This study examines the relative impacts of normative and instrumental models of policing on willingness to empower the police in a sample of sub-Saharan African immigrants in the United States. Using data from a survey of 304 Ghanaian immigrants, obligation to obey, procedural justice, effectiveness, and gender predicted police empowerment; legitimacy of Ghana police and risk of sanctioning did not. The results also show that obligation to obey may be distinct from legitimacy. The findings from the current study point to the importance of the process-based model of policing in different geopolitical contexts, including the sub-Saharan African immigrant community in the United States. Specifically, obligation to obey and procedural justice play pivotal roles in engendering willingness to empower the police in the sub-Saharan African immigrant community. The implications of these findings are discussed.
Nationwide moral panic has long served as a primary explanation for sex offense laws. These laws, however, remain primarily left to state legislatures, which implies potential variation in their content over time. Variation in legislative content, to the degree that it represents implementation, not only suggests differential consequences for registrants and communities, but also it would raise questions to the sufficiency of moral panic as a sole explanation for sex offense policy change. I build upon earlier work by exploring variation in the content and timing of sex offender registration and notification (SORN) reform in all 50 states over time. After documenting variation in these laws, I present the ways in which SORN legislative content has evolved differently across states. In addition, the timing of legislative reforms differed not only across states but also within states over time. These findings have implications for existing theoretical assertions regarding criminal justice policy.
In April of 2016, National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE) and John Jay College partnered to sponsor the Academic Symposium "Building Public Trust: Generating Evidence to Enhance Police Accountability and Legitimacy." This essay introduces the Criminal Justice Policy Review Special Issue featuring peer-reviewed, empirical research papers first presented at the Symposium. We provide context for the Symposium in relation to contemporary national discourse on police accountability and legitimacy. In addition, we review each of the papers presented at the Symposium, and provide in-depth reviews of each of the manuscripts included in the Special Issue.
The use of social media has become associated with empowerment, social capital, and social inclusion for members of marginalized groups in society. Few groups in today’s social environment are as marginalized, if not more, than sex offenders. This article explores the use of social media among 112 registered sex offenders who are in the community, no longer under correctional control, and self-report no reoffending. Self-reports of desistance were triangulated through interviews with 38 spouses/relatives of registrants and arrest data. Unlike prior studies of sex offenders’ use of social media to facilitate offending, we found the use of social media helps create informal social networks, reduces loneliness, and provides a sense of empowerment among sex offenders and their family members. These are all factors important to promoting public safety and reducing sexual recidivism.
American veterans have long struggled with the aftereffects of combat exposure, repeated deployments to hostile countries, and extended time spent away from their families and loved ones. Historically, when veterans struggling with issues such as mental illness and substance abuse, which can be related back to their military service, came into contact with the criminal justice system, they were processed without regard to their unique military experience. Beginning in 2008, however, a new type of problem-solving court, veterans’ treatment courts (VTCs), have been increasingly adopted to target justice-involved veterans to address the distinct issues and challenges they face. VTCs are modeled after the successful drug and mental health court models and, as such, utilize therapeutic jurisprudence and effective intervention. However, they have not been subjected to the same amount of scholarly attention the aforementioned courts themselves have. This editorial introduction briefly reviews past and current research on justice-involved veterans and calls for the continued empirical assessment of VTCs to better understand both their impact and the military population they serve.
Security guards outnumber police by almost three to one, and they perform many of the same functions as police officers and many even carry a firearm, but to what extent do states regulate the private security industry? Prior research has examined state statutes regulating security guard hiring requirements; this article builds on this research by examining state statutes regulating security guard training requirements. This article compares the change in state regulation of security guard training since 1999. We are interested in determining what threshold requirements the states have seen fit to establish for training in the security industry and whether these threshold requirements provide adequate protection for the public.
Recent work has found that individuals who are detained prior to their sentencing are more likely to be convicted, be sentenced to prison as opposed to jail or probation, and to receive longer sentences if convicted. Is this effect due to detention, or is it merely a result of the same underlying criminal propensity being considered separately at each stage of the sentencing process? This study uses propensity score methods to create more comparable comparisons between detained and released criminal defendants. The results of this study indicate that detention itself has an independent effect on the likelihood of conviction. Even after matching with available covariates, individuals who are detained are more likely to be convicted than those who are released prior to their trial.
Universities using closed circuit television (CCTV) systems often tout its deterrent role when justifying the use of this technology. Using a sample of 336 U.S. universities, we examine the relationship between CCTV and reported crime rates using Clery Act crime data to discern whether CCTV has a deterrent impact on campus crime, controlling for other variables. We find that CCTV appears to have little to no impact. Rather, crime rates are associated with location (suburban, urban, rural), institutional control (public, private), student population density, level of tuition and fees, student-body demographics (e.g., gender, race), and crime control practices other than CCTV (e.g., scheduled security patrols, student transportation/escort services). These relationships differ by type of crime (e.g., property vs. violent). Implications for policy and future research are discussed.
This study explores the instrumental function of hot spot policing. Although prior research has examined deterrent effects in crime hot spots, less is known about its citywide effects and varying effects across different types of crime and disorder. Also, there still exist gaps in the literature about what strategies are most likely to deter crime and disorder. Using data on crime and law enforcement in Buffalo, this study uses interrupted time-series models to determine whether symbolic Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) raids have any citywide impacts on drug arrests, calls for service, and different types of crimes. There is no evidence of a deterrent effect on drug arrests and calls for service. However, the SWAT intervention resulted in significant decreases in street crimes involving property (robberies and larcenies). Its crime control effects are mostly abrupt and temporary, but there are lingering effects of the intervention. Finally, implications of the results are discussed.
One of the latest reforms to the criminal justice response to sexual assault involves changes to the submission and testing of sexual assault kits. Across the United States, thousands of kits have either not been submitted to a laboratory or tested by a laboratory, prompting criticisms that victims of sexual assault have not received justice for the crimes perpetrated against them. Jurisdictions across the country have reevaluated their responses to sexual assault, including their investigations and submission and testing of sexual assault kits. It is critical that future efforts respect the recommendations of jurisdictions that have spearheaded earlier reforms and are guided by victim-centered and trauma-informed principles. This article reviews recent research that has been conducted on changes in processing sexual assault kits, provides examples of different approaches to address unsubmitted and untested kits, and suggests ideas for future research and practice to consider as this area moves forward.
The Civil Rights Act of 1871 (codified at 42 U.S.C. §1983 and commonly referred to as Section 1983) provides a civil remedy for aggrieved persons to sue state actors who under the color of law violate federally protected rights. Since the 1960s, there has been an explosion of Section 1983 litigation in the federal courts against police officers and their employing municipal and county agencies. Due to a lack of official statistics and poor methodologies, research has yet to determine how common Section 1983 actions are against the police nationwide. This study examines the relationship between police crime and being named as a party defendant in a federal court Section 1983 civil action. Using a list of 5,545 nonfederal sworn law enforcement officers who were arrested for committing one or more crimes during the years 2005 to 2011, searches were conducted in the federal courts’ Public Access to Courts Electronic Records (PACER) system to locate Section 1983 actions against those officers. The authors found that 22% of all arrested officers were named as a party defendant in a Section 1983 federal court civil action at some point during their law enforcement careers. Additional findings address various predictors of a police officer being sued in a Section 1983 action.
Documenting police use of force has been an issue in the United States since at least 1931. As of July 2016, there is still no standardized national data collection effort, despite a call from several presidential and civil rights commissions to do so. Without accurate and timely national data, a moral panic of sorts unfolds that replaces rational thought and debate necessary to enact public policy. Moreover, without such data, it is virtually impossible to estimate the incidence and prevalence of police use of force, which leaves U.S. law enforcement agencies at a tremendous disadvantage for improving practices. This essay briefly examines the history of calls to improve police practices through collecting national use of force data and then offers a practical solution based on rational-technical theory of organizations with a brief analysis of a new promising, but limited, data set. The essay concludes with a proposed research agenda should national data become available through pending legislation H.R. 306, National Statistics on Deadly Force Transparency Act of 2015.
The procedural justice that citizens subjectively experience with the police affects police legitimacy. The procedural justice of policing is typically not measured in police agencies, nor is it an outcome for which managers are held accountable. We examine whether and how the measurement of procedural justice would affect its management. Survey-based measures of subjective procedural justice in police contacts were reported to two departments’ command staffs on a monthly basis in Compstat meetings. The impacts of thusly measuring performance were estimated. We also analyzed an indicator of procedural justice that was based on systematic observation through video and audio recording of police-citizen encounters, and we interviewed patrol officers and supervisors about supervisors’ efforts to manage procedural justice. Neither indicator of police performance revealed consistent changes. However, a modest improvement on one platoon was detected. We discuss the implications for enhancing police legitimacy.
Decades of research on public opinion about crime reveal varying, yet relatively punitive attitudes that are often riddled with misconceptions. Sparked by the increased media and legislative attention devoted to sex offenders beginning in the 1990s, researchers began to more closely examine public opinion about sexual offenses. Findings suggest the public adheres to several misconceptions about sexual offenses and supports harsh sanctions for offenders. However, further research is warranted to more closely examine the relationships among these variables. Thus, the goal of the present study was to survey Pennsylvania residents to examine the degree to which misconceptions about sexual offenses inform punitiveness. The results supported the hypotheses in that a high level of support for misconceptions and punitiveness was identified, and adherence to misconceptions was the strongest predictor of punitiveness. These findings demonstrate a clear need for educational and awareness efforts to dispel public misconceptions about sexual offending and victimization.
The purpose of this study is to assess whether distinct targeted violence prevention programs are needed to address gun violence based on offender age. Police incident reports were used to analyze the temporal, situational, and spatial patterns of offending between a group of adult and youthful offenders in the city of Detroit, Michigan. Chi-square and logistic regression multivariate techniques were used to test the differences and similarities between these groups. The findings suggest that youth and adult offenders of gun crimes in Detroit are not significantly different in the time or place in which they offend. Only modest differences were observed in terms of situational characteristics. The most significant differences between youth and adult offenders involved the age of their victim and the presence of co-offenders. Policy implications are discussed.
In this study, we addressed the need for empirical research on human trafficking by compiling unique data relating to criminal charges filed in federal judicial districts and using these data to examine trends in sex trafficking-related cases, as well as the impact on those trends of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA). Results from our regression models indicate that the proportion of all charges filed by federal prosecutors that involved sex trafficking and related cases increased significantly between 1994 and 2007. The rate of increase, however, slowed in the time period following the passage of the TVPA, suggesting that the TVPA may have helped to mitigate increases in new cases. In addition, our results show statistically significant inverse relationships between immigration and sex trafficking-related charges filed, providing new evidence to support the possibility that some sex trafficking-related cases may be being prosecuted as immigration cases instead.
In the last decade, juvenile justice has emerged with more compassion and child-focused policies. During this time, crime decreased, successful strategies for prevention and intervention were identified, neuroscience examined the wiring of the adolescent brain, and the Attorney General established a federal mandate to recognize and respond to children exposed to violence (CEV). In this context, the authors identify two developments that contributed to the ongoing iterations of juvenile justice: Supreme Court decisions that restrict excessive juvenile punishments and policies that recognize the consequences of childhood trauma and the importance of relevant treatment. The Supreme Court rationale in Roper v. Simmons, Graham v. Florida, Miller v. Alabama, and Montgomery v. Louisiana was instrumental in underscoring that youth are different from adults and therefore require different sentencing. The second development was a broader understanding of the scope and consequences of childhood trauma which renewed support to identify and care for youth exposed to violence. The authors review the Court’s rationale in moving policy away from harsh punishment and retribution, the evidence-based support for trauma-informed treatment of youth, and the limits of Court decisions and policy changes in reforming juvenile justice.
Problem solving courts have increasingly been adopted by jurisdictions around the country as an alternative to traditional criminal court models of justice. Veterans treatment courts (VTCs) are a type of problem-solving court being established all over the country in response to an increased number of justice-involved veterans with the return of military personnel from the Wars in the Middle East. Despite their rapid expansion, there is a dearth of research evaluating the impact of VTCs on recidivism. The current study conducted an impact evaluation regarding recidivism among participants of a large urban VTC program. Findings from descriptive and multivariate analysis reveal positive results for VTC participants, especially graduates, in comparison with the control group. Implications are discussed in context of three areas: (a) current criminal justice policy and practice implications for VTCs, (b) findings from research on other more established problem-solving courts (i.e., drug courts), and (c) research–practitioner partnerships.
Supporters of hate crime legislation argue the laws are a positive development designed to promote social equality and encourage political participation. Critics claim the laws are patronizing and disempowering. Existing research addresses neither the impact of hate crime laws on designated social groups nor attempts to verify assumptions about legislation and the social and political status of protected minorities. Sexual orientation, one of the most controversial categories, resulted in considerable social and political debate. This research explores the addition of sexual orientation to state hate crime law and how inclusion of this target group affects the social construction of gays and lesbians. Data are drawn from a sample of 12 daily newspapers in six states. Content and time-series analyses were used to explore social construction. The results indicate that inclusion in hate crime protections fails to have a positive impact on the construction of the group, and the discussion offers important policy implications.
Sexual victimization is a growing concern on college campuses. Although academic literature has examined the extent and perceived risk and fear of sexual assault at universities, studies focusing on college student attitudes about appropriate sex crime–related policies are severely limited. The Campus Sex Crimes Prevention Act of 2000 requires post-secondary institutions to provide a statement giving the campus community guidance on how to access information about registered sex offenders. Colleges and universities are afforded wide discretion regarding whether to use more direct and involved methods for notifying faculty, staff, and students. The current study examines how college students attending a Midwestern university feel about various approaches to notification about sex offenders on campus. Results indicate that impressions of vulnerability are driving some of student opinion about notification, but that other considerations, such as character assessment, privacy concerns, and feelings of uneasiness, are possibly having an impact as well. The findings also strongly support that female student input should be factored heavily into campus sex offender notification strategies.
Since the 1990s, sex offender registration and notification (SORN) has assumed a prominent place on state and federal crime control agendas in the United States. Although researchers have examined many aspects of SORN policies and systems, relatively little is known about how SORN is used, perceived, and experienced by law enforcement professionals in the context of their work. This article presents findings from a mixed-method study, consisting of face-to-face interviews and a national online survey of police and sheriff agencies. We examined law enforcement views on SORN’s general functions and efficacy, barriers to SORN effectiveness, and recommendations for SORN-related policy. Results highlight the challenges associated with SORN’s various functions as a law enforcement information tool, as an offender monitoring mechanism, and as a conduit of public information. They also indicate differences between the perspectives of agency leadership and those on the front lines of registry enforcement and management, as well as a range of concerns associated with the reliability and utility of registry information, inter-system communication, registrant homelessness and transience, and the public’s capacity to understand registry information. Implications for policy reform and for SORN-related research are discussed.
Allocating limited mental health resources is a challenge for juvenile justice facilities. We evaluated the clinical utility of the Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument, Version 2 (MAYSI-2)—an instrument designed to aid in this process—in three subsamples of justice-involved youth (ages 14-17): detained girls (n = 69), detained boys (n = 130), and incarcerated boys (n = 373). For perspective, we compared its performance (in the incarcerated subsample) to that of the Youth Self-Report (YSR), a more widely-used screen. The MAYSI-2 subscales were moderately useful for detecting relevant diagnoses, and differences were observed across samples. However, as a general mental health screen, the MAYSI-2 performed well (and comparably to the YSR), correctly classifying 66% to 75% of youth. When used to differentiate youth with any and without any disorder, both instruments were effective. Given the MAYSI-2’s practical advantages over the YSR (lower cost, easier administration), it may be a better option for juvenile facilities.
