Criminal Justice Review

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Latest documents

• Book Review: Blind justice: A former prosecutor exposes the psychology and politics of wrongful convictions
• Book Review: Lethal state: A history of the death penalty in North Carolina
• Comparing Fatal Encounters, Mapping Police Violence, and Washington Post Fatal Police Shooting Data from 2015–2019: A Research Note

  This research note empirically assessed similarities and differences among three open-source data sets from 2015-2019. Fatal police shooting incidents were compared across Washington Post, Mapping Police Violence, and Fatal Encounters data over a five-year period. One-way ANOVAs, bivariate correlations, and proportional percentage differences were used to examine mean differences, correlational strength, and yearly percentage difference trends. No significant mean differences were observed between Fatal Encounters, Mapping Police Violence, and Washington Post. With one exception, bivariate correlations between all three data source dyads were consistently strong. Percentage difference comparisons among data source dyads, however, revealed that the sources are becoming more dissimilar in their reporting of fatal shootings over time. Our results complement existing literature that has compared open-source police shooting data to government sources and suggest that the three data sources were strongly associated with one another from 2015-2019. Increasing differences between sources, however, necessitate continued inspection of the data across the various open-source platforms over time.

• Perceptions of Substance Use Disorder and Associated Sanctions: A Factorial Vignette Experiment

  This study examines whether characteristics of people who use drugs (PWUD) influence public perceptions of substance use disorder (SUD) and punitiveness. Using a full-factorial vignette experiment, a nationwide sample (N = 448), and a series of regression models, I estimate the causal effect of characteristics of PWUD on substance use evaluations and punitiveness. Results reveal that drug type and prior criminal drug record affected both SUD and punitive judgements, implying a prosocial punitiveness, where punishments are intended to rehabilitate. Demographics of PWUD (e.g., race, sex, etc.) mattered little. However, racial resentment moderated the relationship between SUD and punitiveness, suggesting aggressive punitiveness. These findings imply that SUD evaluations and punitiveness are linked in the public mind, suggesting that citizens may see punishments as a way to address SUD by helping PWUD recover. This is not true for racially resentful respondents, who appear to want to punish PWUD for punishment's sake.

• Book Review: Lethal state: A history of the death penalty in North Carolina
• Book Review: Al Capone’s Beer Wars: A complete history of organized crime in Chicago during prohibitionScarface and the untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness, and the battle for Chicago
• Book Review: Al Capone’s Beer Wars: A complete history of organized crime in Chicago during prohibitionScarface and the untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness, and the battle for Chicago
• Inter-Party Competition, Public Electoral Pressure, and Democratic Strength: Refining Political Explanations of Incarceration Trends in the U.S., 1980 – 2010

  The purpose of this research is to advance the politics of mass imprisonment literature by testing and specifying the macro-explanations of the state-level incarceration change in the United States (U.S.) between 1980 and 2010. Specifically, I account for mechanisms of inter-party competition and public electoral pressure neglected in prior research. To accomplish this goal, I utilize random coefficient models designed to control for repeated annual measures of state-level data that overwhelm traditional analytic techniques. Findings suggest that violent crime, partisan affiliation of state legislators and governors, probation rates, citizen ideology, marijuana decriminalization, and recidivist-focused laws are associated with incarceration as hypothesized, as well as the African American presence net of crime and socioeconomic disadvantage. Contributing to the theoretical debates on democracy and punishment, this paper demonstrates that inter-party competition and public electoral pressure amplify incarceration in the context of Democratic Party dominance, where no liberalizing effects of competition were found. I conclude that legal and extralegal factors are associated with incarceration and suggest that the public did not oppose criminal justice expansion via democratic feedback mechanisms, so both penal populism (Pratt, 2008) and popular punitivism (Campbell et al., 2017) are valid interpretations of imprisonment politics during the analyzed period.

