Colleges and Department Research
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Research, creative, and scholarly works created by the university community organized by college.
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Browsing Colleges and Department Research by Department "Criminal Justice and Criminology"
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Item Confirmation Bias and Other Systemic Causes of Wrongful Convictions: A Sentinel Events Perspective(Northeastern University, 2019-07) Rossmo, Kim; Pollock, Joycelyn M.Wrongful convictions are a form of criminal investigative failure. Such failures are sentinel events that signal underlying structural problems within a weak system environment. Similar to transportation or medical accidents, they are often the result of multiple and co-occurring causes. However, unlike the response to an airplane crash, the criminal justice system typically makes little effort to understand what went wrong. These failures tend to be ignored and systemic reviews are rare. As a consequence, important necessary procedural changes and policy improvements may not occur. In this article, we discuss a National Institute of Justice-funded research project that was designed to develop a more comprehensive understanding of how—as opposed to why— such failures occur. We deconstructed 50 wrongful convictions and other criminal investigative failures in order to identify the major causal factors, their characteristics and interrelationships, and the systemic nature of the overall failure. We focus on the central role played by confirmation bias and other thinking errors.Item Examining the Conservative Shift from Harsh Justice(Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 2015-03-19) Pollock, Joycelyn M.; Glassner, Steven; Krajewski, AndreaRecently, a political shift has been observed, in that some political conservatives are now advocating, adjusting, or abandoning draconian drug laws, including mandatory minimums, and funding diversion, re-entry, and drug programs. Vocal proponents of this movement include Grover Norquist, Rand Paul, Edwin Meese, and Mark Levin, from the Texas Public Policy Council. Any movement away from the mass incarceration that has characterized the U.S. correctional policy for the last 30 years is welcomed; however, it is important to note carefully the philosophical foundation of the conservative’s interest in shifting correctional policy. This paper explores the potential factors contributing to this philosophical shift.Item Prisoner Reentry and Recidivism According to the Formerly Incarcerated and Reentry Service Providers: A Verbal Behavior Approach(American Psychological Association, 2012-01) Travis, Raphael; Bowman, ScottSuccessful reintegration of formerly incarcerated individuals into communities is important because of both the personal and emotional costs to the former offender and the social and financial costs to the community and criminal justice system. Prior research examining reentry success has used structural and psychological explanations for better understanding the processes that contribute to recidivism. Using B.F. Skinner’s (1957) Theory of Verbal Behavior as a theoretical foundation, twelve focus groups totaling 128 formerly incarcerated persons and reentry service providers were conducted that explored perspectives of the current reentry system, views on recidivism, and opportunities for improvement. Results indicate that a Verbal Behavior approach enhances the understanding of reentry when examined as a metacontingency with a goal of a particular outcome. Implications for reentry intervention are discussed.Item Routine Activity Effects of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Burglary in Detroit, March, 2020(Springer, 2020-06) Felson, Marcus K.; Jiang, Shanhe; Xu, YanqingThe spread of the coronavirus has led to containment policies in many places, with concomitant shifts in routine activities. Major declines in crime have been reported as a result. However, those declines depend on crime type and may differ by parts of a city and land uses. This paper examines burglary in Detroit, Michigan during the month of March, 2020, a period of considerable change in routine activities. We examine 879 block groups, separating those dominated by residential land use from those with more mixed land use. We divide the month into three periods: pre-containment, transition period, and post-containment. Burglaries increase in block groups with mixed land use, but not blocks dominated by residential land use. The impact of containment policies on burglary clarifies after taking land use into account.Item Sexting among Teenagers in the United States: A Retrospective Analysis of Identifying Motivating Factors, Potential Targets, and the Role of a Capable Guardian(International Journal of Cyber Criminology, 2014-06) Martinez-Prather, Kathy; Vandiver, DonnaSexting is often broadly defined as the sending and/or receiving of sexually suggestive images or messages to peers through a cell phone (Mitchell et al., 2012). The use of broad definitions and sampling methods among prior sexting studies has produced variations in the research findings. The current study provides a retrospective examination of sexting among 378 teenagers sampled from university college freshmen at a midsize southern university in the United States regarding sexting attitudes and behaviors during high school. Approximately one-third of the participants reported sending a sexting image of himself or herself in high school to someone else using a cell phone. Those who reported more texting use, in general and those who spent more time with friends in an unsupervised setting were significantly more likely to report sexting. Parental monitoring, however, was not significantly related to sexting. The implications of these findings are discussed.Item Texas Intermediate Sanctions Bench Manual 2003(Texas. Community Justice Assistance Division, 2003-10) McLaren, John A.; Stickels, John W.A manual for the judiciary concerning community corrections sanctioning options and resources throughout Texas. This document, Texas Intermediate Sanctions Bench Manual 2003, was developed under Contract Number 696-CJ-2-2-A0107 from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.