Municipal Courts in the United States have jurisdiction over cases involving municipal ordinance violations such as loitering, trespassing, public drunkenness, and vandalism. When an individual violates a city ordinance, the typical punishment is a fine, even if the defendant is indigent. Failure to pay the fine on time results in a warrant and possible jail time. This study examined whether individuals who successfully completed a court diversion program for indigent defendants were less likely to reoffend than their counterparts who failed to complete the diversion program. Findings showed clients who successfully completed the diversion program were less likely to commit future city violations and state offenses. The results suggest court diversion programs might offer a promising alternative to jail for some indigent defendants and aid with lowering recidivism at least within the first few years of their initial offense.
Federal government databases recording officer-involved shooting fatalities are incomplete and unreliable. Voluntary reporting to the Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR), the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS), and the Arrest-Related Death Program (ARDP) are subject to underreporting and classification errors. The same shortcomings apply to statewide reporting in California and Texas, the only states with mandatory reporting requirements. Content analysis of open source records identified officer-involved shooting fatalities that occurred in the United States from January 1, 2006, through December 31, 2015. Those data were compared with data from the government databases. Analysis revealed 7,869 officer-involved shooting fatalities, an average increase of 51.8 incidents per year. Fatalities increased from 594 in 2006 to 1,007 in 2015—an increase of 69.5% in 10 years. Government data sources reported a low of 46.0% of incidents to a high of 75.3%, depending on the reporting year. Open source research reveals 30% to 45% more cases than official federal or state databases and can reveal much more data about other critical questions. The history of federal program efforts suggests it is unlikely that government recording of data on officer-involved shooting fatalities will improve. Government reporting programs have produced decreasingly effective results. Current web-based data collection efforts suffer from many of the same limitations exhibited in the federal programs. One promising option for improved data collection includes funding an independent party, such as a university, to collect data from open sources and supplement that data with public records requests and the currently collected official government data.
Past studies of crime clearance rates have largely ignored the role of investigators in the process. This omission is important because criminal investigation is essential to clearing crimes, particularly those in which offenders are not readily identifiable. Using data from 570 law enforcement agencies spanning a 13-year period from 2000 to 2012, this study developed group-based trajectories of violent and property crime clearance rates (an approach not taken in previous clearance rate research), then modeled group membership with two measures of investigative spending and one of the proportion of investigators in sampled agencies ("investigative resources"), while controlling for factors such as workload and crime type. Results from a series of multinomial regression models suggest investigative resources play only a marginal role in crime clearance trajectories. This finding is consistent with early detective research, including the classic RAND criminal investigative process study.
Security guards outnumber police by almost 3 to 1, and this discrepancy has been growing steadily since the latter part of the 20th century. Security guards perform many of the same functions as police officers and may even carry weapons, but to what extent do states regulate the private security industry? This article compares the change in state regulation of private security, in particular the requirements for hiring security guards. The provisions of the states as of 1982, 1998, and 2015 are compared and evaluated. We are interested in determining what threshold requirements the states have seen fit to establish for employment in the security industry, and whether these threshold requirements provide adequate protection for the public.
In recent years, California has dramatically restructured its correctional system through a policy called "Realignment," which shifts responsibility over thousands of offenders from the state to its counties. To help manage this influx, the state allocated US$2 billion through 2014 to the counties. Counties have used these funds in different ways. Some have adhered to Realignment’s intended focus on evidence-based programming, whereas others have focused on expanding enforcement and custodial capacities. I analyze first-year (2011-2012) county Realignment budgets to identify political, economic, and criminal justice factors that explain different spending emphases. Using quantitative and comparative methods, I find that counties focus on enforcement spending because of pressing local needs related to crime and justice, and counties focus on services spending when sheriffs—key figures in Realignment administration—are politically secure. These findings have practical implications for correctional policies in California, and for other states that seek to reduce their prison populations.
This study examined whether, among Veterans Health Administration (VHA) patients, veterans with recent or current justice involvement have equal receipt of pharmacotherapy for alcohol use disorder compared with veterans with no justice involvement. Using national VHA records, we calculated the overall and facility rates of receipt as the number of patients who received pharmacotherapy for alcohol use disorder divided by the number of patients diagnosed with an alcohol use disorder. Using a mixed-effects logistic regression model, we tested whether justice involvement was associated with pharmacotherapy receipt. Male veterans with jail/court involvement had significantly higher odds of receiving pharmacotherapy for alcohol use disorder compared with other male veterans. Justice-involved veterans had equal or better receipt of pharmacotherapy for alcohol use disorder compared with veterans with no justice involvement. Pharmacotherapy rates are low overall, suggesting that more work can be done to connect veterans to these medications.
The current study examined whether current community supervision status was associated with differences in demographic characteristics, lifetime substance use patterns, and criminal history among a sample of formerly incarcerated individuals with a history of substance use problems. Results of multivariate analyses revealed participants on community supervision were more likely to have graduated from high school or earned a General Education Development test credential (GED; odds ratio [OR] = 1.60; 95% confidence interval [CI] = [0.15, 17.24]) and were less likely to have a history of psychiatric hospitalization (OR = 0.88; 95% CI = [0.08, 9.35]). These characteristics may be proxies for social and emotional functioning that influence eligibility for community supervision. Despite these apparent advantages, the community supervision group did not significantly differ from the formerly incarcerated group without current justice involvement on lifetime substance use patterns or criminal history, suggesting formerly incarcerated individuals with substance use disorders may require more intensive interventions to promote existing strengths.
Recently, the number of veteran treatment courts (VTCs) has greatly expanded. These courts, based on drug treatment court processes, attempt to handle the underlying causes of criminal conduct as well as the instant offense. There is, however, no research that addresses how the military manifests in VTC. We suggest that participants import military culture into VTC processes and that the military will have an influence on VTC proceedings. The purpose of this study is to examine how military and specialty court approaches appear in the VTC. Using results from field research in a VTC in Texas, we find the military has profound influences in VTC proceedings. Military references serve the purpose of structuring the court docket, helping develop rapport between court staff and participants, as well as creating a familiar context for participants. We highlight the value and potential problems of relying on military culture. Policy implications and directions for future research are discussed.
We report the results of a survey of criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) scholars asking their responses to the same questions posed annually to the general public in Gallup public opinion polls. We found CCJ scholars to be more likely to hold more liberal positions on these issues than the general public. The findings indicate a disconnect between popular crime and justice perspectives (and resultant crime policy formation) and the "experts" presumably best trained and informed on how to go about crime policy. We argue for a renewed discussion among CCJ scholars regarding the relevance and role of academic expertise in crime policy formation and offer suggestions for how CCJ scholars might "go public" in influencing policy decisions.
A growing body of research indicates that there are thousands of sexual assault kits (SAKs) in police property storage facilities that have never been submitted for DNA forensic testing. Some of these rape kits may be quite dated, and the statute of limitations (SOL) for prosecution of the case may have expired. Whether testing such kits could still provide useful information for criminal justice system personnel is unknown. To address this gap in the literature and to inform policy regarding rape kit testing, we randomly sampled 700 previously untested SAKs from Detroit, MI: 350 were presumed to be beyond the SOL for prosecution (based on the date the SAK was collected), and 350 were still within the SOL. All SAKs were submitted for DNA testing, and then we quantified and compared the forensic testing outcomes. At issue was whether these older SAKs would yield DNA profiles that were eligible for entry into Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), the federal DNA forensic database, and whether these profiles would match ("hit") to other criminal offenses catalogued in CODIS. Rates for presumed SOL-expired SAKs and unexpired SAKs were compared via a continuation-ratio model and equivalence tests. The rates of CODIS-eligible DNA profiles, CODIS hits, and serial sexual assault CODIS hits were statistically equivalent in the SOL-expired and SOL-unexpired groups. Testing older SAKs has potential utility to the criminal justice system because these kits produced DNA matches to other crimes, including other sexual assault crimes, at a rate equivalent to current, SOL-unexpired SAKs.
Controversy over drivers with low blood alcohol concentrations (BAC) have become a highly salient issue since the proposal to reduce the per se BAC limit to .05 for driving under the influence (DUI) convictions. However, little traffic safety, and no criminological research, has examined this phenomenon. This study fills a deficiency in the literature by utilizing quasi-experimental propensity score matching techniques in combination with multilevel modeling to examine the extent of involvement of low BAC drivers in fatal crashes. The results indicate that low BAC drivers are only involved in a very small portion of crashes and are not at fault in many. In addition, although drivers with low BAC have an increased odds of responsibility for a crash than drivers with no BAC, this increase is much lower than other factors such as age, speed, distractions, drug use, and high BAC. This study discusses the implications of focusing resources on drivers that are not considerable contributors to crashes, such as a predicted increase in arrests.
The type and quantity of evidence in a case is a critical factor for deciding guilt but should have little or no influence on the sentencing determinations of judges post conviction; this is because case evidence goes to guilt decisions by triers of fact, whereas sentences are imposed upon those already convicted. This study examines the effects of evidentiary type and the total quantity of physical evidence in a case on length of custodial sentence. The results demonstrate that violent felony cases with forensic evidence and those cases with more varied pieces of physical evidence result in longer custodial sentences for convicted defendants. Thus, the findings indicate that inculpatory evidence in criminal trials has enduring effects post conviction and, more broadly, suggest that judicial discretion at sentencing is, at least in part, influenced by the judge’s confidence in the defendant’s guilt.
Research on risk assessments has illustrated many utilitarian purposes of these tools, including the robust prediction of recidivism and uniformity in correctional decision making. Recently, however, Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder vocalized his position that actuarial risk assessments could be unintentionally contributing to disproportionate minority contact in the correctional system. This study used data from approximately 2,600 juvenile delinquents assessed with the Ohio Youth Assessment System–Disposition Instrument to examine these claims across subsamples of White and Black youth. Bivariate and multivariate analyses indicated that the instrument predicted recidivism similarly across the two groups. There were slightly more prediction errors for Black youth than White youth; however, these differences may be the result of methodological factors rather than empirical realities. The article concluded with a discussion of the implications that potential racial biases have on risk assessment research and practice.
In the aftermath of tragic campus-based incidents causing injury and death, it has become common to see discussions concerning the safety measures institutions should be taking to prevent or mitigate the harm of such events. The recommended approaches reflect a degree of face validity but largely lack empirical grounding or clear evidence of support from the largest population they seek to protect—college students. Using survey data from six Illinois colleges, this study examines the level of student support for campus safety practices. Applying a framework derived from literature on fear of crime and other salient concepts, multivariate modeling is used to explain variation in the observed level of student support. The explanatory models offer limited insight into the factors shaping why students do or do not support campus safety practices. The findings demonstrate the importance of considering the views of students when institutions make decisions about campus safety policies.
There continues to be considerable debate regarding the most effective ways to reduce the number of mentally ill offenders in the adult criminal justice system. What is often missing from this national discussion is an examination of the factors associated with their initial involvement in illegal activities. This qualitative study assesses the self-perceived role that psychiatric symptoms had in the onset and continued offending of a sample of 28 parolees with mental illness. The findings showed that psychiatric symptoms rarely played a direct role in the onset and continued offending in this sample. Furthermore, the majority of the sample started offending prior to the age of 18, highlighting the need to devote more resources toward delivering evidence-based interventions to youth at risk of becoming involved in a criminal lifestyle as one strategy for reducing the number of mentally ill who become involved in the adult criminal justice system.
There are more than 100,000 military veterans incarcerated in prisons throughout the United States. Nevertheless, almost nothing is known about these veterans or their incarceration experiences. In this article, we present results from a survey of more than 1,100 inmates in a large state correctional system to determine how inmates who are military veterans compare with inmates who have not served in the military in terms of their willingness to serve alternative sanctions to avoid imprisonment. The data reveal that, with the exception of military service, inmates who are military veterans are significantly less likely than their counterparts who have not served in the military to accept a variety of community sanctions over prison. In addition, Black inmates who have not served in the military are somewhat different than White inmates who have served in the military in those choices. Implications of these findings for future research are discussed.
The availability and utility of services to address recidivism risk factors among justice-involved veterans is unknown. We explored these issues through qualitative interviews with 63 Specialists from the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) Veterans Justice Programs. To guide the interviews, we utilized the risk–need–responsivity (RNR) model of offender rehabilitation. Specialists reported that justice-involved veterans generally have access to services to address most RNR-based risk factors (substance abuse, lack of positive school/work involvement, family/marital dysfunction, lack of prosocial activities/interests), but have less access to services targeting risk factors of antisocial tendencies and associates and empirically based treatments for recidivism in VA. Peer-based services, motivational interviewing/cognitive-behavioral therapy, and Veterans Treatment Courts were perceived as useful to address multiple risk factors. These findings highlight potential gaps in provision of evidence-based care to address recidivism among justice-involved veterans, as well as promising policy-based solutions that may have widespread impact on reducing recidivism in this population.
To ensure public trust and confidence, courts must routinely examine the management of their operations and continuously explore improvement opportunities. Although technology can be a catalyst for improving judicial administration, without the requisite planning, organizational capital (e.g., people, process, and system alignment), and evaluation it is unlikely that such initiatives will be sustained let alone succeed. In 2012, a local circuit court in Maryland implemented the Maryland Automated Guidelines System (MAGS) developed by the Maryland State Commission on Criminal Sentencing Policy to electronically initiate, complete, and submit sentencing guidelines worksheets. This study discusses the evaluation of MAGS implementation, highlighting the value of technology and monitoring as a means to enhance judicial administration.
Since the first sex offender community notification laws in the early 1990s, the expansion of online sex offender registries (SORs) in the United States has offered Americans unprecedented access to information about previously convicted sex offenders living in their communities. Despite this, survey data suggest that relatively few citizens use SORs and that even fewer use that information for specific protective purposes. The current study examines the patterns and correlates of SOR usage among a stratified nationwide sample of 1,000 U.S. adults, offering the most extensive national assessment to date of SOR use among the U.S. public. Although 45% of the sample reported that they had accessed an SOR (higher than rates reported in previous studies), the majority had done so only once or twice, most typically out of general curiosity rather than for a specific purpose. Separating these "casual users" from those who had consulted the SOR more frequently, the study revealed significant effects related to gender, age, race, political ideology, and importance of religion. Analyses also found the most frequent users to be significantly more likely to report diminished feelings of safety as a result of viewing SOR information and to engage in protective actions, including the sharing of information with family and neighbors. Policy implications for the design and implementation of public SORs are discussed.
Police research and planning units have been in existence for decades, yet little is known about these types of organizational functions. This study compared research and planning staffing arrangements within American police organizations with the reported implementation of innovative practices to assess the association between unit existence and innovative practice. Utilizing a national survey of police practices, we found that agencies with formal research and planning units reported significantly greater levels of innovative practices than those without units. This study suggests that investing in research and planning may have a positive influence on the adoption of innovative police practices. As expectations for more progressive and sophisticated policing intensifies, then a promising pathway may be building the internal capacity via research and planning-type functions. Results from this study are of value to leaders and researchers who want to understand the organizational mechanisms that support innovative police agencies.
