OUD and reduces the effects of NAS, yet it is heavily stigmatized and underutilized in populations who could benefit from the medication. This …

How The Drug Trade Is Facilitated Online: A Qualitative Meta-Synthesis, Jose Aguilar

Online Theses and Dissertations

The drug trade is part of society and will, therefore, continue to evolve as society evolves. Technology plays a significant role in the evolution of society and the drug trade alike. Technological developments such as the internet have facilitated our lives. Several conditions have contributed to the evolution of the drug trade, including the increased and intensifying criminalization of material spaces, which has led to people engaging in crime in and across cyberspace(s). The transnational nature of the emergent digital drug trade has brought with it unique jurisdictional concerns as the globalized world intersects with the global internet to facilitate …

Examining Remorse In Attributions Of Focal Concerns During Sentencing: A Study Of Probation Officers, Colleen M. Berryessa

International Journal on Responsibility

This research, using interviews with probation officers in the United States (n = 151) and a constant comparative method for analysis, draws from the focal concerns framework to qualitatively model a process by which probation officers use a defendant’s remorse to attribute focal concerns in order to guide their sentencing recommendations in pre-sentencing reports. The model suggests that officers use expressions of remorse to make attributions about mitigated criminal intention (blameworthiness and notions of responsibility), reduced dangerousness and a high potential for reform (community protection), and organization-level effects for increasing caseload efficiency and using correctional resources (practical effects of …

Emotions As Social Objects In The Justice System: How Feelings Develop In Justice Processes And What They Do., Peyton Alexander Warman

Online Theses and Dissertations

Criminological research on emotionality and emotional demonstration in justice processes remains underdeveloped. One method of approaching the issue of understanding emotions in the justice setting is to conceptualize them as a form of social communication, impacted by the structure of the legal domain yet holding significant influence on their own. This thesis seeks to establish how emotions are rooted in social dynamics, and how the justice system, in both restorative and punitive contexts, including prison environments, creates specific social conditions that guide emotional demonstration and interpretation. The comprehensive review of established literature leads to the initial conclusion that emotions are …

Carceral Data: The Limits Of Transparency-As-Accountability In Prison Risk Data, Becka Hudson, Tomas Percival

Secrecy and Society

Prison data collection is a labyrinthine infrastructure. This article engages with debates around the political potentials and limitations of transparency as a form of “accountability,” specifically as it relates to carceral management and data gathering. We examine the use of OASys, a widely used risk assessment tool in the British prison system, in order to demonstrate how transparency operates as a means of legitimating prison data collection and ensuing penal management. Prisoner options to resist their file, or “data double,” in this context are considered and the decisive role of OASys as an immediately operationalized technical structure is outlined. We …

A Call To Action: Person-Centered Care Aligned With Reproductive Justice For Incarcerated Pregnant People With Substance Use Disorder, Essence Hairston, Aunchalee El Palmquist, Andrea K. Knittel, Kevin Mensah-Biney, Crystal M. Hayes, Amelia Mack, Hendrée E. Jones

School of Social Work Faculty Publications

Although research has proven that jails and prisons are ineffective in preventing or reducing substance use among pregnant people, the USA continues to rely heavily on the criminal legal system as its intervention. Pregnant people with an opioid use disorder are more likely to experience incarceration than pregnant people without an opioid use disorder. In some states, pregnant people are transported from jail to prison through the process of safekeeping in order to receive physical or mental health care that the jail does not provide, despite conviction status. When pregnant and postpartum safekeepers with an opioid use disorder experience incarceration, …

Committee Prosecution: Using Expert Opinion To Make Criminal Justice Descisions More Impactful, Ellison Berryhill

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat

Those uninitiated to the reality of the United States’ criminal justice framework may believe that judges are the most powerful actors in the system. These casual observers watch crime shows filled with trials where judges make rulings and yell at people who are out of line. Viewers may believe in the adversarial system as a war between zealous prosecutors seeking justice and defense attorneys fighting for their client’s innocence. They may think of judges as neutral arbiter who makes the ultimate decisions. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

