American Journal of Criminal Justice最新文献

There has been growing interest in understanding the nexus between neuropsychological functioning and involvement in crime and delinquency among criminologists during the past few decades. Part of the reason for this interest is because there is a line of research showing that neuropsychological deficits are involved in the etiology of serious and violent offenders. At the same time, relatively little criminological research has focused on understanding what causes variation in neuropsychological functioning. There is some reason to believe, however, that being processed through the criminal justice system might confer an increased risk to developing deficits in neuropsychological functioning. The current study addressed this gap in the literature by examining data drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. The results of the analysis revealed that being arrested and incarcerated were related to reductions in neuropsychological functioning in early adulthood for both males and females. When the analyses were confined only to those participants who had been arrested, being incarcerated had inconsistent effects on neuropsychological functioning for males and females.

Administrative and criminal courts work in tandem to manage illegal immigration. Although administrative courts regulate most immigration, criminal court responses to immigration have grown over time due to, amongst other things, administrative case processing inefficiency. In March 2020, when standing at the precipice of a global health pandemic, the administrative system changed drastically with the Trump administration’s invocation of Title 42. Title 42 enabled the federal government to circumvent existing administrative procedures by summarily expelling undocumented immigrants whose introduction “posed a serious danger of communicable disease.” In this new era, administrative deportations were quicker, cheaper, and more certain than ever before and the administrative system was, in many ways, different from the one politicians criticized as “broken” for decades. Drawing on general systems theory, this study theorizes and tests hypotheses surrounding how criminal illegal re-entry case processing, demographics, and sentencing changed in the face of Title 42. Results suggest that Title 42’s invocation resulted in a smaller, and more “selectively serious,” criminal illegal re-entry caseload. In a sense, these results are promising. The ways to achieve criminal justice reform may be broader than often considered and administrative processing provides a means for individuals to avoid collateral consequences associated with criminal convictions. Nevertheless, relative to the criminal system, the administrative system demands lower burdens of proof and grants less extensive procedural safeguards. Against this backdrop, more research is needed to understand whether expanding administrative capacity justifies its end.

On New Years Day, 2025, a truck was driven at high speed into a crowd of people in New Orleans, LA, killing 14 and injuring at least 57 others. Though rare, vehicle-based attacks of this sort have a high potential for casualties and are increasingly used by attackers with connections to terrorist organizations. In this short report, we (1) provide a case study of the New Years Day attack in New Orleans, (2) give an international context by describing the prevalence of vehicle-based attacks abroad, (3) note the special attraction to the use of vehicles as weapons by terrorist organizations, and (4) give a descriptive analysis of vehicle-based attacks in the United States using the only publicly available dataset explicitly including information on vehicle-based mass casualty events—the Active Attack Data. We conclude by providing recommendations for the prevention of vehicle-based attacks.

The consensus that disasters do not cause an increase in crime rates is receiving renewed attention. In recent years, research has emerged that challenges this consensus by positing that crime rates and the type of crime may vary depending on the phase of the emergency. To address this, this research utilizes comprehensive crime data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System and hazard event data from the Spatial Hazard Events and Losses Database for the United States. Employing regression discontinuity design principles, swaths of linear regression models across different time scales are fitted, yielding nearly 120 statistically significant coefficients. The findings reveal correlations between certain natural hazard types and changes in crime rates. For instance, a correlation between winter weather hazard events and a subsequent drop in crime rates is observed whereas severe thunderstorms were associated with an increase in crime rates. Additionally, an increase in crime rates following natural hazard events that were observed in the shorter time scales (e.g., hail, tornadoes) did not persist into the longer time scale, where negative treatment effects and a negative change in trend were found. These results shed light on the complex relationship between natural hazards and crime rates, providing valuable insights for policymakers, law enforcement agencies, and other stakeholders. Given that the intensity and frequency of natural hazards are on the rise, a better understanding of these dynamics can increase the efficiency of resource allocation for public safety and target the deployment of law enforcement more effectively.

While Black-identified offenders are sentenced more harshly than White-identified offenders, there has been limited exploration of skin tone’s influence on sentencing. We aimed to systematically review the association between offender skin tone and criminal sentencing outcomes. Guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis, we searched seven databases. We included studies that used official measures of sentence type or length of incarceration. We assessed risk of bias using a modified version of the Critical Appraisal Tool for Cross-Sectional Studies. Results were narratively synthesized. Seven studies met inclusion criteria; of these, three had low risk of bias. Three studies measured sentence type, finding that darker skin tones were associated with harsher sentence types. Studies with greater risks of bias generally found associations between darker skin tones and longer sentences; low-risk studies did not find such associations. Included studies generally found associations between offender skin tone and sentencing outcomes, but methodological and contextual differences and limitations may explain heterogeneity in findings. Driven by differences and limitations, we offer a roadmap for future research.