In literature on correctional staff, one poorly understood antecedent of job stress and other negative outcomes is perceived danger from the job. Survey results from 272 staff at a state-run Midwestern maximum security prison were analyzed with Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) Regression to determine the relationships between personal/work environment variables and perceptions of job danger. Analyses revealed the effects of the personal variables were conditional on staff position (custody vs. non-custody). Irrespective of position, two of seven work environment variables studied (less input into decision making and more daily contact with prisoners) were related to greater perceived risk of harm from the job. Also, greater organizational formalization was related to greater perceived risk among custodial staff. Perceived danger from the job is a real issue, and the current results indicate workplace factors play a role.
Despite recent advances in prisoner reentry and felony collateral consequences literature, the literature on collateral sanctions—intended legal consequences of criminal conviction—remains underdeveloped and unorganized. This article aims to take stock of the collateral sanctions literature to determine what the field currently knows about adult felony collateral sanctions’ effects on criminal recidivism. The author conducted a literature review of publications related to the topic of collateral sanctions and recidivism between 1995 and 2014. From these findings, the author outlines the state of current collateral sanctions research, identifies existing gaps in the literature, and discusses future research’s needed directions and challenges. Collateral sanctions and their effects remain mostly "invisible" despite a growing body of literature indicating that, at least for some sanctions, recidivism may be an unintended consequence of intended collateral sanction policies.
We use data from the Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities 2004 to examine the relationship between prior military service and misbehavior for a nationally representative sample of incarcerated inmates. Our regression analyses, based on 18,185 respondents across 326 prisons, suggest that inmates with military backgrounds tend to fare better than others across 12 negative prison outcomes. In contrast, we do not find much support for the argument—implied by violentization and other theories—that inmates with military backgrounds fare worse than others, with the exception of high levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and violent victimization. Supplementary analyses also show conditional patterns based on exposure to combat as well as honorable versus dishonorable discharge.
Older adults are an increasingly relevant subpopulation for criminal justice policy but, as yet, are largely neglected in the relevant research. The current research addresses this by reporting on a psychometric evaluation of a measure of older adults’ Confidence in Legal Institutions (CLI). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) provided support for the unidimensionality and reliability of the measures. In addition, participants’ CLI was related to cynicism, trust in government, dispositional trust, age, and education, but not income or gender. The results provide support for the measures of confidence in the courts and law enforcement, so we present the scale as a viable tool for researchers and practitioners interested in understanding older adults’ confidence in these institutions. We conclude by discussing the implications of our work on efforts to improve interactions between older adults and legal institutions, and we highlight avenues for further research.
The sustainability of the modern prisoner reentry movement may rest heavily upon public support. Although little is known about how public opinion toward reentry is shaped, religion is potentially a key contributor. Several studies indicate that religious perspectives affect public attitudes toward punishment and rehabilitation. The current study aims to determine whether religious beliefs contribute to support for or opposition against three distinct approaches to prisoner reentry. Using survey data obtained from a randomly selected sample of a nationally representative Midwestern state, multivariate regression models were used to examine whether feelings of religious forgiveness and belief in a punitive God affected attitudes toward transitional programming, transitional housing, and assisting post-release offenders through housing agencies. Respondents who felt greater religious forgiveness and had less belief in a punitive God more strongly supported transitional programming and transitional housing and expressed greater opposition to denying housing assistance for recently released offenders. Both advocates and opponents of reentry initiatives should consider religious beliefs when attempting to gain support for their respective positions.
Since the mid-2000s, there has been an upsurge in the development of Veterans’ Treatment Courts (VTCs) to support justice-involved veterans’ treatment needs while also providing criminal justice supervision. Despite their prolific development in recent years, there is a dearth of scholarly research on how VTCs are structured and whether there are common components across courts. There is a need to understand how VTCs are structured and operationally implemented to inform additional program planning and evaluation. To bridge this gap in the literature, this study provides a statewide assessment of the 17 VTCs operating in Pennsylvania, identifies six common components, and highlights areas in which their implementation diverges between courts to meet the specific needs of veterans across Pennsylvania. The results of this study provide a baseline framework to aid future researchers in conducting process and outcome evaluations by documenting and examining the common components of VTCs.
The United States v. Booker decision rendered Federal Sentencing Guidelines advisory rather than mandatory. In the context of this decision, this study examines both the direct influence of aggregate-level political, community, and administrative variables on sentencing outcomes, and the way that such characteristics might contextualize individual-level predictors. Using multi-level regression techniques, this study examines the role of aggregate-level variables on sentence length decisions across four distinct time periods. Moreover, this article also examines whether aggregate-level variables condition the effects of race/ethnicity on sentencing outcomes. Whereas the direct effects of aggregate-level variables on sentencing outcomes are generally limited to political climate effects, there is evidence that political climate and other aggregate-level measures contextualize individual-level race/ethnicity effects. Future research should seek to better understand the specific mechanisms behind these relationships.
Escape research has debunked the powder keg theory that all escapes are inherently violent and may explode into violence at any given time. The vast majority of escapes takes place from minimum secure facilities and do not involve force at time of escape or recapture. Nevertheless, federal defendants often receive unduly harsh sentences based on prior escape convictions because courts assume that the majority of escapes are violent for purposes of sentencing enhancement. This study analyzed all 50 U.S. state escape statutes to determine which states classify escapes in a manner consistent with the powder keg theory. Results indicated that the majority of state statutes neither concurred with the powder keg theory nor favored a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between escapes and potential violence. Policy implications of these findings and potential pathways for future escape research are discussed. This article concludes that criminal acts of escape must be reconsidered for sentencing purposes in relation to their potential violence, risks, and intentions.
Service in the military is an important event that may shape veterans’ life trajectories. Research has shown that military service is associated with increased risk of alcohol and substance abuse, mental illness, and antisocial behaviors, yet it remains unclear whether service places veterans at elevated risk of criminal justice involvement. In addition, most prior research treats military service as a dichotomous variable and does not consider the specific components of the military experience that might affect the impact that service has upon veterans. In the present study, a large sample of state prison inmates is utilized to test for the potential impact of military service, by itself, as well as age of entry, length of service, combat exposure, discharge type, and branch status on lifetime arrests. Results have implications for both military and criminal justice policies in ensuring that veterans have the assistance they need as they re-enter civilian life.
Our goal is to document the general issues that arise in estimating and comparing local crime rates over time and for different cities. Data are drawn from police-based residential burglary counts and the National Crime Victimization Survey to obtain interval estimates of residential burglary incidence at the local level. Ambiguity exists when making point estimates of crime that are based entirely on Uniform Crime Reports data. Sources of this ambiguity include (a) the "Hierarchy Rule," (b) population estimates used in estimating the burglary rate, and (c) variation in the probability that a residential burglary victim reports the incident to the police. Analyses document uncertainty of burglary rates when comparing across cities and over time. We think it will be useful to begin reporting crime patterns in terms of a range of uncertainty that expresses both what is known and unknown about the numbers that are used to measure those patterns.
With the passage of Amendments 20 (2000) and 64 (2012), Colorado legalized the medicinal and recreational use of marijuana. Nebraskan law enforcement in border counties subsequently reported increases in arrests and reductions in jail space. In response, the Nebraska state legislature passed LR-520 to study the potential increased costs incurred by criminal justice agencies in border counties. To investigate this situation, we compare trends in drug arrests and jail occupancy across three areas: border counties, those that contain Interstate 80 (I-80) as a major transportation route, and the remaining counties in the state of Nebraska from 2000 through 2013. We found that border counties, but not necessarily those along the I-80 corridor, experienced significant growth in marijuana-related arrests and jail admissions after the expansion of the medical marijuana program in Colorado. Implications for research and policy are discussed.
In line with emerging work on the role of fatherhood in prisoner reentry, this study directs attention to the financial obligations that connect fathers to their families in reentry. Specifically, the study provides a descriptive picture of soon-to-be-released male state prisoners with child support obligations using a multi-state, longitudinal dataset, and examines whether characteristics of incarcerated men with child support orders and associated debt are significantly different from incarcerated males without child support orders. Whether males attached to comprehensive reentry programs received more services related to their debt obligation after prison release compared with non-program participants is also analyzed. Findings show that although prisoners identify having substantial needs vis-à-vis child support obligations, few reported receiving assistance related to these needs upon release. However, reentry program participants received significantly more child support–related services than non-program participants. Implications for community services and support for returning prisoners with child support orders and related needs are discussed.
In this article, we use 3 years of youth court data from a southeastern state to examine whether referrals that originated from school resource officers (SROs) involve greater proportions of less serious offenses than referrals from other sources. Referrals from SROs during the 3-year period were similar to referrals by law enforcement outside of school for status and serious offenses. SROs were less likely than law enforcement officers outside of school to refer juveniles for minor offenses during the 3-year period. Our findings suggest that schools, not solely police in schools, make a large contribution to the number of juveniles referred to the juvenile justice system for less serious offenses. Implications for policy and future research are also discussed.
Although there is some limited research on the effectiveness of the America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response (AMBER) Alert system, to date, there has been no research specifically examining the viability of prospective AMBER Alert issuance criteria. Using data acquired from various media accounts of 446 AMBER Alerts issued in the United States and Canada, we examine how well "peripheral harm" (harm to someone other than the abducted child during the course of the abduction) predicts subsequent harm to the abducted child. Counterintuitively (from the perspective of AMBER Alert issuance decision making), peripheral harm or threat is negatively associated with harm to the victim in cases involving an AMBER Alert. Furthermore, this negative finding is spurious, and is primarily driven by the fact that, disproportionately, the abductors who commit "peripheral harm" in AMBER alert cases are parents and other family members of the child who are presumably unlikely to harm child relatives despite whatever violence they might commit (or threaten) against others. We discuss the implications for the use of peripheral harm as an AMBER Alert issuance criterion, the empirical evaluation of the system, and the public discourse surrounding the AMBER Alert system and its relationship to child protection in general.
New York City’s Stop-and-Frisk program has been a contentious police practice for more than 40 years. There is extensive research that examines attitudes toward the police; however, empirical research has yet to analyze citizens’ perceptions of stop-and-frisk. This study uses data from pedestrians to uncover their opinions of stop-and-frisk. Results demonstrate that several demographic characteristics predicted attitudes toward stop-and-frisk; minorities and younger citizens had less positive views, and unfavorable opinions were linked to living in New York City; having less education; being unemployed; having lower income; not married; no children; having been previously frisked by police; and vicarious experiences of others with stop-and-frisk. The results provide insights into demographic and experiential factors that influence attitudes toward stop-and-frisk. As perceived unfairness often undermines police authority, identifying factors that predict unfavorable attitudes toward police practices can aide in allocating resources to further efforts to improve police–community relations.
Recent years have seen increasing concerns about the importance of offender reentry and how to best facilitate ex-offenders remaining crimefree. Common responses have been to enhance punitiveness, and to decrease resources and support services for ex-offenders. Results have been consistently high levels of recidivism, and consequently increasingly punitive responses. The present study examines whether a cohort of offenders released to the community in Kentucky either under parole supervision or at the expiration of their sentences are more likely to be reincarcerated within a 5-year period. The participants of each cohort were constructed into two groups using propensity score matching to control for differences between them.
During the post–World War II (WWII) period, U.S. prison populations and economic inequality have historically shared a common trend. Both indexes were low and fairly stable until the early 1970s, but afterward, they rose significantly. In the context of the prison boom and high economic inequality, such a meaningful coincidence that both variables follow the same trend calls for the present study examining their historical long-term relationship. With annual national data from 1950-2010, this study uses time-series regression techniques within a co-integration and error-correction framework. Although estimated results are sensitive to the model specification used in parameter estimation, there are in general both short-term and long-term equilibrium relationships between the two variables. Finally, this study concludes with a discussion of implications for policy development and future research.
The veterans treatment court (VTC) is a recently developed specialized court that targets the growing population of veterans in contact with the criminal justice system. Using data collected from the first national survey of VTCs in 2012, this study explores who VTC participants are by creating a descriptive portrait of their personal and military characteristics and the legal, extralegal, and programmatic challenges they face. This study also examines the perceived relationships between military service and legal and extralegal issues. This research produces the first early illustration of VTC participants on a national level, finding similarity and variability across VTCs, in comparison with the national veteran population, and between servicemen and servicewomen on a variety of factors. Furthermore, this study identifies recent changes in the VTC participant population. Recommendations for VTC programs and for research on justice-involved veterans and active-duty personnel are provided in light of the fluid VTC population.
Those who have been wrongfully imprisoned face a variety of challenges upon reentering the community, and monetary compensation may be helpful in rebuilding one’s life following a period of incarceration. However, very little is known about factors that may impact public attitudes regarding compensation policy. Using a sample of 396 university students, we investigated the role of exonerees’ race/ethnicity and prior conviction history, as well as participants’ socially dominant and right-wing authoritarian attitudes in explaining beliefs about financial compensation. Results suggest that males, minority group members, and older participants tended to rate hypothetical exonerees as more deserving of financial compensation. Perceptions of deservingness for compensation did not differ according to the exonerees’ race/ethnicity, but exonerees who had no prior convictions were perceived as more deserving compared with those with prior misdemeanor or felony drug convictions. Participants’ right-wing authoritarianism scores were negatively associated with deservingness scores, whereas social dominance orientation scores were not significantly related to deservingness, after controlling for participant demographics and exoneree factors.
California’s 2011 Public Safety Realignment created an unprecedented policy experiment by transferring the authority over lower level felony offenders from the state correctional system to 58 county jail and probation systems. Realignment provides a unique opportunity to examine the ways that correctional policy change can influence recidivism patterns. We examine two questions about policy change and recidivism: "Did realignment affect change in statewide recidivism patterns?" and "Does county-level variation in implementation strategies help account for differences in recidivism across counties?" We find that statewide recidivism rates actually increased somewhat after realignment. However, we also find that offenders released to counties that prioritized reentry services in their implementation of realignment had better post-realignment recidivism outcomes than offenders released to counties that prioritized traditional enforcement methods. We conclude by considering additional steps needed to understand the links between policy change and recidivism outcomes.
Recent research has produced mixed results as to whether newer machine learning algorithms outperform older, more traditional methods such as logistic regression in predicting recidivism. In this study, we compared the performance of 12 supervised learning algorithms to predict recidivism among offenders released from Minnesota prisons. Using multiple predictive validity metrics, we assessed the performance of these algorithms across varying sample sizes, recidivism base rates, and number of predictors in the data set. The newer machine learning algorithms generally yielded better predictive validity results. LogitBoost had the best overall performance, followed by Random forests, MultiBoosting, bagged trees, and logistic model trees. Still, the gap between the best and worst algorithms was relatively modest, and none of the methods performed the best in each of the 10 scenarios we examined. The results suggest that multiple methods, including machine learning algorithms, should be considered in the development of recidivism risk assessment instruments.
The hate crime concept describes a set of actions that span the worlds of activism, policy, and scholarship and provides the basis for these actors to work together and open up the rule of law to communities that often exist outside its protection. However, there is huge diversity in current approaches across and within these worlds to recording, reporting, legislating against, and researching hate crime, which challenges the notion of a shared and global concept of hate crime. This article offers a framework that helps describe the processes and relationships that generate and refine national and international concepts of hate crime. In so doing, it starts to assess to what extent an internationally coherent approach to understanding and responding to targeted, bigoted violence has been achieved.