• Inter-Party Competition, Public Electoral Pressure, and Democratic Strength: Refining Political Explanations of Incarceration Trends in the U.S., 1980 – 2010

  The purpose of this research is to advance the politics of mass imprisonment literature by testing and specifying the macro-explanations of the state-level incarceration change in the United States (U.S.) between 1980 and 2010. Specifically, I account for mechanisms of inter-party competition and public electoral pressure neglected in prior research. To accomplish this goal, I utilize random coefficient models designed to control for repeated annual measures of state-level data that overwhelm traditional analytic techniques. Findings suggest that violent crime, partisan affiliation of state legislators and governors, probation rates, citizen ideology, marijuana decriminalization, and recidivist-focused laws are associated with incarceration as hypothesized, as well as the African American presence net of crime and socioeconomic disadvantage. Contributing to the theoretical debates on democracy and punishment, this paper demonstrates that inter-party competition and public electoral pressure amplify incarceration in the context of Democratic Party dominance, where no liberalizing effects of competition were found. I conclude that legal and extralegal factors are associated with incarceration and suggest that the public did not oppose criminal justice expansion via democratic feedback mechanisms, so both penal populism (Pratt, 2008) and popular punitivism (Campbell et al., 2017) are valid interpretations of imprisonment politics during the analyzed period.

• Book Review: Anatomy of a false confession: The interrogation and conviction of Brendan Dassey

Featured documents

• The Impact of Individual Factors, Job Characteristics, and Organizational Variables on Job Stress and Job Satisfaction Among Community Corrections Staff

  Community corrections (e.g., probation, parole, halfway houses) is the largest correctional placement in the United States, yet little research assesses community corrections staff experiences with job stress and job satisfaction. The purpose of this article is to extend the literature on community ...

• Examining the Gap Between Prosecutor Attitudes and Decisions: Case Prioritization Through Case Elimination Mechanisms in Driving With a Suspended License Cases

  Prosecutors are granted considerable discretion, particularly for misdemeanors. The current study assesses the processing of misdemeanor driving with suspended license (DWSL) cases. Using interview and administrative data from a Florida jurisdiction, the study first examines prosecutorial attitudes ...

• Media Consumption and Support for Capital Punishment

  Theoretically, the media influences public perceptions of crime and criminality and helps shape perceptions of how the crime problem should be managed. Using a 2010 survey in Washington state, this article tests the theoretical connection between watching television (news, crime dramas, and police-r...

• The Effect of Socioeconomic Status on Delinquency Across Urban and Rural Contexts

  An extensive line of research has demonstrated that low socioeconomic status (SES) is a risk factor for adolescent delinquent behavior. The possibility that low SES affects adolescent’s risk for engaging in delinquent behavior has garnered a significant amount of empirical and public attention,...

• Book Review: Prison life in popular culture: From the big house to orange is the new black
• Juvenile Criminality: Evidence From Prisoners in Two Brazilian States

  The aim of this article is to identify the socioeconomic context that can influence young peoples’ decision to engage in crime. The sample is composed of youngsters (aged between 18 and 23 years old) convicted or detained in an interim regime accused of property crimes, serving a sentence in...

• The Interaction Between Self-Control and Perceived Sanction Risk: An Analysis From the Viewpoint of Different Theories

  The present article studies the interplay of self-control and perceived sanction risk in crime causation. Several hypotheses are formulated. The General Theory of Crime suggests that sanction certainty effects are greater for individuals of high self-control. Their inability to devote thought to...

• Framing and Cultivating the Story of Crime

  The current study extended prior research by considering the effects of media, victimization, and network experiences on attitudes about crime and justice, drawing on the problem frame, cultivation, real-word, and interpersonal diffusion theses. Data were from a survey of Nebraska adults (n = 550)...

• An Exploratory Assessment of Race and Gender-Specific Predictors of Failure to Appear in Court Among Defendants Released via a Pretrial Services Agency

  Failure to appear (FTA) in court is an understudied and ubiquitous problem throughout the justice system and spans across all forms of pretrial release, whether financially or nonfinancially secured. Most offenders are released prior to the disposition of their case and many via government-funded...

• Perceptions of Substance Use Disorder and Associated Sanctions: A Factorial Vignette Experiment

  This study examines whether characteristics of people who use drugs (PWUD) influence public perceptions of substance use disorder (SUD) and punitiveness. Using a full-factorial vignette experiment, a nationwide sample (N = 448), and a series of regression models, I estimate the causal effect of...