Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'New penology'

The purpose of this study is to explore the use of interstate inmate transfers (IITs) by prison wardens and the administrative intent that guide their use. This study assesses the explanatory power of the new penology in three cases and asks three broad questions of two prison wardens and the DOC: What correctional goals do you hope to accomplish with interstate inmate transfers? Why? And what contextual factors (if any) are felt to inhibit or facilitate these goals? IITs are controversial. Supporters of IITs argue that in addition to serving the needs of correctional managers, they may also serve to help inmates reenter society, remain physically safe while incarcerated, remain close to family and friends, and have access to appropriate correctional programming and treatment. On the other hand, critics of IITs argue that they are much more than a correctional management tool. Rather, IITs are evidence of an informally emerging "new penology" in American corrections that—due to the increasingly problematic conditions of confinement encountered by correctional managers (e.g., overcrowding)—emphasize a shift in focus away from what is good for the individual inmate to what is good for managing the correctional system as a whole. The case data collected in this research contradict, to a large degree, new penological assumptions. The findings point to high levels of ideological and behavioral autonomy among prison wardens as well as high levels of individualized and moralistic thinking with regard to inmate management, and a general feeling that correctional management at the institutional level is only situationally (rather than perpetually) stressful. Thus, the new penological assumption that criminal justice actors lack human agency or that inmates are thought of only in actuarial terms, may be an incorrect or incomplete assumption in relation to prison wardens and the intent of IITs in these cases. This study concludes that in order to better understand and possibly predict the administrative intent of IITs, an alternative theoretical framework should be utilized—one that better captures the dynamism and variability of influence that unique situational and dispositional factors (and their interaction) may have on administrative intent.

Risk has emerged as a defining feature of punishment in the United States. Feeley and Simon (1992) note that contemporary punishment is increasingly moving away from rehabilitation (the old penology) and moving toward the management and control of offenders (the new penology), often though actuarial techniques. While the profusion of risk assessment instruments, now entering their fourth generation, provides some support for the assertion that risk is indeed an important element in corrections, it was previously unknown if the risk model applied to all offenders, particularly female offenders. This dissertation addressed that gap by examining whether the risk model applied to female offenders in the community corrections setting. This dissertation surveyed 93 community corrections officers employed by the Orange County Community Corrections Department. The findings suggest that the department has incorporated many elements of the new penology into the classification and supervision of offenders in each of its units, though several gender differences were noted. Classification overrides, the perceived level of risk to the community, supervision decisions, and the perceived importance of risk and need factors were all examined in this study. The results indicate that some elements of classification and supervision function uniformly for offenders and operate irrespective of gender, but some areas, such as the perceived level of risk to the community and the perceived importance of risk factors, are influenced by gender.<br>Ph.D.<br>Other<br>Health and Public Affairs<br>Public Affairs PhD

<p> Since the 1970's, the United States has enacted anti-crime legislation, particularly against sex offending and offenders. It can be supposed this occurred because of fear of victimization, which lead the public to demand laws to reduce crime. This thesis will use a case study approach to examine all laws that may affect sex offenders and their behaviors (e.g. registration, notification, civil commitment, castration, residency restrictions, mandatory reporting) in two states to determine cross-case variability in the existence and context of laws affecting sex offenders. If variability exists in the number and type of laws across states, consistencies in public safety may vary across state lines. The results can be used to assist future studies seeking to broaden understanding of sex offender laws across a region or the entire U.S.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, School of Journalism, 2007.<br>Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-09, Section: A, page: 3650. Adviser: Dan Drew. Title from dissertation home page (viewed May 7, 2008).