This article will assess the difficulties and misunderstandings that prevent hate crime academics and practitioners from working together more productively. It will be argued that many of these problems stem from the different occupational cultures across the two spheres, which can generate varying expectations, values, and practices that exacerbate problems in working relationships. Some of these difficulties relate to differing understandings of what hate crime actually is and how to counter it. The article suggests that by gaining in-depth knowledge of each other’s working methods and outputs, perhaps by being involved in formal and informal joint projects that necessitate flexibility and the development of shared approaches, academics and practitioners can devise more nuanced interventions that deal with the harms of hate crime more effectively.
Deriving insights from the array of papers delivered across the course of the conference, this article highlights proactive and reactive approaches to hate crime from across the globe. It addresses both state-level and nongovernmental organization (NGO) responses, including legislation, police policy and practice, education, and public awareness initiatives. It also considers the potential limitations associated with some of these.
Despite recent progress, our collective responses to hate crime have been undermined by a disconnected approach to scholarship and policy. This article focuses on a series of problems that are created and reinforced through such an approach. This includes the limited reach of hate crime theorizing and specifically the perception that academic work is often too detached from the everyday realities confronting those who respond to—or live with—the consequences of hate crime in the "real world." Equally problematic is policy that is not empirically driven or linked to academic knowledge, or which is based on tokenistic, cynical or "tick-box" foundations. The article draws from these fault lines to underline the symbiotic relationship between hate crime scholarship and policy formation: one where policy formation needs academic substance to be fit for purpose and where scholarship needs to inform policy to have lasting "real-world" value.
Communities across the United States have become increasingly concerned over the presence of sex offenders in their neighborhoods. The purpose of this research is to examine the factors that are associated with the concentration of sex offenders in a large geographic area with few residency restrictions. This research also examines multiple categories of sex offenders subject to varying levels of community notification, allowing for an assessment of what, if any, effect community notification has on the residential patterns of sex offenders. Concentrated disadvantage, concentrated affluence, and housing affordability are all significant factors in explaining the concentration of multiple categories of sex offenders. Concentrated affluence relative to poverty is the most consistent predictor of sex offender concentration, revealing that more affluent communities ward off sex offender residents, regardless of community notification requirements.
Despite the importance of strong partnerships between victim advocates and criminal justice officials, few studies have examined criminal justice officials’ perspectives on collaborating with victim advocates. Officials’ perspectives on advocates’ roles in the investigation and prosecution of sexual assaults are measured to understand the barriers to collaboration and strengths that can be capitalized upon. A sample of sexual assault investigators from a large police department were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. A sample of prosecutors from the jurisdiction, experienced in processing sexual assault cases, responded to paper-and-pencil surveys. Findings reveal that officials believe advocates make positive contributions to the justice system process through effective communication and by supporting victims and their families. Barriers to strong partnerships include concerns about role conflicts and advocate involvement in criminal investigations. Reform efforts can use these findings through explicit work to capitalize on perceived strengths and overcome barriers.
This study identifies the factors related to mental health service use among children of incarcerated mothers. Data on 700 children collected from a diverse sample of mothers in Arizona are used, and a two-stage probit model with sample selection is estimated to assess the various child, mother, and caregiver characteristics associated with children’s use of mental health services. Results indicate that children involved in child protective services (CPS) and children cared for by grandparents are more likely to receive mental health services, whereas children of Native American mothers and children who have been exposed to violence are less likely to receive services for their mental health needs. These findings have important implications for correctional policy regarding the intake screening of female inmates and suggest that criminal justice agencies communicate more closely with CPS and community-based services to ensure children’s mental health needs are addressed while their mothers are in prison.
Perceptions of fear in the correctional literature typically seek to predict factors such as procedural justice, turnover, and satisfaction rather than identify the antecedents to fear. In addition, studies on perceptions of safety consistently uncover female officers reporting higher levels of fear. The current study applies the concepts of fear facilitators and inhibitors, found in the general fear of crime literature, as a mechanism to explain perceptions of emotional and cognitive fear among correctional officers with a focus on differences between males and females. The study examines 40 institutions and 901 correctional officers to investigate theoretical, institutional, and individual predictors of correctional officer perceptions of inmate fear. Results show the predictors of fear differ between males and females and also demonstrate the importance of fear facilitators, individual characteristics, and institutional factors for determining emotional and cognitive fear.
The purpose of this study was to ascertain whether age of crime and substance use onset and prior crime and substance versatility (variety of crimes committed or drugs used) could help define the "worst of both worlds" effect. Analyses were conducted on 2,539 children and young adults from a nationally representative sample of private households in England and Wales. As predicted, the early onset crime/substance group achieved the worst future crime and substance outcomes, the late onset crime/substance group achieved the second worst outcomes, the crime or substance alone group achieved the third worst outcomes, and the no crime and substance group achieved the best outcomes. Likewise, the high crime/drug versatility group achieved the worst outcomes, the low crime/drug versatility group achieved the second worst outcomes, the crime or drug alone group achieved the third worst outcomes, and the no crime and drug group achieved the best outcomes.
While the topic of depolicing is often discussed in political rhetoric, media reporting, and reports on police behavior, there exists little empirical analysis of the phenomenon at the police officer (individual) level. To further our understanding of the phenomenon of depolicing, the present study draws on a convenience sample of 25 police officers from across the United States to provide an inductive understanding of the nature, scope, and causes of depolicing. Among the findings is a strong belief that depolicing is a real and growing phenomenon, that it is more widespread than most agencies are willing to admit, and that its causes are highly varied, but include civil litigation, new laws and policies, and accusations of racial profiling. The article discusses the implications of depolicing and the need for future research.
Recent critiques of the decision to make monetary sanctions a condition of probation have suggested that the practice could hinder the successful completion of probation. However, few studies have explored this relationship empirically, and among those that do, the findings are relatively inconclusive and often dependent on the sample and measures used. Building on this research, the current study examines the imposition of four monetary sanctions on a sample of felony cases involving indigent adult probationers from a Florida public defender’s office. The results indicate that although monetary sanctions have relatively little impact on probation violations generally, the effects of these penalties vary based on the severity of the violation. Legal factors are consistently the most significant predictors of the likelihood and severity of probation violations.
Historically, battering has been a culturally and legally acceptable form of social control within the United States. This article provides an examination of how this legacy of social acceptance has influenced the development of laws and social policies related to battering. We provide a critique of our current approach to battering and our historical reliance on private or social helping agencies intended to hide and protect victims. We call for a transformation of our current policies that provides for the removal of the batterer—not the victim and her children—from the family home through a process of bail denial and preventative detention.
The Disproportionate Minority Confinement, and later Contact (DMC), mandate was developed by Congress to reduce minority overrepresention in the U.S. juvenile justice system. Presently, this federal provision compels states to decrease the disproportionate number of minorities handled at all of their juvenile processing stages. The DMC mandate has recently captured political attention due to its compulsory status and system-wide focus, but its impacts on the treatment of minority youth are less clear. This study uses original juvenile processing data from Pennsylvania to evaluate whether the DMC mandate has diminished the size of processed minority youth populations. Empirical assessments demonstrate the DMC mandate has successfully generated substantial declines in minority processing throughout the state’s juvenile justice system. The results highlight the potential of a national reform to remedy racial inequalities in juvenile justice.
This article presents the first look at the prevalence of veteran deaths in state prisons using data from the National Corrections Reporting Program (NCRP). We find that overall veterans are not statistically more likely than nonveterans to die in prison, but that differences exist between age groups based on age at admission to prison. Age-adjusted estimates of risk of death show that veterans admitted to prison above 44 years of age are statistically less likely to die in prison, suggesting veterans are healthier than their nonveteran counterparts. In terms of predicted probability of death, veterans admitted between ages 40 and 59 have a 1.3 to 2.1 percentage point lower probability of death over a 20-year period, or between 13 and 21 fewer deaths per 1,000 admissions. Estimates for the youngest ages also suggest the possibility of generational differences, though more research is needed.
Justice reinvestment strategies have been proposed to allow financial resources originally allocated for imprisonment to be reinvested into community-based alternatives. According to this perspective, the government has the responsibility to fund strategies that reduce crime, and previous studies have questioned the effectiveness of prison as one solution. Furthermore, empirical support for community-based alternatives underscores the importance of delivering interventions in offenders’ natural environments. This study explores one state’s attempt to fund strategies that reduce crime and delinquency. Through the Targeted Reasoned and Equitable Community and Local Alternatives to the Incarceration of Minors (RECLAIM) initiative, the State of Ohio attempted to reduce the risk of recidivism by serving more youth locally, instead of in secure facilities in the six most populous counties throughout the state. Specifically, the findings suggest that the Targeted RECLAIM initiative was successful in reducing the risk of recidivism of participating youth.
In the last few decades, several less lethal forms of force have been introduced, adopted, and deployed by police agencies. Oleoresin capsicum (OC) spray is now used in nearly every department across the United States; the Thomas A. Swift Electric Rifle (TASER) is used in the majority of police departments. Despite their widespread use, we still know relatively little about the factors associated with the use of OC spray and TASERs and the effectiveness of these weapons in incapacitating subjects. Knowing when these weapons are used and whether they are effective would provide for a more complete understanding of their strengths and limitations and inform the debate about where less lethal weapons should be placed on use of force continua. This article contributes to the discussion by analyzing 504 use-of-force incidents where the police used OC spray or TASERs during the event. Data were obtained from a large municipal police department on incidents that occurred in 2010 and 2011. Policy considerations and directions for further research are discussed.
I use data from a national public opinion poll conducted 4 months after the mass shooting of teachers and students in Sandy Hook Elementary School to analyze the content and predictors of public opinion about gun control and gun control politics. I find that a slim majority of Americans favors a semiautomatic weapon ban and proposals to make gun control laws stricter, and a large majority supports a federal background check law. Consistent with previous research, I also find that both instrumental concerns and cultural beliefs are significantly related to people’s opinions about gun control, but the strongest, most consistent predictors of people’s gun control preferences are their political beliefs and affiliations. I conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for the national gun control debate.
Executive Order 12898 (42 U.S.C. § 4321 [2000]) mandates that federal agencies in the United States make it their purpose to achieve environmental justice. As a result, agencies often rely on empirical studies to provide crucial information that can be used to implement policies to combat inequality. Although numerous studies now examine the distribution of environmental burdens and benefits, there are no systematic empirical studies that examine inequality in criminal penalties. This study corrects that omission by presenting findings on the relationship between community demographics and monetary penalties against corporations for 121 criminal violations of federal environmental law that were adjudicated between the years 2005 and 2010. Our results suggest that monetary penalties are not correlated with the demographics of residents living near the crime. That is, corporations that committed their environmental crimes in minority and poor areas did not receive lower monetary penalties as a result. Thus, environmental justice concerns appear to be satisfied with respect to federal criminal prosecutions.
The Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative (SVORI) paved the way for a new era of rehabilitation in corrections’ programming. However, published outcome evaluations of SVORI programs and their progeny are limited in number. The current article presents the multiyear outcome evaluation of one prisoner reentry initiative established in a Midwestern state, which was developed within the framework of the SVORI program model. A comparison group was identified using propensity score matching to evaluate program effectiveness on the recidivism outcomes of returns to prison and new convictions. Cox proportional hazards modeling found program participants to have significantly lower hazard to incur a new conviction than the comparison group but no difference in the hazard for reincarceration. The implications of these mixed findings in recidivism outcomes are discussed for the reentry program initiative.
Violence and active shooter situations in schools have been important issues to the public, policy makers, and scholars in recent years. School resource officers (SROs) are widely used in efforts to address school crime-related threats. Yet, little is known about the factors that influence key stakeholders’ (e.g., school principals) evaluations of such officers. The present study uses survey data from a sample of public school principals in South Carolina to examine the role of procedural justice theory in understanding evaluations of SROs. The results reveal that procedural justice is associated with principals’ support for SROs, perceived effectiveness of SROs, and level of trust and satisfaction in SROs. The policy implications of the results center on the importance of SRO procedural fairness in maintaining quality relationships with top school administrators which may ultimately have a wider impact on the success of SRO programs.
Seeking to alleviate traditional criminal justice system processing for low-level non-violent crimes, community courts have emerged as a viable alternative. These courts use innovative community-based efforts to address the needs of defendants charged with quality-of-life crimes and attempt to improve the surrounding community. Using a retrospective quasi-experimental design, this research examines recidivism outcomes for a sample of 574 defendants who were referred to the Indianapolis Community Court. Repeated-measures ANOVA models were used to assess 1- and 3-year follow-up intervals. Survival models were used to determine whether significant differences between groups exist on the timing of recidivism events. The analysis revealed no statistically significant differences between those individuals who were processed through community court and those processed through traditional courts. The implications of these findings for future research and community court policy and practice are discussed.
Social distance, or the level of familiarity and rapport, within the officer–offender relationship is important in reducing recidivism and promoting desistance. Although examined in a variety of contexts, few researchers have studied the social distance between sex offenders and community supervision officers. When this has been examined, little attention has been paid to the legal and regulatory structure in place specifically for sex offenders or the cultural perceptions that citizens hold about sex offenders and sex offending. Within these structural and cultural contexts, we argue that sex offenders are a unique offender group, and thus, their relationships with supervision officers are likely qualitatively different from those formed between non-sex offenders and supervision officers. Using interviews with community supervision officers and convicted sex offenders, we highlight the structural and cultural contexts under which sex offenders are supervised and the ways in which the social distance in sex offender–officer relationships may vary from non-sex offender–officer relationships.
Sex offender notification laws depend not only on the public’s access of registration information but also on the belief that those on the registry present a danger to society and thus deserve informal monitoring. As registries have expanded to include more people, perhaps citizens feel some people on registry are incapable of committing sex crimes or do not pose a danger to society. A group whose inclusion the public may question is women, as many scholars have argued there is a societal-level denial that females commit sex crimes. Data from the 2012 Nebraska Annual Social Indicators Survey were used to determine whether the public agreed that citizens should be notified of convicted female sex offenders living in their communities, whether they would take preventive action if a female sex offender lived in their neighborhood, and whether they think that female sex crimes are less serious than sex crimes committed by men.
Using data from more than 2,500 law enforcement agencies, the goal of this study was to identify predictors of advanced surveillance technologies. The findings suggest that the adoption of modern surveillance cameras is neither uniform nor comprehensive and that the adoption process is ongoing with agency officials implementing and discontinuing technologies over time. Most important, stakeholders both inside and outside the organization have the greatest influence on the adoption process, and cameras in vehicles and mobile devices are most prevalent in improvised communities. As cameras become smaller and less expensive, they have the potential to democratize surveillance and equalize the relationship between the police and the public during encounters. However, the democratization effect will only occur if implementation is widespread and all segments of the community have an equal voice in the process. The research findings suggest that significant progress still needs to be made in these areas.
The successful implementation of community policing programs is dependent on police and residents understanding the needs of their communities. Differences between resident and police perceptions can affect the success of crime prevention strategies. Much neighborhood research highlights residents’ perceptions of their neighborhoods; the perceptions of police officers are often not taken into account. The current research examines police and resident perceptions of three high crime neighborhoods in a Midwestern city in the United States. Results indicate residents and police have different interpretations of the neighborhoods. Resident perceptions of neighborhood measures are relatively consistent across the three neighborhoods. Police perceptions of their relationship with residents and the close-knit structure of the community, however, are more positive in the primarily White neighborhood that has an active crime prevention program. The findings suggest that what the officers see in the neighborhood is driving perceptions, while actual problems might play a secondary role.