Alternatively, casual observers may think that the jury is the most powerful …

Constructing, Integrating, And Testing The Choice Set For Models Of Offender Decision-Making, Matthew Kijowski

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Models of offender decision-making are premised on a rational actor weighing the perceived options within their choice set. One will choose to engage in a behavioral option that provides them with the greatest benefits and fewest costs as compared to the other perceived options. Even though the choice set is the foundation from which offender decision-making is built, criminologists, and offender decision-making scholars specifically, have assumed the choice set without directly measuring it. Without appraising the choice set, a multi-step process of decision-making is collapsed into a single step. This precludes an understanding of the composition of the choice set, …

Heat Mapping Crime: A Data-Driven Approach To Policing In New York, Beruktawit Gebreamlak, Daniel Ochoa

altREU Projects

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, New York City has seen a surge in criminal activities. In 2023, major crime continues to be higher compared to pre-pandemic levels. Although progress is being made to reduce the number of murders and robberies, law enforcement is continuing to struggle with increases in felony assaults and car thefts. Our project serves to benefit members of the community and law enforcement alike. We created a heat map, which is a visual representation of data that uses colors to represent different values. In the context of crime mapping, our heat map is used to …

Stalking Victimization: Examining The Influence Of Victim-Offender Relationship On Victim Emotional Distress, Abigail M. Neef

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Stalking victimization is receiving increasing attention in the media and research. Though research knowledge is growing there are still many aspects of stalking victimization that are not fully understood. This study aims to bring together two literatures relating to stalking: research on the role of victim-offender relationship and research on the emotional effects of stalking on victims. Using 2019 Supplemental Victimization Survey data, this study examines the direct relationship between victim-offender relationship and emotional distress. Findings indicate that victims who were stalked by a current intimate partner express more indicators of emotional distress than victims stalked by a personal acquaintance, …

Disparities In Extreme Contexts: The Impact Of Gender And Mental Health Status On The Criminal Justice Outcomes Of Extremists, Andrea Corradi

Criminal Justice & Criminology: Faculty Publications

Purpose: While disparities in the treatment of individuals in the criminal justice system have been well-documented, due to varying political and legal contexts it is likely that disparities may differ for perpetrators of extremism. This research examines the effects of gender and mental health status on criminal justice outcomes of individuals who have been accused of committing ideologically motivated crimes in the United States. Methods: Using the Extremist Crime Database (ECDB) and logistic and ordinary least-squares (OLS) regression models, this study estimates the effects of these individual characteristics on adjudication method and sentence length, and isolates pre/post-2001 time-periods. Results: The …

Racial Disparities In Women’S Imprisonment, Gift Onyinyechi Onwuadiamu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The total imprisonment rate in the United States, and racial disparity in imprisonment, have decreased substantially since 2008 (Carson, 2020), but research has not examined if disparity in women’s imprisonment rates has also declined, or what accounts for these changes. Guided by prior research and theory, this study examines racial differences in women’s prison admission rates from 2000 to 2019 in 25 states. Analyses examine changes over time, by state, and the effects of social structural characteristics that prior research has shown to be associated with women’s imprisonment disparities. Initial findings indicate that disparity has decreased, substantially, due to both …

Differences In Due Process During Post-Conviction: Examining Jurisdictional Influence On Exoneration, Kimberly Hawkins

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research on wrongful conviction has found several factors associated with an erroneous conviction. As of yet, research has not delved into the jurisdictional effects on exoneration. Using the American State’s use of the death penalty for a proxy of punitiveness, this study will examine if there is a relationship between use of capital punishment and exoneration rates. The National Registry of Exonerations is the most comprehensive collection of exonerations to date and this secondary data source will be analyzed using logistic regression models to examine differences across policy environments. Result show that non-death penalty states have a much higher exoneration …

Offender Reintegration In Nevada: A Longitudinal Study Focusing On Transitional Challenges, Reentry Capital, And Recidivism, Carolyn S. Willis