Criminal Justice<br>Ph.D.<br>Prosecutors are powerful actors in the criminal justice system. Scholars make the argument that prosecutors exercise far more control over criminal matters than any other agency (Thomas and Fitch, 1976, p. 509; McDonald, 1979, p. 18-19, Wickersham, 1931) . Over time, various changes have augmented prosecutorial power, ranging from the decision to make the office of the prosecutor an elected one, thereby affording prosecutors independence in carrying out their duties (Misner, 1996, p. 729), to the advent of determinant sentencing, resulting in shifting sentencing discretion away from the courts to the prosecutor (Vorenberg, 1981, p. 1525, 1529). This research hypothesized that community prosecution represents another development that will result in increasing the influence of the office of the prosecutor. Traditionally, prosecutors have been oriented toward successful case disposition. The case-by-case methodology has involved little contact with the community. In addition, the prosecutorial focal point is on felony cases, while lower level offenses generally receive little time or attention. The emergence of community prosecution challenges the traditional prosecution role and its emphasis on the more serious matters and winning cases, and promises positive effects for the "communities" targeted. Through a case study of its application in Kings County, New York, this dissertation explores community prosecution and its impact on the role of the prosecutor and for the community, in the context of a community court implemented in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Focusing on the Red Hook example, the study drew on three principal sources of data to examine the community prosecution innovation, including: a) arrest data, aggregated monthly, for the three police precincts that handle cases originating in Red Hook, covering the years 1998 through 2001 (46 months per precinct, n=138 ); b) precinct level arrest and court case filings for criminal incidents that took place in Red Hook and other Kings County locations for two distinct time periods (the third quarter of 1998, (n = 19,296) and the first quarter of 2001, (n = 22,988)); and c) court case data from the Red Hook Community Justice Center (hereafter, RHCJC) 2000 through 2001 (51 weeks, n=4,088). Several different types of complementary analyses, including HLM, contrasted changes in case types and defendant characteristics in the study locale over time associated with this community-oriented form of prosecution. The analyses also compared these changes to the caseloads from neighboring communities that did not have access to this innovation, where cases were processed in the traditional manner. Specific hypotheses tested about the effects of the community prosecution innovation included the following: 1) Implementation of the community prosecution initiative via the community court will result in an increase in the volume and/or proportion of arrests for minor offenses in precincts operating within the community court's jurisdiction. That increase will not be experienced by precincts not involved with the court. 2) The community prosecution strategy will draw defendants into the Red Hook criminal justice system who would not otherwise have been involved in the system, specifically including greater proportions of young minority males and individuals with no prior criminal histories. This research also involved a limited inquiry into how community members were responding to the community prosecution initiative. Given the purpose of community prosecution, to engage the community in handling its unique crime problems in an effort to make them feel safer, it was of interest to know whether there was any evidence that this happened in Red Hook. To that end, the research drew upon qualitative data, including: a) a series of non-probability based community surveys performed within the Red Hook jurisdiction in 1999 (n=980), 2000 (n=1,744) and 2001 (n=1,169) and b) two focus groups (n=12; n=18) conducted by this researcher in May of 2003. These other data sources provided context, allowing for better understanding the results of the analyses. Findings indicated slight effects of community prosecution in the anticipated direction: The volume of arrests from the Red Hook precincts (Data Set 1) increased slightly after the court was implemented. In addition, findings from the RHCJC caseload (Data Set 3) indicated that post-implementation, misdemeanor cases increased slightly but significantly. Comparisons of the post-implementation caseload filed from Red Hook precinct arrests with the control group (consisting of pre-implementation, Red Hook filings and both pre-and post-implementation filings from the arrests made by the rest of the Kings County precincts (Data Set 2)) indicated that the caseload proportion of misdemeanors in post-implementation Red Hook filings increased significantly when compared with the control group filings. In addition, analysis of Data Set 2 (comparison of caseload characteristics) indicated both a significant increase in the proportion of the post-implementation, Red Hook cases made up of Hispanic defendants, and a significant increase in the caseload proportion consisting of defendants with no prior record of criminal convictions. The primary findings from the qualitative data (Survey and Focus Group Data) indicated that community respondents appeared to be more satisfied with the court system and seemed to feel safer after the RHCJC was implemented. There was also some indication of race based differences in responses: White respondents seemed generally more positive about perceived post-implementation changes in Red Hook than minority respondents.<br>Temple University--Theses

Urban Education<br>Ph.D.<br>School safety is widely recognized as an ongoing problem in United States public schools. Guided by the New Right, the school safety problem has been framed as an issue of school crime, violence, and student misbehavior that is best mitigated by zero tolerance policies. This stance has emerged as an agenda that has proven disproportionately detrimental to poor urban students of color who have experienced unforeseen levels of punishment since the Gun Free Schools Act of 1994 endorsed zero tolerance. Despite mounting evidence that zero tolerance approaches to discipline do little to deter school crime and violence or make schools safe, little ground has been gained in interrupting the ideology, policies, practices, and discourses of the zero tolerance agenda. The dissertation study theorizes and explores how ideology, cultural-politics, and discourse foster the tendency for policy creation and codification to legitimize the New Right's official knowledge of zero tolerance ideology and policy as a panacea for the school safety problem. To accomplish this, I conducted an ethnographic content analysis of codes of student conduct to examine the imbued ideologies, discourses, and policy changes that emerge from the cultural politics of managing school discipline over the last 15 years. Through this process, I lend empirical credence to the concepts of net-widening and net-deepening. With these guiding concepts, I push the field beyond the zero tolerance discourse on school safety and discipline to establish a generative alternative to understanding school discipline policies called the school discipline net framework. The results of the study establish a precedent for thinking more deeply and creatively about the perils and possibilities of school discipline policies. Major findings include the identification of several school policy changes that make the discipline experience both increasingly likely and potentially more punitive for students. Finally, through substantiating the school discipline net as a framework for discoursing, researching, guiding policy creation, and recognizing and locating sites of agency, this work establishes that it is indeed possible to engage issues critical in the field in ways that can transfer into the highly politicized school policy context dominated by New Right ideologies and discourses.<br>Temple University--Theses