Most academic attention regarding military influence on policing has focused on critiques of the military model of policing and police militarization and has neglected to examine the relationship between the two institutions and the transferability of attributes and skills from the military to police. Military service itself, when examined, has been treated as an undifferentiated concept that has not distinguished the effects of organizational structure, leadership, and myriad roles and experiences on policing. This study, using data from a survey of law enforcement officers throughout a New England state, compares and analyzes how law enforcement officers and supervisors with and without military background and with and without deployment experience differ in their perspectives regarding both the positive as well as negative aspects of combat deployment on policing. As such, it has significant implications for both the reintegration and recruitment of combat-deployed veterans into police organizations.
Transitional housing facilities for released prison inmates have existed in the United States since the early 1800s and are a promising strategy to aid offender reintegration. One recurring obstacle to the successful implementation and sustainability of these facilities is public resistance. Unfortunately, very little is known regarding what influences public support or opposition specifically for offender-based transitional housing. The current study examines how support for transitional housing centers may vary among residents of a Midwestern state based on the proximity of the facility and the types of offenders living there. The study also examines a range of possible influences on support, including community factors, family-related considerations, correctional and political views, and demographic variables. The most consistent influence on acceptance of transitional housing centers was general support for helping offenders during reentry. Other variables with more limited effects were an emphasis on services and programming over monitoring and surveillance during reentry, having a close family member imprisoned, age, and education level. Implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.
This study sought to evaluate the deterrent impact the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN SPAM) Act has had on email spam rates over time. A sample of 5,490,905 spam emails was collected and aggregated into a monthly time series. Thirteen measures of CAN SPAM Act enforcement were coded from news articles and included in a time-series regression. The results suggest a possible deterrent effect of prosecutions, convictions, and lengthy jail sentences for spammers, but an emboldening effect of short jail sentences. The penalties under the CAN SPAM Act focus on fines more than prison terms. The results find no deterrent effect for fines, as spammers tend to earn a large income from sending spam. The Act might be revised to include prison sentences, especially longer ones to avoid the emboldening effect found. A deterrent impact was found for prosecutions, even though the CAN SPAM Act is under-enforced. Expanding enforcement might also be advisable.
The U.S. Supreme Court has indicated that defendants are entitled to effective assistance of counsel. Despite this, many research studies and anecdotal evidence suggest that defense counsel, particularly appointed counsel, struggles to provide effective assistance, especially with regard to case outcomes. These studies suggest that having appointed counsel negatively affects case outcomes, such as conviction and sentencing, in that those with appointed counsel are more likely to be convicted and/or sentenced to longer incarceration terms. Previous research has largely ignored earlier stages of a case and the effect of type of counsel on these earlier case outcomes. The current study examines the effect of counsel—public defender versus retained—on bail decisions in Florida. Previous research has indicated that bail decisions have an effect on the outcome of a case, so the importance of bail decisions cannot be overlooked.
Since the 1990s, several measures intended to deter sexual offending have been instituted by state governments. A recent example is Jessica’s Law. First adopted in Florida, variations of Jessica’s Law have since been enacted by the majority of states. The impact of this legislation on forcible rape remains unexplored. Using a general deterrence framework, we apply Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) modeling to monthly Uniform Crime Report (UCR) aggregations of reported forcible rape from 2000 to 2011 in states requiring lifetime electronic monitoring of convicted sex offenders as a condition of Jessica’s Law. Results indicate a null relationship between Jessica’s Law and reported forcible rape. Policy implications related to the efficacy of sex offender legislation and alternatives for reducing sexual offending are discussed.
Empirical research on recidivism risk among justice-involved veterans (JIVs) is limited. Using the risk-need-responsivity model, we conducted a systematic review of research on risk factors for recidivism among JIVs to identify the gaps in this literature and provide recommendations for future research. Substance abuse and indicators of antisociality were consistently linked to justice involvement in veterans; however, the evidence for negative family/marital circumstances and lack of positive school/work involvement was mixed. Several known risk factors for reoffending among civilian offenders (i.e., antisocial cognitions and associates; lack of prosocial activities) were marked by little to no empirical studies among veterans. Posttraumatic stress and traumatic brain injury, particularly when combined with anger and irritability issues, may be veteran-specific risk factors for violent offending. The implications of these findings for policy and practice and challenges to implementing risk assessments with JIVs are discussed.
The current study investigates how visitation affects inmates’ social capital and whether it influences inmates’ perceptions of costs incurred by their family members and friends as a result of incarceration. We use data from a recent survey of male prisoners to examine different aspects of visitation, such as types of visitors and frequency of visitation. The findings suggest that prison visitation contributes to the maintenance of inmates’ social capital and could potentially shape their perceptions of the informal costs of reoffending. Regular visitation during incarceration may play a crucial role in successful reentry.
This study seeks to conceptualize individual and neighborhood conditions that affect the ability of residents to enact collective responses to intense policing practices such as "stop-and-frisk." Drawing on prior research, we formulate four hypotheses that could jointly or independently shape mobilization around issues of policing: (a) neighborhood organizational infrastructure, (b) resident activism, (c) attitudes toward neighborhood change, and (d) perceptions of police performance. We provide a preliminary exploration of these arguments by combining administrative reports with surveys and observations in the South Bronx. Our descriptive work suggests that despite the lack of a robust local community response to high levels of police stops, this section of the city has many community organizations, significant levels of resident involvement, and general optimism regarding neighborhood change. There is some indication that residents may be willing to put up with frequent "hassles" from the police in exchange for less crime.
Recently, government officials, policy makers, and practitioners are taking a closer look at present day sentencing and corrections approaches. State policy decisions have in large part determined how justice is administered, and a variety of contextual factors determine which policies states are likely to adopt. This review synthesizes the empirical literature on determinants of state sentencing and corrections policy innovations and discusses their relative value in predicting state policy adoptions across studies. Results indicate that sentencing and corrections policies are less likely to be predicted by functional explanations such as crime rates than by certain economic, political, and social variables. The most consistently predictive determinants of state policy adoptions are the external influences of other states and the federal government.
Probationers and parolees have a reduced expectation of privacy. In most states, they are subject to searches by their supervising probation or parole officer without prior notice or cause. However, for law enforcement officers, their ability to search a probationer or parolee can be constrained by the need to articulate probable cause or a reasonable suspicion. This legal review examines federal and state laws, providing guidance on when law enforcement officers can search probationers/parolees, and whether it requires probable cause, a reasonable suspicion, or the presence of the supervising probation/parole officer. Results of the legal review should prove especially informative for agencies engaged in multiagency partnerships.
A long-held assumption in corrections is that parole technical violations (TVs) serve as a proxy of an offender’s potential of committing a new crime. Considering this notion has yet to be empirically tested coupled with recent research indicating a patterned difference between violators and recidivists, a test of this foundational assumption of community corrections is warranted. The current study aims to test this assumption using male and female offender samples from Washington State. Receiver operating characteristic curves are used to test the predictive validity of a generic risk–needs scale designed for felony recidivism on TV outcomes. Results suggest that the male-specific scale performs significantly worse when predicting nonserious and serious violations among the male sample. A female-specific scale, however, showed no significant difference in predicting female violations. The findings provide evidence that violations are not necessarily a proxy of new crime, and therefore offer wide implications for community corrections policy.
The purpose of this study is to determine whether the decision to use one source of official data in lieu of another affects the assessment of social policy on crime. Specifically, we examine the effect of the implementation of stand your ground legislation on state and municipal compilations of residential and non-residential burglaries known to the police within a large, Midwestern city. The interrupted time series analyses of the state agency data reveal that the castle doctrine legislation led to a temporary decline in residential burglaries, but had no effect on non-residential burglaries. In contrast, our analyses of the city agency data indicate that this legislative initiative had no effect on residential burglaries, but did generate a permanent, monthly increase in the number of non-residential burglaries. The implications of these findings for the use of official crime statistics are discussed.
This study sought to determine the impact of residential placement on juvenile delinquency. Specifically, the study focused on the extent to which juvenile detention and residential placement influenced juvenile violent, property, and drug offenses. Biennial, state-level panel data for the years 1997 through 2011 were analyzed using random effects modeling. Results indicated that increased levels of juvenile detention and residential placement were associated with higher rates of violent offending. Increased levels of residential placement were also related to higher rates of property and drug offending. The findings from the current study fail to support the deterrence and incapacitation hypotheses in relation to the institutionalization of juvenile offenders.
Mass incarceration has led to increased interest in understanding the effects of imprisonment. Reviews of criminological theory and research report mixed evidence that incarceration reduces recidivism; indeed, some studies report criminogenic effects. We argue that a better understanding of the heterogeneity of incarceration—including the types and sequences of sanctions and experiences that occur before, during, and after imprisonment—and of incarceration effects among different groups is important for two reasons. First, it can assist with assessing the salience of prior research on the effects of incarceration on recidivism. Second, it serves to identify conceptual and methodological challenges that must be addressed to provide credible assessments of incarceration effects. The paper argues that incarceration likely exerts a variable effect depending on the nature of the prison experience, the counterfactual conditions, including prior sanction history, and the specific populations subject to imprisonment. Implications for theory, research, and policy are discussed.
Police sexual misconduct is often considered a hidden crime that routinely goes unreported. The current study provides empirical data on cases of sex-related police crime at law enforcement agencies across the United States. The study identifies and describes incidents where sworn law enforcement officers were arrested for one or more sex-related crimes through a quantitative content analysis of published newspaper articles and court records. The primary news information source was the Google News search engine using 48 automated Google Alerts. Data are analyzed on 548 arrest cases in the years 2005-2007 of 398 officers employed by 328 nonfederal law enforcement agencies located in 265 counties and independent cities in 43 states and the District of Columbia. Findings indicate that police sexual misconduct includes serious forms of sex-related crime and that victims of sex-related police crime are typically younger than 18 years of age.
Discussions about race/ethnicity and crime are controversial and not surprisingly, such controversies have extended to the immigration–crime link as well. The emerging quantitative knowledge base on this relationship however suggests that immigrant status may actually serve as a protective factor against (serious) criminal involvement. Largely absent from this line of research has been a consideration of how immigrant status, especially Mexican nativity, is related to criminal justice sentencing decisions. In this article, we use data from more than 12,000 U.S. state and federal prisoners to examine sentence length disparities between Mexican- and native-born citizens. Our primary finding is that while there may be some impact of being Mexican born on sentence length, the negligible differences indicate that offenders who are Mexican born are likely to receive shorter sentences than their native-born counterparts, controlling for a variety of legal and extralegal factors. Directions for future research are highlighted.
An almost inherent characteristic of American death penalty jurisprudence is the long period of time that passes between the sentencing of a death-eligible defendant and the defendant’s execution. Although defendants who are sentenced to death row have a clear interest in exhausting all appeals, in many cases, the entire process may take 20 to 30 years or more, possibly exposing these individuals to undue physical and psychological harm. Such harm, when combined with the execution itself, may violate the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The current piece examines the concept of Lackey claims and examines such claims within the framework of "evolving standards of decency." Recommendations for policy are also discussed.
Studies and local police jurisdictions have documented the existence of potentially valuable forensic evidence that have never been submitted to a crime laboratory for examination. The failure to analyze evidence is concerning because this may have prohibited case advancement in the criminal justice system. This study examines this possibility by describing investigative activities that occur after forensic screening of evidence that was not submitted for testing at the time of the original investigation. The study examines only sexual assault cases and finds that testing has a minimal impact in this sample.
This research was conducted to identify and explain factors that shape staff and inmate perceptions of ethical behavior within a correctional setting. Prior research has found that staff do perceive high levels of deviance among their peers, but this varies by both the facility (jails were perceived as more unethical) and staff characteristics, with female and older staff perceiving their workplace as more ethical. The current research attempts to expand this line of study by surveying both inmates and staff on their perceptions of staff ethics within a jail in a mountain state jail. This research first examines what the general perceptions are among these two populations in regard to staff ethics. Second, it answers the question of whether perceived differences exist and how they vary between staff and inmates in regard to staff ethical behavior.
In response to increased fear and attention to the sexual victimization of children, coupled with the proliferation of child pornography on the Internet, Congress has increased the severity of federal sentencing guidelines for child pornography offenses. Recently, federal judges have publicly questioned the appropriateness of these guidelines, arguing that the guidelines do not properly reflect proportionality with regard to the level of harm and risk posed by child pornography offenders. Child pornography cases have the highest rates of guideline departure in the federal court system. Within the legal versus democratic subcultural framework, this study analyzes the factors influencing sentencing decisions in federal child pornography and sexual abuse cases. Our primary focus is on the impact of differences between guideline-generated sentencing recommendations compared with the sentences outlined in the criminal statutes. We find that although a greater divergence between the guidelines and statutes increases the likelihood and magnitude of downward departures generally, this effect is more pronounced in child pornography cases. This finding suggests that judges may face greater difficulty in synthesizing conflicting cues from the legal and democratic subcultures in these types of cases.
Scholars attribute the public’s low level of knowledge about sentencing and corrections to its lack of extensive criminal justice experience and consequent reliance on the media for justice-related information. However, scant research exists that evaluates how criminal justice experience affects media consumption, or how such consumption may influence knowledge about sentencing laws or the extent of imprisonment. To extend this literature, we develop and test three hypotheses about the relationships between prior criminal justice experience, reliance on the mass media for information about crime and justice, and knowledge about criminal punishment. Analysis of data from a random telephone survey of 1,308 adult Floridians reveals that individuals with prior criminal justice experience are less likely to rely on the media for crime-related information. The evidence also shows that media reliance is associated with lower levels of knowledge about criminal punishment, and that this effect is particularly strong for female respondents.
To expand the federal criminal justice role, Congress has generally used one of three authorities: (a) the interstate commerce clause, (b) the power to tax, and (c) the "power of the purse" to provide grants-in-aid to states and localities. This article, however, focuses on the use of the federal responsibility to protect the constitutional and statutory rights of citizens to expand this role. Specifically, it analyzes the instrumental (tangible) and expressive (symbolic) functions of civil rights laws on the (a) trafficking of persons; (b) civil rights of persons institutionalized in state prisons, jails, and juvenile justice facilities and systems; and (c) conduct of state and local law enforcement agencies. This analysis will contribute to our understanding of how such laws have expanded the federal criminal justice role by establishing new federal crimes and violations and defining good policy and practice for state and local criminal justice systems.
This study adds to the relatively limited and mostly outdated work release literature by evaluating the effectiveness of a Minnesota prison work release program. A retrospective quasi-experimental design was used to assess the impact of work release on recidivism, employment, and cost avoidance among 3,570 offenders released from Minnesota prisons between 2007 and 2010. Propensity score matching was used to minimize observable selection bias. Work release significantly increased the hazard of returning to prison for a technical violation, although it significantly reduced, albeit modestly, the risk of reoffending with a new crime. It did not have an impact on hourly wage, but it significantly increased the odds that participants found a job, the total hours they worked, and the total wages they earned. Work release produced an estimated cost avoidance benefit of $1.25 million overall, which amounts to nearly $700 per participant.