Traditional approaches to reentry programming, which tend to be deficit-based and involve individuals passively, have met with mixed results. New approaches are clearly needed and strategies that incorporate innovative technologies to facilitate greater information sharing across reentry stakeholders and encourage individuals to take responsibility for their own reentry planning, carry great promise for improving reentry outcomes. To support these objectives, a relatively novel reentry planning application (app), Pokket, is intended to enhance reentry programming and reduce recidivism by enabling the sharing of client-level data across reentry stakeholders and empowering individuals to take ownership over their reentry. Despite the promise of this technology and its expanded use across correctional systems, little research has investigated its utility in supporting returning citizens and the service providers who work with them. In this paper, we offer a balanced critique of web-based reentry planning app adoption by applying the first three stages of the evaluation hierarchy framework during our experience of evaluating the implementation of this technology in North Carolina prisons. Specifically, we examine the need, theoretical underpinnings, and implementation of Pokket. We conclude by presenting considerations for other agencies and organizations that are considering leveraging this technology.

State laws mandate that the total price of items pilfered and number of prior offenses be considered in shoplifting charging decisions, yet these two elements of shoplifting have been ignored in recent scholarship. Using data from 740 misdemeanor shoplifting incidents in a rural jurisdiction, we examine total values of items taken per incident, total number of items taken per incident, and number of prior shoplifting offenses. Further, we examine whether these important elements of shoplifting charging decisions vary by gender, race, and age. Our findings reveal that few people involved in shoplifting incidents in this rural jurisdiction approach or surpass the $500 threshold required for felony upgrade on third and subsequent offenses. Policymakers should consider these findings, along with their criminal justice reform goals, when setting felony threshold amounts for shoplifting.

For roughly half a century, from 1973 to 2022, a woman’s autonomy to have an abortion was a constitutionally protected right. The situation changed in 2022 when the Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson that the Constitution does not confer the right to have an abortion and more than a dozen states enacted statutory abortion bans which make the performance of the procedure a felony offense. The present study provides analyses of survey data on public support for the criminalization of abortion gathered from a random sample of more than 1,500 respondents subsequent to the Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson and the enactment of the abortion bans. The results of the analyses show that more than three out of four respondents opposed laws which proscribe abortion, with support for the criminalization of abortion being most significantly impacted by political ideology and religious beliefs. The finding that there is a paucity of public support for the recently enacted statutory abortion bans suggest that the statutes undermine the principles of democracy, erode the legitimacy of the law, are unlikely to be willingly obeyed, and create multiple challenges for criminal justice officials.

Rational choice theories suggest people commit income-generating crime because it is seen as a quicker, easier, and/or more lucrative way of earning money. They also suggest incarceration can deter future instances of this behavior. However, individual-level variables could affect responses to sanctions. Prior illegal income may be one since it may act as a reference point for expectations of financial gains and success. The present study uses discrete-time analyses to investigate the effect of illegal income, incarceration, and incarceration length on self-reported criminal behavior across time. The sample consists of 7,347 person-periods derived from the Pathways to Desistance dataset. Higher illegal incomes are consistently linked to higher rates of income-generating crime. Meanwhile, the effect of incarceration is inconsistent, though the longest sentences are associated with lower rates of income-generating crime. There does not appear to be a substantial interaction between the two. Though present findings may be limited to specific sets of offenders; it seems prior success in criminal activity serves as a reference point for perceived benefits of future criminal behavior. Therefore, future researchers and CJ officials may to look into an individual’s illegal income as an additional factor when evaluating risk of recidivism.

Modern spatial criminology has its roots in the social statistics of 19th century France. Investigating the variation in property and violent crimes across French departments, Guerry (1832, 1833) and Quetelet (1831, 1842) found unique patterns for each crime classification. They also found relationships between crime and a number of social, demographic, economic, and climatic conditions. In this paper we revisit the work of Guerry and Quetelet using modern spatial statistical techniques. We find that the relationships identified by Guerry and Quetelet are robust when employing modern spatial analysis. Additionally, we find the patterns of crime in 19th century France are remarkably similar to contemporary crime patterns in other nations. These findings suggest that the spatial findings of Guerry and Quetelet hold up when using modern advanced spatial methodologies.