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Offender reintegration (reentry) depends on offender motivation, public policies, community efforts, and resources provided through government and nonprofit sectors. As individuals are released from incarceration and reintegrate into the community, they are often dependent on resources provided by different service providers and the community. The role of the community is crucial as resources are oftentimes not accessible. Lack of employment and housing, mental health issues, substance abuse, and the inability to reestablish personal relationships diminish the prospects of successful reintegration and increase the chances of reincarceration. Reentry capital delivered through community-based programs addresses the transitional issues justice-impacted individuals encounter post-incarceration. …

Prevention And Mitigation Of White-Collar Crime, Alan Saquella

Publications

As professional fraud examiners, investigators, prosecutors and regulators, security leaders can all appreciate that white-collar crime is not subsiding. While it is committed in professional or business settings involving financial deception or manipulation, it continues to grow and pose significant challenges to society. To effectively combat and mitigate this type of crime, it is crucial to delve deeper into the key factors of white-collar crime.

Menstrual Inequality In Women's Correctional Facilities, Tara Lee Sexton

Online Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this analysis is to examine how those who menstruate while incarcerated experience menstrual inequality within correctional settings. This research focuses on vulnerable populations of menstruators most likely to experience menstrual inequality and the underlying causes of this systematic inequality within the prison industrial complex in the United States. The content of this work will focus on how menstruating bodies face stigma, discrimination, and punitive treatment within correctional institutions throughout the United States. Based on the lack of access to feminine hygiene products and adequate restroom facilities within correctional institutions, menstruators face potential issues of privacy, concealment, and …

Media Coverage Of Non-Ideologically Motivated Mass Shootings Versus Ideologically Motivated Mass Shootings And How The Media Affects College Students' Perceptions Of Mass Shootings, Jennifer L. Larose

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

While much is known about how the media covers mass shootings within the United States and how this coverage impacts the public, much remains unknown about the media and international mass shootings. To address this gap this dissertation examines the relationship between the media coverage of ideological and non-ideological mass shootings that have occurred around the world. It then examines the relationship between media consumption and perceptions of mass shootings. To this end, newspaper coverage on a sample of ten mass shootings from 2011-2021 are examined temporally using the Social Coping Model. Results show that media coverage varies across time …

Unf@Cking People’S Problems: A Theory Of Policing, Laura Huey, Stephen Johnston

Sociology Publications

One of the problems that has plagued policing researchers over the past few decades – ourselves included -- is the interminable question of ‘what do police do?’ Some ideas, tasks, roles, institutions and other social creations are easy to define. Policing has not been one of those. In part, it’s because it’s not only a descriptive problem, it’s also a normative one. Once you start to address the question of what do police do, then you also have to wrestle with the much meatier issue of ‘what do we want police to do’? In this paper, we exercise our theory …

Aotearoa New Zealand, The Forcible Transfer Of Tamariki And Rangatahi Māori, And The Royal Commission On Abuse In Care, David B. Macdonald

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This article investigates to what extent the forcible transfer of tamariki and rangatahi Māori (Indigenous children and youth) in Aotearoa New Zealand can be considered genocide. First, I begin by exploring contemporary genocide theory as it relates to dolus eventualis in settler colonial contexts, before engaging with precedents for recognizing Indigenous genocides established by truth commissions in Canada (2015; 2019) and Australia (1997). I then explore the history around Indigenous child removal in Aotearoa from the onset of colonization to the present day, attentive to ways in which the UN Convention can apply to the forced removal of Māori children. …

Anonymity And Gender Effects On Online Trolling And Cybervictimization, Gang Lee, Annalyssia Soonah

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of the anonymity of the internet and gender differences in online trolling and cybervictimization. A sample of 151 college students attending a southeastern university completed a survey to assess their internet activities and online trolling and cybervictimization. Multivariate analyses of logistic regression and ordinary least squares regression were used to analyze online trolling and cybervictimization. The results indicated that the anonymity measure was not a significant predictor of online trolling and cybervictimization. Female students were less likely than male students to engage in online trolling, but there was no gender …