Shifts in public opinion and public policy in the early 21st century point to a changing criminal justice environment, which is decreasing the use of incarceration and increasing the role of rehabilitation and reintegration in the development of justice solutions. This study provides the original results of a content analysis of 49 state correctional department mission statements as a means of exploring the present day focus of correctional institutions. Findings indicate that concern for public safety is the dominant goal of state departments of corrections, but that over half of departments also emphasize the rehabilitation of offenders as part of their public mission. Suggestions for future research and implications for criminal justice administrators and policy makers are discussed.
The Weed and Seed program was created to target high-crime neighborhoods with sustained and intensive enforcement and community restoration resources. At present, however, no nationwide assessment of crime outcomes has yet been conducted comparing all jurisdictions that implemented this program with those that did not. This study conducted a series of panel data analyses to compare every Weed and Seed jurisdiction with 250 randomly selected, matched comparison locations nationwide from 1990 through 2004 to assess the impact of this program on Uniform Crime Report Part I felony offenses. In this first evaluation of crime outcomes among all Weed and Seed jurisdictions nationwide, results from five different quasi-experimental and panel data analyses indicated that the program was associated with reductions in robbery, burglary, and vehicle theft. In addition, the level of impact of the Weed and Seed program was similar to more expensive Department of Justice programs from the Office of Community-Oriented Policing, and Local Law Enforcement Block Grants.
Fear of crime has been recognized as one of the driving forces underlying the punitive turn in the criminal justice system. Despite this, evidence suggests that rehabilitative efforts are still supported by the general public. The current study uses a national random sample to examine the impact of fear on public preference for allocating resources to rehabilitative versus punitive criminal justice system policies. Contrary to prior studies, respondents are forced to make a choice between punitive and rehabilitative options, and both the emotional and cognitive aspects of crime salience—fear of crime and victimization risk—are evaluated to determine their independent and combined impact on crime policy preference. The findings suggest that the majority of the public prefers putting resources toward rehabilitative crime polices, but fear of crime and risk of victimization both reduce this tendency. The implications of our results for current criminal justice system policies are discussed.
This study provides an exploratory quantitative examination of wrongful criminal conviction. Certain legal factors and perhaps some non-legal factors are related to wrongful conviction. Using data pertaining to all known exonerations in the United States from 1989 to 2012, we explore the extent to which deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) testing and/or race of a convicted innocent are related to that person’s exoneration. Controlling for race, the availability of DNA testing increases the likelihood of exoneration for murder or sexual assault. We also find that race is a significant factor in the wrongful conviction and exoneration of Blacks for murder or sexual assault. This finding regarding race warrants further research. The role of DNA in exonerating the innocent is critical to public policy proposals aimed at reducing wrongful conviction. Understanding how DNA may prevent and correct wrongful conviction is crucial because conviction of factually innocent defendants represents the ultimate failure of justice.
Controversy exists regarding whether specialized courts, specifically drug courts, adhere to the restorative justice model. Veterans treatment courts (VTCs) are the newest programmatic innovation in the specialized court arena and have not been widely studied to date. This study utilizes data from the first in-depth case study of a VTC and explores whether it embodies the restorative justice ideal. Using both quantitative and qualitative data, we find that the VTC does not fully embody the restorative justice agenda, but it adheres closer to the ideal than drug courts.
This research project examined the potential variables associated with high-risk police pursuits in the state of Georgia. The Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police (GACP) initiated data collection of pursuits among accredited agencies as a result of the decision in Scott v. Harris. A sample of 2,155 pursuit reports from 2007 to 2009 was analyzed using chi-square analysis. Variables associated with negative pursuit outcomes revealed a classification of variables for high-risk pursuits. The findings indicated a classification of high-risk pursuit variables, which originated from approximately 100 GACP accredited police agencies per year during the 3-year collection of data. Discussion includes implications related to policy evaluation and training as well as suggestions for future research.
The requirement that juveniles be competent to stand trial prior to adjudication in juvenile court has only recently been solidified via case law and/or statutory law. It is currently unclear as to whether and how the presence of a specific juvenile competency to stand trial (CST) statute affects how court actors understand and make use of CST in a juvenile court context. Through interviews with 48 juvenile court officials across two states and three juvenile court jurisdictions, we find that the presence or absence of specific juvenile CST guidelines differentially shapes court officials’ perceptions of the legitimacy of CST concerns and consequently, their case processing strategies and decisions. This exploratory study serves to critically question the role of this new due process protection in a juvenile court context that presumes youthfulness or immaturity of offenders.
In recent years, correctional and community agencies have developed and promoted an array of policies and programs aimed at successfully facilitating the offender transition from prison to community. One model, the Reentry Partnership Initiative (RPI), emphasizes building collaborative partnerships in an effort to deliver a coordinated and continuous stream of supervision, services, and support during the transitional process and includes institutional, structured reentry, and community reintegration phases. The current study evaluates the outcome of an RPI-style model called the Missouri Prisoner Reentry Initiative (MPRI). The impact of MPRI participation was examined by comparing the reimprisonment of two MPRI treatment groups to the reimprisonment of a reference group having no MPRI involvement. The MPRI groups consisted of (a) offenders entering all MPRI phases and (b) offenders receiving MPRI assistance exclusively inside prison. MPRI was not successful in reducing reimprisonment for males but had benefits for females who entered all MPRI phases.
Law enforcement agencies invest substantial resources to recruit, hire, and train new police officers. Reducing officer turnover can save significant resources, yet little is known about the rates and patterns of turnover in law enforcement. Using data from the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) survey in 2003 and the Census of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies (CSLLEA) in 2008, this study establishes baseline rates of employee turnover for sworn police officers. In addition to national rates, variations in turnover were compared across states, regions, urbanity, agency size, and agency type. Nationally, the total turnover rate was 10.8% in both 2003 and 2008. There was much consistency in turnover rates between survey years. Turnover rates, however, were higher in smaller agencies, municipal agencies, those in southern regions, and those in rural areas. The turnover rate benchmarks reported here serve to inform future research on law enforcement turnover and retention.
Although many states have enacted statewide residency restriction laws, others have left the need for, and content of, these laws to local municipalities. To better understand within-state variation in residency restriction laws, this study investigates the public’s desire for these laws and the distances they feel restrictions should be from public spaces populated by children. We review both quantitative and qualitative data from a statewide survey to determine where the public feels sex offenders can live without threatening children. Our results are interpreted using the "dikes" perspective of public opinion to predict the passage and content of future of residency restriction laws.
The reintegrative shaming experiments (RISE) were conducted in Canberra, Australia, between 1995 and 2000. RISE compared the effects of standard court proceedings to restorative justice (RJ)–focused diversionary conferences (DCs) with juvenile, young adult, and adult offenders who had been arrested for personal property, shoplifting, violent, or drunk driving offenses. We evaluated, using observational data, the effect of RJ conferences on objective procedural justice. We find that the DCs produced significantly higher levels of offender engagement within the adjudicative process and higher levels of ethical treatment, and that, when compared with standard trials, conduct within the conferences was attuned to the reintegrative shaming (RIS) process. These results reinforce the previous RISE findings by providing evidence that the conferencing process, as delivered, was in keeping with the overall goals of RJ and supports the prior attribution of RISE’s effectiveness to the RJ process.
Many states passed legislation in the 1990s to address the problem of violent sex offenders. While academic inquiries into the nature and extent of sexual offending have revealed some interesting findings, very little is known regarding how communities address the issue of managing violent sex offenders. This account documents how the state of Wisconsin attempted to manage violent sex offenders once released from prison and civilly committed under a sexually violent person statute. It chronicles the experience of a committee charged with locating possible sites for a facility for sexual predators under supervised release to the community. In addition, this account shows the problematic nature of implementing a state statute in a large county and identifies barriers inherent to this process. The concept of political failure is introduced to describe why sex offender legislation is difficult to implement.
In December 2012, Pennsylvania became the 16th state to comply with regulations stipulated in the Adam Walsh Act (AWA). Title I of AWA stipulates that all jurisdictions support a sex offender registry comprised of three registration levels: 15 years, 25 years, and life. Prior to implementation of AWA guidelines, the sex offender registry in Pennsylvania consisted of two registration levels: 10 years and life. Given the collateral consequences that sex offender registries create, we were interested in how registered offenders in Pennsylvania felt about the new legislation. As part of a larger project, self-report surveys were mailed to registrants in one urban county in Pennsylvania. Participants were asked about their knowledge of impending AWA-compliance and how they would be affected by it. Results suggest that sex offenders in Pennsylvania are more likely than their peers in other states to be fearful of the consequences of this change.
The purpose of this study was to better understand transient (homeless) sex offenders in the context of residence restriction laws. Using the entire population of registered sex offenders (RSOs) living in the community in Florida (n = 23,523), transients were compared with other sex offenders on relevant demographics, risk factors, county characteristics, and residence restriction variables. Significantly higher proportions of transient sex offenders were found in counties with a larger number of local-level restrictions, vast territory covered by these laws, wide-distance buffer zones, higher population density, and expensive housing costs. Sex offenders were more likely than the general population to become homeless. Transients were more likely than non-transients to have a history of registry violation. Few transients absconded, but when they did, they were more likely to abscond from registration than probation. When implementing sex offender management policies, lawmakers should consider transience as an unintended negative consequence.
The Nova Scotia Restorative Justice (NSRJ) program is a province wide, systemic juvenile restorative justice program in Nova Scotia. This program offers restorative justice intervention, at varying points in the criminal justice process, for all crimes except sexual assault and intimate partner violence. This study, a case study of the policy process, reveals that this exception is not based on restorative justice (RJ) theory but instead reflects local political struggles. This case reminds policy makers that they must consider local context and stakeholders when crafting RJ programming.
This article describes a restorative justice project run in three Canadian prisons. The project, Partners in Healing, aimed to promote restorative justice by running restorative justice committees inside and recruiting volunteers from the community to participate along with prisoners. The main goals of the project were to increase participants’ awareness of restorative justice and help prisoners gain an understanding of the effects of their crime(s). An evaluation of the project solicited stories about the restorative justice committees and this article reports on some of the evaluation findings. The qualitative data offer insights into how to best design a restorative justice project in prisons. It also reveals dilemmas associated with evaluating such projects. The article concludes that projects need to be guided by a clear conceptualization of restorative justice.
Courts and conferences emphasize varying elements of procedural justice to ensure that outcomes are fair and invoke moral regret or shame among offenders. How procedural justice relates to the various ways shame is experienced or managed is, however, not clear. Using data from the Australian Reintegrative Shaming Experiments (RISE), we examine how four types of shame management—shame acknowledgment, shame displacement, shame avoidance, and internalizing shame—operate within the context of traditional court processing and the restorative justice conference. Results indicate that the type of treatment offenders receive (court vs. conference) and perceptions of procedural justice affect shame management, highlighting important implications for understanding how shame management influences recidivism within court and conference.
Scholars and practitioners have renewed their interest in recognizing and designing restorative justice programs. Although these programs often provide successful outcomes, we know relatively little about why they work. Reintegrative shaming theory provides a lens by which to explain successful outcomes. This study uses over three years of direct observations to examine the practice of reintegrative shaming in a mental health court (MHC). We organize our findings around four primary components of reintegrative shaming outlined by Makkai and Braithwaite: respectful disapproval, disapproving the behavior rather than the individual, rejecting deviance as a master status, and ceremonial decertifications of deviance. Our data demonstrate that reintegrative shaming in MHC is largely accomplished through interactions with the judge, although the unique organization of the MHC, including their small caseloads, use of separate dockets, and pre-court team meetings, advance the court’s use of reintegrative shaming.
Variation in Sex Offender Registration and Community Notification (SORCN) policies may suggest differences in public fears of sexual crimes as well as differences in state-level policy-making. This study explored the standardization of SORCN policies across a sample of five midwestern states. A thematic content analysis showed that states varied in how registrants were defined, what information was selected for public notification, and how sex offender laws are maintained. A typology of revisions emerged, which may inform our understanding about policy-making. Ultimately, existing research provides limited explanations for these results, serving as an impetus for future research on context and process of criminal justice policy change.
There is a well-established connection between alcohol, drugs, and offending, but little is known about the intervening role of dependence. The present study was designed to assess the intervening effects of alcohol and drug dependence on the types and severity of offenses arrestees were charged with. Data were drawn from the 2010 Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Program II program. This program utilized a probability sample of male arrestees (N = 3,013) from 10 cities across the United States between April 1 and September 30, 2010. Arrestees completed face-to-face interviews shortly after they were booked into jails. Path analysis was used to test the mediated relationships between substance use indicators, dependence, offense severity, and offense type. Drug and alcohol dependence mediated the relationship between alcohol and drug use indicators, the types, and the severity of charges among arrestees. Assessment and treatment provisions aimed at dependence need to be included in criminal justice practices to successfully reduce these types of offenses.
In February 1979, the New Orleans Police Department was engaged in two work stoppages that were orchestrated by the Police Association of New Orleans (PANO). During this period, PANO was affiliated with the International Teamsters Union, which allegedly had ties to organized crime. This study addresses the causes of the police strikes, the right of public safety personnel to strike, and how the "gangster" image of the Teamsters adversely affected the labor negotiations. The authors conducted personal, semistructured interviews of individuals who participated in the labor talks, as well as an extensive review of the literature. According to respondents, the primary causes of the strike were low wages and the refusal of city officials to recognize the police union and enter into meaningful collective bargaining negotiations.
Presidential signing statements—a written statement presidents attach to a bill when signing it into law—has recently come to light as a powerful, and possibly unconstitutional, tool for enhancing power of the unitary executive. Recent research has assessed how these signing statements have been used and why, offering insight into the politics of the American presidency in enacting public policy. This study examines how presidents use the signing statements as they approve legislation related to criminal justice, assessing them by type, president, and party affiliation. Results suggest support for the unitary executive theory and that presidents often take a unilateral action approach in their use of signing statements—including those that potentially violate the U.S. Constitution.
This review of the Sundance Award-winning documentary film, Gideon’s Army, examines the disparate impact of the criminal justice system on the poor and, particularly, poor people of color.
With the increasing number of studies examining work outcomes among prison staff, it is surprising that little attention has been paid to corrections officers who hold supervisory positions. Using multivariate analysis of survey results from 2,302 corrections line officers and 369 supervisors employed in one Western prison system, this study examined the conditioning effect of supervisory status on an officer’s reported commitment to the organization. The results suggest that compared with line officers, supervisory officers experience significantly higher levels of commitment to the prison organization. Less variation was found in the manner and magnitude of the effects of individual-level variables (gender, race, age) and work environment variables (organizational support, hostile work environment, quality of supervision, coworker support) on organizational commitment for both groups. The findings provide insight into the importance of officers’ perceived sources of support and the need to encourage organizational commitment within an arguably difficult work environment.
Commonly perceived as rare, copycat crime has not been sufficiently studied. In an effort to encourage research, this research note offers a refined estimate of the proportion of offenders and at-risk individuals who report personal copycat crime histories. An analysis of 10 estimates spanning 50 years of self-reported copycat crime prevalence among just under 1,500 respondents was conducted. Collectively, the 10 study estimates indicate that about one in four respondents reported personal copycat crime histories. A random effects model indicated that prevalence estimates vary significantly across studies but effect moderators were not able to be identified. Copycat crime was indicated as a characteristic of a substantial number of offenders and at-risk youth. Copycat crime is deserving of more serious research and a number of associated research questions await attention.
