American Journal of Criminal Justice最新文献

This study draws on the focal concerns perspective to explore the persistence of rape myths in U.S. and Canadian court cases involving immigrant women survivors. Results from qualitative content analysis of judicial rhetoric in both countries from 1996 to 2021 reveal a nuanced picture. Notably, judges reinforced some rape myths by, for example, being less likely to uphold convictions in cases that did not involve weapons or that occurred in private settings. However, judges challenged rape myths, with some judges explicitly considering the vulnerability of immigrant women, further contributing to the complexities of their decision-making process.

This paper seeks to advance efforts to understand and extend translational criminology as a means by which to improve criminal justice research and policy, including laws, programs, and practices. To this end, it conceptualizes translational criminology as a collaborative activity, one that involves researchers and policymakers, practitioners, and communities, and is grounded in an evaluation research framework. Using this framework highlights that translational criminology can inform research, policy, and practice along five distinct dimensions: (1) Identifying the need for particular policies, (2) developing a strong theoretical and empirical foundation for them, (3) monitoring and improving implementation that aligns with the design of the policy and local context, (4) monitoring outcomes and assessing impacts, including potential harms, with a focus on identifying ways to increase effectiveness and minimize harms, and (5) creating accurate estimates of cost-efficiency and a foundation for informing assessment of whether policies should be terminated, continued, or expanded. Opportunities for translational criminology are substantial and hold the potential for advancing science and improving criminal justice policy creation and design, implementation, effectiveness, and cost-efficiency.

Contemporary prosecutor-led criminal justice reform seeks to improve fairness and reduce the justice system footprint. To this end, “progressive” prosecutorial offices have adopted numerous policies that set presumptive actions and guide attorney decision making. We develop a measure of justice policy implementation fidelity that enables an overall assessment of the implementation of a collection of recent prosecutorial policies in Philadelphia tapping into several domains: support, clarity, beliefs, monitoring, barriers, and adherence. Data were collected during 2021–2022 from a sample in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office (DAO) and were analyzed using reliability and principal-components factor analysis, tabular and data visualization methods, and OLS regression. Results indicate generally strong support for and adherence to progressive policies. However, policy clarity is moderate, and there are internal barriers perceived to adversely affect implementation efforts. DAO staff believe policies are generally effective for addressing unfair outcomes for defendants, but less so with more traditional system aims, such as decreasing crime rates and achieving quick case resolution. Adherence can be bolstered by improving other elements of implementation fidelity. These findings provide important guidance for both future policy implementation efforts in Philadelphia and for DAs seeking to implement reform agendas in other locales.

Research demonstrates strong relationships between education and positive post-prison outcomes. Recognizing that educational trajectories can be disrupted early on, we investigate the impact of juvenile justice contact on educational attainment, educational aspirations, and recidivism. We examine relationships in data from two connected prison-based data collection projects both quantitatively (n = 174) and qualitatively (n = 88). We utilize Cox models to assess the impact of education on recidivism among a sample of incarcerated men with substance use disorders. Longitudinal in-depth semi-structured interviews reveal patterns of juvenile justice contact, perceptions of school, educational aspirations, and post-release outcomes. Quantitative analyses demonstrate that formal education attainment, but not intelligence, is significantly related to recidivism. The qualitative transcripts illustrate that juvenile justice contact can impede educational aspirations and achievement. We discuss policy implications, including making education, a consistent predictor of post-release success, accessible to incarcerated and reentering individuals and altering exclusionary school discipline policies.

Attrition from drug treatment programs is a ubiquitous concern, but less is known about effective strategies to assist people with an addiction in arriving at the initial intake meeting. This study investigates whether text message reminders sent to drug-positive arrestees to participate in mandated drug treatment appointments increase attendance rates. We conducted a randomized controlled trial in London, and participants were randomly assigned to either a treatment group (n = 403) receiving a text message reminder or a control group (n = 410) receiving no text message. Participants were arrestees with a verified mobile phone number who tested positive for Class A drugs at intake across 25 custody suites and were scheduled for a drug treatment assessment at one of London’s 28 treatment facilities. The primary outcome was the attendance rate at drug treatment centers, which was analyzed using an ordinary least squares regression model. Results suggest that nudges have the potential to increase attendance at drug treatment centers among drug-positive arrestees. Although we have no additional outcome variables, the intervention shows promise as a cost-effective strategy for enhancing compliance with mandated rehabilitations. Future research should explore this intervention’s broader implications and effectiveness across diverse and more extensive samples.

While numerous studies demonstrate that Black individuals have more negative perceptions of the police than their White counterparts, few have simultaneously examined racial differences in perceptions of procedural justice, police effectiveness, and legitimacy. Additionally, limited research has rigorously examined the relationship between race and perceptions of the police while carefully accounting for potentially relevant factors that could influence this relationship. Using unique survey data largely drawn from crime hot spots in Baltimore, Maryland, we examined the differences between White (n = 500) and Black (n = 2,452) individuals’ perceptions of procedural justice, police effectiveness, and police legitimacy. Furthermore, by conducting propensity-score matching on White and Black residents in our data, we compared perceptions of the police between 394 pairs of similarly situated Black and White residents who were matched based on demographics, victimization, offending, self-control, recent experiences with the police, perceived police presence, and street environments. Results indicated that while Black people have more negative perceptions of procedural justice than White people, they do not hold different perceptions regarding police effectiveness and obligation to obey. These findings hold even when comparing the matched White and Black people. Our findings suggest a nuanced relationship between race and perceptions of the police.

The potential impact of drought and low precipitation on crime rates is of growing importance in the era of worsening climate change. Evidence shows that drought and meteorological factors have impacts on the social interactions, familial behaviors, and economic opportunities of the communities affected. Informed by strain theories and displaced aggression, this study seeks to understand the relationship between drought levels and the incidence of violent crime across counties in California between 2010 and 2019. Using open-source data, the current study examines if changes in monthly drought levels are associated with the incidence of violent crime, paying particular attention to the role of agriculture in California counties and how the impact of drought accumulates overtime. Our findings suggest a small, positive relationship between drought and violent crime incidence in California counties and that this impact is lagged rather than immediate. Additionally, we do not find a difference between agriculture and non-agricultural counties in terms of the impact of drought nor do the effects of drought compound within counties.

In recent years, gun violence has surged in many cities along with increasing demands for effective intervention and prevention. Researcher-practitioner partnerships (RPPs) have been identified as a promising practice to effectively respond to a particular community’s gun violence with appropriately aligned intervention and prevention programs. However, recently, numerous sources have called for RPPs to include the perspectives of those with lived experiences as part of the RPP model, yet inclusion of these voices can present unique challenges for research translation. This case study contributes to the budding understanding of these specific RPPs by documenting the experienced procedures and challenges of a local community-engaged RPP. Specifically, we describe the development of this partnership, the research partner’s activities during the planning phase of this partnership, and, primarily, outline and assess the challenges encountered through the inclusion of community partners and voices during this phase and discuss the impact of these challenges on project progress. Documented challenges included weighing community perceptions of crime versus empirical data, putting the “cart before the horse,” and managing expectations. These challenges contributed to goals, roles, and expectations being misaligned with the focus of the partnership, competing priorities and recommendations for implementation strategies, and resistance to research translation. We conclude with tangible recommendations for the initiation of a community-engaged approach to RPPs, focusing on how to preemptively circumvent or more adeptly navigate these distinctive challenges.