This research investigates how a juvenile court was able to solicit and sustain a high degree of community support or "buy-in" for its use of restorative community service and other restorative programs. The article investigates the determinants involved in achieving this support in the face of initial community opposition, including extensive use of community outreach and community involvement in youth service work. The article also investigates debates regarding the use of community service within restorative justice, and draws from the case study to suggest some of the possible benefits and limits of thinking of community service as restorative.
This research seeks to add a new dimension to the growing body of literature investigating disparities in sentencing outcomes. Our study used multilevel modeling techniques to incorporate legal and extralegal individual-level variables with macro-level data in an examination of the factors influencing the formal application of the criminal label when identical noncriminal sanctions are available. Results suggest that measures of police racial profiling are predictive of unfavorable plea outcomes and subsequent application of a criminal label. Findings indicated that the likelihood of receiving an unfavorable criminal plea bargain was greater for men, non-Whites, defendants with a prior arrest, defendants arrested in areas of low concentrated disadvantage, and defendants arrested in areas with high levels of racial profiling. In addition, both concentrated disadvantage and stop disparity conditioned the effect of race on plea outcome.
This study examined a national sample of more than 600 Black Americans and their views on bias in the American criminal justice system. The research found that 26% of the Black respondents did not believe there was bias in the American criminal justice system. To explore the segment of respondents holding these views, we separated the sample into Blacks who believe there is bias in the system (referred to as the discrimination thesis or DT supporters) and those who opposed this belief (referred to as the no-discrimination thesis or NDT supporters). The NDT supporters were more likely to be younger, male, less educated, and have lower income than those respondents who supported the DT. NDT supporters were also more likely to believe that Blacks and Whites had equal job opportunities, have more confidence in the police, and believe that racism was not widespread.
The current study examines changes in assessed criminogenic needs/dynamic risk factors of juvenile offenders participating in a victim impact delinquency intervention. Three hundred twenty juvenile offenders in residential placement were randomly assigned to either participate in a victim impact curriculum or to a control group receiving a minimal substitute. Comparison of means was used to examine changes in criminogenic domains using an actuarial risk/needs assessment. Results demonstrate significant reductions in subscales of the assessment instrument for youth assigned to the intervention compared to the control group in the intent-to-treat analysis. Additional significant reductions in subscale scores occurred for youth completing the intervention. The findings demonstrate the ability of a specific intervention to reduce risk in criminogenic domains related to offending behavior and illustrate the importance of reassessment over time. Policy implications are discussed.
Substance use is pervasive among youth, particularly among those involved in the juvenile justice system. Juvenile drug courts (JDCs) are a promising approach for delinquent youth with substance abuse issues. However, research regarding JDCs has shown inconsistent effects, and little is known about the specific components associated with positive outcomes. The current study examines data from interviews of JDC judges and team member focus groups in six JDCs from two contiguous southeastern states to identify stakeholders’ perceptions about what places youth at risk for involvement in JDC and the factors that may contribute to successful outcomes. In addition, we examine these stakeholders’ perceptions of the strengths and challenges facing their JDCs. Our findings highlight the importance of parents and specific strategies implemented by JDCs in influencing the outcomes of youth in JDCs and the importance of interagency collaboration and access to treatment and community resources for the overall success of JDCs.
The Supreme Court recently abolished mandatory life without parole (LWOP) for juveniles in Miller v. Alabama (2012). The Court’s ruling follows a series of decisions that have recognized the inherent differences between children and adults for purposes of sentencing. As a result, the Court has declared that no person who commits an offense prior to the age of 18 can be sentenced to LWOP without an examination of mitigating factors, including age. This new mandate creates difficult policy questions and has far-reaching implications. This article considers the fate of the 2,000 inmates who are serving a mandatory LWOP sentence. Second, this article considers the impact of the Court’s ruling on the states that currently have mandatory LWOP sentencing laws. Third, the article addresses the ruling’s impact on families of murder victims. Finally, the author considers the likelihood juvenile LWOP will be completely abolished and offers suggestions for future research.
This study presents findings on the development, validity, and reliability of the Minnesota Screening Tool Assessing Recidivism Risk (MnSTARR), a prediction instrument that assesses risk for four types of recidivism for male prisoners (sexual, nonsexual violent, nonviolent, and felony) and three types for females prisoners (nonsexual violent, nonviolent, and felony). Logistic regression modeling was used to develop the MnSTARR on 11,375 male offenders and 1,100 females offenders released from Minnesota prisons between 2003 and 2006. Bootstrap resampling was used to not only refine the selection of predictors, but also to internally validate the model. The optimism-corrected area under the curve (AUC) values ranged from .73 to .80 for male offenders and .73 to .81 for female offenders. In addition to showing a relatively high degree of calibration between MnSTARR values and observed recidivism, the results showed the instrument can, for the most part, be scored consistently across raters. Intraclass correlation coefficient values ranged from .79 to .86 for male offenders and .81 to .96 for female offenders.
This research examines criminal participation of women within domestic terrorism while testing two beliefs. Those beliefs focus on the ruthlessness and lethality of female terrorists as described by Laqueur and the belief that women are more likely to be found within a particular group type (left wing). These two beliefs form the basis of U.S. domestic terrorism policy and need to be evaluated empirically to understand whether and how current terrorism policy needs to be reconsidered in order to address the realities of women’s involvement in domestic terrorism. To describe female criminal participation and to test these beliefs, this research uses the American Terrorism Study (ATS), which aggregates all terrorism investigations conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) between 1980 and 2002.
The proliferation of zero tolerance policies and "tough on crime" laws has lead to 2.11 million youth arrested and 75% adjudicated through juvenile courts in 2008. Many arrested youth have mental illness diagnosis resulting in further barriers including fragmented services, institutions with conflicting missions and incompatible approaches, and a dearth of community resources (Shufelt & Cocozza, 2006). Yet, for the boom years of mass incarceration since 1990s, the Agency1 studied for this project shifted from institutionalization of these youth to community-based treatments by shifting from problem-based medical focus to a strengths-based approach. In this study, qualitative data collection occurred over a 6-month period for the purposes of analyzing how a community-based program has sustained itself in an era that emphasizes a tough approach to crime. This Agency’s success partially stems from shifting the conversation about juvenile justice away from punishment by effectively viewing the youth’s family as the expert and a valuable resource in treatment. This shift, enhanced by diversification of services and fiscal controls, also illustrates that a strengths-based approach to juvenile justice is also cost-effective.
In Sweden, the harshest punishment that offenders face is a life sentence. Yet, in contrast to the United States, such a sentence does not mean that offenders necessarily spend the rest of their lives in prison. The Swedish government has traditionally been able to grant clemency to lifers, which has led to an average life sentence of about 14 to 16 years. In 2006, this clemency practice was modified with an act establishing a judicial process deciding about the release of lifers. This research finds that the 2006 act fits into the broader and traditional understanding of the Swedish criminal justice system as a rehabilitative institution focused on the individual offender. By evaluating the act on its impact on public safety, political acceptability, and on the lifetime incarcerated themselves, this article reveals how the 2006 act has so far particularly benefitted the lifetime incarcerated.
Life is filled with the demands of work and family. When conflict exists in one domain, research indicates it can spill over and affect the other. In corrections, many workplace factors have been shown to affect the organizational commitment of staff. As staff are the most valuable resource in this labor intensive field, this study focused on the effects of two types of organizational commitment (affective and continuance) on three work–family conflict variables (time based, strain based, and behavior based). Using ordinary least squares regression analysis of survey data from 160 correctional staff at a Midwest private prison, the results indicated that as affective commitment rises, all three work-on-family conflict variables decreased. Conversely, when continuance commitment rose, all three work-on-family conflict variables increased as well. Surprisingly, both forms of commitment had nonsignificant associations with family-on-work conflict. The only significant control variable was age, which revealed that older staff had less conflict between work and family.
Texas was the first state to pass a law requiring school districts to develop and adopt a dating violence policy. However, very little attention has been paid to whether and how school districts implemented the policy. The current study examines the implementation efforts of a sample of Texas school districts to gain insight as to how the policy has been carried out. Content analysis was used to examine district handbooks, codes of conduct, and websites. Our findings indicate that a majority of the districts included in the study have developed and adopted the basic parts of the policy (the definition and a general set of consequences) while neglecting to implement specific parts of the policy beneficial to victims. Based on our findings we concluded that as districts move forward in implementing the dating violence policy, emphasis must be placed on providing services to victims and increasing awareness.
Sex crime policies have been associated with unintended effects. One involves harassment of registered sex offenders. Despite this finding, and the prominent role of the public in reentry efforts, few studies have examined public opinion about this collateral consequence. By extension, virtually no scholarship has investigated predictors of concern. From a utilitarian perspective, it follows that among those who rely on the registry or who feel sex offenders are driven to reoffend, concern about the registry’s unintended effects will be reduced. In testing this hypothesis the study draws on responses from a national public opinion poll conducted in 2005—a critical time when state registries and online registry websites became increasingly available. Findings support an instrumental or utilitarian argument. Use of the registry and pessimism about offender rehabilitation significantly decreased public concern about registries’ negative outcomes. Implications for research and offender reentry debates are discussed.
On May 11, 2009, the City of San Marcos, Texas adopted an ordinance that allowed local bars to extend their hours of operation from midnight until 2 a.m. The objective of this initiative, which went into effect on June 4, 2009, was to minimize the problems that arise from the consumption of alcohol. The present investigation uses interrupted time series autoregressive integrated moving average [ARIMA]) modeling techniques to analyze weekly data to assess the impact of the ordinance, along with a limited increase in patrol strength in the downtown district, on the number of calls for service involving verbal disturbances, physical disturbances, public intoxication, and driving under the influence of alcohol. Overall, the interrupted time series analyses indicate that neither the city council’s nor the police department’s strategies for mitigating some of the negative consequences of the consumption of alcoholic beverages in bars and taverns were successful. The implications of these findings for lessening alcohol-related conflicts between bar patrons and other residents of the community are discussed.
Sexual violence in adult correctional facilities led to the enactment of the 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act as one approach to reducing this form of institutional violence. The current study examined collective bargaining agreements governing correctional agencies to identify impediments that may impact administrators’ responses to sexual violence, specifically in instances of allegations of staff–inmate sexual misconduct. In addition, structured interviews and focus groups with correctional administrators and labor representatives were used to develop policy recommendations. Contract language and interview participants demonstrated that a myriad of cultural and structural characteristics of prisons as well as pragmatic considerations may serve to inhibit the implementation of some policy changes. Interview participants identified several insights about contemporary prison settings and modifications that may aid in reducing some forms of institutional violence.
While research indicates that sentencing guidelines systems often reduce sentencing disparity, few studies have examined whether sentencing guidelines shift discretion and disparity from judges to prosecutors. Some critics assert that guidelines do shift judicial discretion to prosecutors, but empirical evidence is scarce. This study seeks to provide some empirical data on the underresearched topic of hydraulic displacement of discretion. Using data from the District of Columbia Superior Court, the study asked whether charge bargaining practices changed after the District of Columbia adopted a regime of sentencing guidelines. The analyses indicate that some changes in the plea bargaining process did occur after the guidelines were implemented but that most were not statistically significant. Policy implications of the displacement thesis and the current findings are discussed.
Despite sentencing reforms over the last few decades, many states failed to introduce guidelines, including South Carolina. The present article uses data collected from the now disbanded South Carolina Sentencing Commission (1982 to 2003) in order to assess the influence of gender, age, race, and type of crime. We found that females were consistently sentenced more leniently than were similarly situated males. Interactions between gender and the other variables, however, failed to gain significance with the exception of gender and offense type for the sentence length decision. Interestingly, we found a significant interaction between gender and offense severity level for both sentencing outcomes and criminal history for the incarceration decision. We discuss the implications of these findings in the event that South Carolina would have adopted sentencing guidelines.
Concerns arising from three Baltimore, Maryland community groups advocating for more effective responses to prostitution led to the creation of the Specialized Prostitution Diversion program (SPD), a therapeutic model within the traditional criminal justice system. This mixed methods study used survey, interview, and field observations to ascertain neighborhood concerns about prostitution. Findings show that one neighborhood is notably different from the others in that respondents consider prostitution less of a problem, are less likely to believe police should respond to prostitution, and are less likely to indicate that prostitution causes a nuisance or could lead to additional criminal behavior. Neighborhood residents’ assessment of appropriate responses to prostitution, however, was not significantly different. Most believe that jail and/or treatment are appropriate for individuals engaging in prostitution, suggesting community support for hybrid responses combining punitive and rehabilitative components such as the SPD, regardless of the types or level of concern about prostitution
Using data from the United States Sentencing Commission (2001-2003), we examine the role of gender in the sentencing of defendants in federal courts. We address two questions: First, can we explain the gender gap in sentencing by taking into account differences in legal and extralegal factors? And second, do legal and extralegal factors have the same impact for male and female defendants? Overall, we find that female defendants receive more lenient sentence outcomes than their male counterparts. Legal factors account for a large portion of the gender differences, but even after controlling for legal characteristics a substantial gap in sentencing outcomes remains. Also, despite their influence on sentencing outcomes in some instances, extralegal characteristics do not help to close the gender gap. Finally, when male and female defendants are examined separately, we find that not all legal and extralegal factors weigh equally for male and female defendants.
During recent decades, sentencing patterns of offenders based on gender have been the topic of criminological and sociological research. Particular attention has been given to the lenient sentencing of female offenders compared to male offenders. Several research studies have found that gender affects the sentencing process in ways that are advantageous to female offenders, such as lower incarceration rates and shorter prison sentences. Despite the existing research on gender and sentencing, there are still several specific areas that need to be studied regarding this topic, such as property crimes and rural areas. The current research adds to the existing literature by using data collected from five rural counties in Iowa to examine sentencing patterns of nonviolent property crimes in rural areas. Contrary to existing literature, results found gender did not have an effect on the decision to incarcerate, the sentence length, or the fine amount.
Numerous policy issues surround the incarceration of religious extremists and individuals with terrorist ties. These inmates must be managed, prevented from precipitating security risks, and stopped from recruiting or encouraging others to commit terrorist acts. To systematically investigate the prevalence of these issues in U.S. prisons, we conducted a survey of wardens of state-level maximum security prisons in the United States. Results suggest that the majority of facilities currently have existing security threat groups (STGs) with extremist religious beliefs. Large majorities of wardens indicated shortages of religious service providers, with nearly all allowing volunteers to supplement existing religious services. A multinomial logistic regression model suggests that (in accordance with previous literature on gangs) wardens pursuing policies of isolating these prisoners believe these policies to be much more effective than other strategies, such as increased monitoring. Additionally, more frequent staff training relevant to managing these individuals is significantly related to wardens’ judgments that their policies are effective.
As a response to an increasing prison population and as a counteractive measure to problematic inmates, many states within the United States have established supermaximum (supermax) prisons or supermax units within existing prison facilities. Many criminal justice researchers have questioned the efficacy of these specialized units. Although the National Institute for Corrections has established model criteria to dictate what types of inmates should be placed in supermax custody, existing research has not yet examined if the states have chosen to follow the criteria or substitute their own criteria for admission to supermax custody. The current study examines 42 individual state policies in an attempt to ascertain how states determine which inmates are considered the "worst of the worst" and deserve segregation in supermax facilities and/or units. Implications of these policies and directions for future research are discussed.
In 2007, after years of dissatisfaction with the 100-to-1 disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine, the U.S. Sentencing Commission amended the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, reducing by two levels the base offense level assigned to threshold quantities of crack cocaine. The amendment was subsequently made retroactive, which required the federal courts to process approximately 20,000 prisoner motions for sentence reduction. Using data collected from a case study of one particular district as well as a survey of representatives from the 94 federal judicial districts, this study examines the process of "crack retroactivity" implementation. The authors found that court communities varied greatly with respect to their organizational arrangements, procedures, and motivations. Although U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services played an important role in every district, how and why districts organized to respond to crack retroactivity varied. The study findings also indicate that sentencing procedures may be another mechanism through which location affects sentencing outcomes.
Judicial sentencing decision research most often examines the legal, defendant, and judicial characteristics that predict incarceration and sentence length decisions. Often ignored are the social worlds of the courtroom and judge in how these relate to sentencing decision processes and outcomes. The general framework of symbolic interactionism, through the theories of expectation states and situated identity, provides a foundation to understand the social processes of sentencing. A self-report survey administered to Wisconsin Circuit Court judges (n = 74) gathered information about these social processes that might be used to predict sentencing patterns. The results strengthen the position that judges’ decisions are not outside of social pressures, and judges develop sentencing decisions that align with the viewpoints of others as well as interpretations of the legal code.
This study sought to determine whether legal and extra-legal factors such as type and severity of offense, prior criminal history, age, gender, and race influence decision making in juvenile court. Specifically, the study focused on the imposition of a blended, "determinate" sentence rather than a traditional indeterminate sentence, controlling for adult court transfers. Data for this study were obtained from the largest county in the state of Texas. The results indicated that juveniles sentenced to a blended sentence had committed more serious offenses than those sentenced to traditional indeterminate sentences. Unlike with transfers to adult court, however, minority juveniles (Black and Hispanic) were no more likely than non-Hispanic White youth to receive a blended sentence. Although findings from the current study generally support the imposition of blended sentences, the true test of their utility lies further downstream in the implementation process.
Consent searches during traffic stops offer police a way to expediently check motorists’ vehicles for contraband. Asking drivers for consent to search their vehicles, however, may cause them to feel negatively about the encounter and, consequently, to question officers’ motives for pulling them over. The present study analyzes stopped motorists’ reactions to consent requests; specifically, consent requests are theorized to damage these individuals’ perceptions of procedural justice and, moreover, of the legitimacy of the stop itself. Logistic regression analyses of a nationally representative sample support these hypotheses. Policy implications include the need for judicious use of consent searches, as they appear to be a form of procedural injustice that erodes police legitimacy.
Extant research on the effects of judicial background characteristics suggests minimal influence from the race or gender of the sentencing judge in criminal cases. This raises at least two possibilities: (1) the combined influence of judicial recruitment, indoctrination, and socialization into the judgeship results in a homogenous body of criminal court judges; or (2) current approaches to identifying judge effects in criminal sentencing have methodological and conceptual flaws that limit their ability to detect important influences from judicial background characteristics. The current article examines this issue with data from the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing that is augmented to include information on sentencing judges and criminal court contexts. It argues that the mode of conviction shapes the locus of sentencing discretion in ways that systematically underestimate judge effects for pooled estimates of incarceration and sentence length. The empirical results support this interpretation, especially for incarceration in trial cases, where older, female, and minority judges are substantially less likely to sentence offenders to jail or prison terms. The article concludes with a discussion of future research directions and policy implications for judge effects and disparity in sentencing.
Residence restrictions, which prohibit sex offenders from living within close proximity to places where children congregate, have grown popular. Participants (n = 255) were asked to participate in a survey rating and comparing their perceptions of residence restrictions for drunk drivers and sex offenders. Residence restrictions were seen as more punitive for DUI offenders than for sex offenders, though a majority of the sample viewed making either offender leave their home as punishment. Those who believed that most sex offenders would reoffend were significantly less likely to view these policies as punitive. Older respondents and those who knew someone convicted of a crime were also less likely to view residence restrictions as punitive. The results of the current study indicate that although many of the respondents were not optimistic about the effectiveness of residence restrictions in reducing victimization, those policies still garnered considerable support.
Research into the American Presidents’ role in crime control policy has consistently found that they rely on symbolic rhetoric in their crime speeches. The research to date, however, has been confined to qualitative analysis and has not attempted to explain why presidents engage in symbolic rhetoric when it comes to crime policy. This study assesses presidential speeches related to crime from 1948 through 2010, and employs logistic regression to estimate the effects of the independent variables on the likelihood presidents will employ symbolic rhetoric. Findings suggest public opinion, presidential election year, party affiliation, and divided government, are significant factors in the likelihood presidents will engage in symbolic politics. The article concludes with a discussion of the study’s implication for the larger body of research on presidential crime rhetoric and the federal role in crime control.
The aggravating and mitigating circumstances that contribute to increased, or decreased, sentence severity for sex offenders have largely been unexplored. Although previous studies have evaluated offending groups who have targeted adult-only, or children-only victims, the current study compares the sentencing outcomes of both offending groups. Using a sample of 519 federally sentenced sex offenders in the province of Quebec the current study explores the extent to which the Canadian criminal justice system penalizes offender- and offense-based characteristics. The results indicate that offense-based characteristics increased sentence severity for offenders who victimized adults and offender-based characteristics influenced sentence severity for offenders who victimized children. Findings are discussed within the context of previous studies to empirically explore sex offender sentencing and compare differences that aggravating and mitigating circumstances have on sentence outcomes.
Previous research on judicial decision making has shown that legal factors, such as offense severity and prior criminal record, exert a strong impact on sentencing decisions. In addition, studies have demonstrated that demographic factors, such as race and gender, also influence sentencing decisions. This study utilized a sample of (n = 975) cases collected by New Jersey’s Criminal Disposition Commission, tracked from arrest through disposition, to assess the factors that influence sentencing decisions, with a specific focus on the role of pretrial release status. The authors found that pretrial detention does not influence the decision to incarcerate; however, pretrial detention does significantly and negatively affects the length of the sentence in cases that involve a sentence of incarceration.
The role of defense counsel in criminal cases constitutes a topic of substantial importance for judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, scholars, and policymakers. What types of defense counsel (e.g., public defenders, privately retained attorneys, or assigned counsel) represent defendants in criminal cases and how do these defense counsel types perform in terms of securing favorable outcomes for their clients? These and other issues are addressed in this article analyzing felony case-processing data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Specifically, this article examines whether differences in defense counsel representation matter in terms of the probability of conviction and severity of sentence imposed. Results show that private attorneys and public defenders secure similar adjudication and sentencing outcomes for their clients. Defendants with assigned counsel, however, receive less favorable outcomes compared to their counterparts with public defenders. This article concludes by discussing the policy implications of these findings and possible avenues for future research.
Laws that set an age of consent to engage in sexual behavior are unique in that they are the only laws that can result in a child being both a victim and offender of a crime merely due to age. They are also unique because some states have used these laws in an attempt to reduce teen pregnancy rates. This study was designed to measure and report on public support for the use of age of consent laws (also known as statutory rape laws) to control and punish consensual teenaged sexual behavior, with a focus on Wisconsin and California where the age of sexual consent (18) exceeds the majority of states by two years. Study results indicate that the majority of citizens in these two states do not support the use of the age of consent laws in cases where two same-aged teenagers have engaged in consensual sexual behavior.
The assumption in courts and sentencing research is that recidivists—or, defendants with a criminal record who are facing new charges—are considered more blameworthy and perceived as more dangerous by courtroom decision makers, including prosecutors. Nagel and Schulhofer suggested that defendants with a prior record may be viewed as sympathetic by federal prosecutors because of "human factors," leading to substantial assistance departures in these cases. We conceptualize human factors as local life circumstances, or temporally bound situations that make attributional statements about the defendant. We operationalize local life circumstances in terms of employment status, financial responsibility to dependents, and drug use, and determine whether these circumstances affect the likelihood of a receiving a substantial assistance departure among defendants with an established record of criminality. In addition to case characteristics, employment and drug use increased the likelihood of a prosecutor-sponsored sentence departure among recidivists in federal court.
A handful of highly publicized sexual assault cases served as the impetus for the passage of sex offender legislation, culminating in the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act (2006), which called for the registration of convicted sex offenders in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The publicly accessible online registries have been the center of sex offender controversy in recent years, yet few researchers have analyzed the content of the registries. This study examined the content of the registries after the deadline for implementation of the Adam Walsh Act (AWA). An analysis of the 51 online registries was conducted to identify prevalent characteristics, search features, listing profile details, and rates of sex offenders. The most common search features included searching by name, zip code, city or town, county, and address. Nearly all registries also provide disclaimers (98%) and warnings (92%). Thirty registries (58.8%) allowed users to plot an offender’s address through a mapping option. Most sites also provided numerous case-specific characteristics including various personal details about sex offenders such as appearance, specific offense information, victim information, and place of employment. Overall, the sites varied greatly from state to state and many offered additional features not required by the AWA. However, as of December 2011 only 15 states had substantially complied with AWA mandates (National Conference of State Legislatures).
Ensuring police use their authority justly is a persistent concern. Yet, there is little agreement on the most effective mechanisms for promoting accountability. The present study seeks to contribute to a growing body of research on mediation of police disputes by assessing variation in levels of satisfaction among officers and citizens. Using data collected by the Denver Office of the Independent Monitor, the study assesses the degree to which mediation produced differential levels of satisfaction. The study finds that both police and civilian participants in the mediation program were significantly more satisfied than individuals who participated in traditional complaint processing. In addition, the study finds that mediation is likely to have even stronger effects on satisfaction for Latino complainants, and female police officers. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.
The problem of violence within police families has been increasingly recognized as an important sociolegal issue, but there is a lack of empirical data on what has commonly been referred to as officer-involved domestic violence (OIDV). There are no comprehensive statistics available on OIDV and no government entity collects data on the criminal conviction of police officers for crimes associated with domestic and/or family violence. Prior self-report officer surveys are limited by the tendency to conceal instances of family violence and the interests of officers to maintain a "code of silence" to protect their careers. The purpose of the current study is to provide empirical data on OIDV cases. The study identifies and describes cases in which police were arrested for criminal offenses associated with an incident of family and/or domestic violence through a content analysis of published newspaper articles. Data on these cases is presented in terms of the arrested officer, employing agency, victim, charged offense(s), and criminal case dispositions. The paper includes a discussion regarding OIDV and policy implications.
While numerous studies have examined the causes, correlates, and control of police use of force, many questions remain. This study contributes to the literature on police use of force by examining the role of officers’ background characteristics, job characteristics (patrol area and shift assignment), and arrest activity in explaining variation in the frequency with which officers use force. Analyses were conducted on 1,084 police officers employed in a large municipal police department. Use of force data were obtained from 477 official departmental reports from 2010. Results suggest that a small proportion of officers are responsible for a large proportion of force incidents, and that officers who frequently use force differ in important and significant ways from officers who use force less often (or not at all). Policy implications and directions for future research are discussed.
In the wake of a series of tragic events impacting public health in the United States, the Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Homeland Security have attempted to facilitate information sharing across public health and homeland security organizations. Data collected as part of a national assessment of law enforcement and homeland security information sharing, funded by the National Institute of Justice, indicate such efforts to date have been helpful in establishing a foundation for information sharing, yet fall short of creating mechanisms by which tangible information sharing can occur. Recent initiatives to remedy this shortcoming are presented and recommendations for further success are discussed.
Role stress is an important aspect of the prison workplace that impairs organizational functioning and can have negative effects for correctional staff. While the effects of role stress on correctional workers are largely known, few studies have examined the causes of role stress. The current study explores potential antecedents of role stress among 160 correctional staff at a private Midwestern prison. Multivariate OLS (ordinary least squares) regression analysis identified five statistically significant predictors of role stress: instrumental communication, supervisory support, formalization, job autonomy, and race. The results suggest that correctional managers and supervisors can reduce role stress substantially by clarifying the roles, responsibilities, and expectations of employees, creating a supportive atmosphere for workers, and identifying areas where staff can have greater control over their jobs.
Research indicates that public approval for the use of racial/ethnic profiling to prevent crime is low. In contrast, recent research and polling data suggest the public is more supportive of the use of racial/ethnic profiling to prevent terrorism. Using a survey-based experiment that varies the context for the use of racial/ethnic profiling (to prevent crime or to prevent terrorism), this study examines whether public approval for the use of racial/ethnic profiling by law enforcement officers differs across context. In addition, multivariate analyses examine whether the factors that are associated with support for the use of profiling, including race of respondent, salience of crime and terrorism, perceived racial bias in the justice system, and racial stereotyping, vary across context.
Although an association has been established between sentencing recommendations made by probation officers and the actual sentences received by offenders, to date, few scholars have examined the role of offender and officer characteristics in these recommendations. This article uses quantitative data from one small California jurisdiction between 2004 and 2006 to explore the role of legal and extralegal factors in sentencing recommendations. The minimal impact of extralegal factors is discussed and conclusions are made about why this may be the case. Ultimately, this research is intended to shed further light on the sentencing process and the previously documented sentencing disparities that exist.
Anti-trafficking efforts have been adopted globally to curb human trafficking, yet many nations have failed to put initiatives into practice. As a consequence, the U.S. Department of State implemented the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report to monitor and increase efforts worldwide and serve as a guide to funding anti-trafficking programs aboard. This exploratory study investigates the efficacy of this policy initiative by means of a longitudinal assessment of the TIP Report’s tier classifications, a system that grades countries based on anti-trafficking initiatives, and determines if U.S. funded anti-trafficking initiatives internationally target those countries in need. The findings suggest that tier ranking has not improved over time, and the United States has failed to systematically allocate funds based on the recommendations of the tier classification system. Policy recommendations and implications for future research are discussed.
Why do some criminal justice public policies spread rapidly throughout U.S. states, and other policies never take hold? To answer this question, this article presents the first review specifically of studies that have examined the diffusion of criminal justice policies throughout U.S. states. After a comprehensive review of key research databases, 23 studies are identified. The key findings of these studies are analyzed in great depth, with particular reference to cross-study differences in how three variables from the general policy literature—geographic proximity, political ideology, and media attention—were operationalized. The article identifies important gaps in current knowledge about the factors that affect the diffusion of criminal justice policies and suggests several directions for future research in this area.
Many claims have been made about how the events of September 11 have thrust American policing into a new era, one wherein homeland security is the dominant strategy. To examine the validity of such claims, a sample of 208 Texas police chiefs is surveyed concerning their perceptions of homeland security as a strategy for local law enforcement. Factors that influence those perceptions are also examined. The findings reveal that, whereas the majority of chiefs felt that homeland security had become the dominant strategy of the police institution, few believed that homeland security had become the overriding strategy of their respective departments. Furthermore, regression analyses suggest that federal collaboration, preparedness, and threat perceptions were predictive of homeland security perceptions. Regarding department size, chiefs of very small departments are more likely to report homeland security as their dominant strategy in relation to chiefs of larger departments. Policy implications are discussed.