This study examines claims-making about the Battered Woman Syndrome (BWS) in the case of Lilian Getkate, who used the syndrome to substantiate a claim of self-defence after killing her abusive husband. The research is guided by the social constructionist perspective and employs content analysis to determine what claims are made in expert testimony and news media about the BWS. It examines how this construct is linked to the defendant and what claims are made about the criminal justice system's response to intimate partner violence and homicide. This research also considers the claims-makers themselves and claims regarding their expertise. Findings from this in-depth case study reveal the importance of expertise and credentials in claims-making and suggest that claims about the BWS, its relation to the defendant, and the law's response are constructed in similar ways in expert testimony and news media, though much more developed in the former.

Current scholarship on migrant sex work warns us to avoid viewing female migrant sex workers as either passive "victims" of male dominated trafficking schemes or ruthless villains who chose prostitution and illegal migration. This thesis concentrates on the print media in two democratic states, Canada and the United Kingdom in order to investigate how the public is being educated on migrant sex work. Specifically, this thesis analyzes representations of female migrant sex workers in news articles published by the British newspaper The Guardian, and the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail . A total of 100 articles are selected by keyword search from the years 2000-2008. They are analyzed by using frame analysis. Overall, this thesis concludes that the audiences of The Globe and Mail and The Guardian are provided with a partial account of who migrant sex workers are and how or why they end up in the sex trade.

Despite the accessibility of online news and availability of sophisticated methods for analyzing news content, no previous study has focused on the simultaneous examination of news coverage on human trafficking and audiences' interpretations of this coverage. In my research, I have examined both journalists' and commenters' topic choices in coverage and discussion of human trafficking from the online platforms of three British newspapers covering the period 2009–2015. I used latent semantic analysis (LSA) to identify emergent topics in my corpus of newspaper articles and readers' comments, and I then quantitatively investigated topic preferences to identify convergence and divergence on the topics discussed by journalists and their readers. I addressed my research questions in two distinctive studies. The first case study implemented topic modelling techniques and further quantitative analyses on article and comment paragraphs from The Guardian. The second extensive study included article and comment paragraphs from the online platforms of three British newspapers: The Guardian, The Times and the Daily Mail. The findings indicate that the theories of "agenda setting" and of "active audience" are not mutually exclusive, and the scope of explanation of each depends partly on the specific topic or subtopic that is analyzed. Taking into account further theoretical concepts related to agenda setting, four more additional research questions were addressed. Topic convergence and divergence was further identified when taking into account the newspapers' political orientation and the articles' and comments' year of publication.

In recent years, many states have responded to public sentiment with legislation providing court officials greater discretion in remanding juvenile offenders to adult criminal court. In 1994, for example, Louisiana State Legislature approved House Bill 64 which accomplished both a broadening of the adult court's jurisdiction and a lowering of the age at which waiver to the adult court was possible. This study focuses on whether the provisions of House Bill 64 are consistent with New Orleanians' attitudes toward the treatment of juvenile offenders. In a random survey of 212 respondents, New Orleanians' attitudes are found to be based on several jurisdictional elements such as the offender's age and record of prior juvenile detention, the type of weapon used, if any, and the physical assault of the victim. However, several extra-legal variables, such as race, are also significant. In regard to the effects of race, the data reveal that the offenders' race is a significant predictor--the odds that black offenders would elicit feelings that transfer to adult court is appropriate are significantly higher relative to those for white offenders. Further, the analysis reveals that the effect of offender's race is dependent upon his age at the time of the offense and is consistent across categories of respondent's race. Implications for public policy are discussed<br>acase@tulane.edu

This thesis examines professional supervision practice under new public management from the perspectives of probation officers and service managers in the Community Probation Service. In particular, the research explores the participants’ philosophy of professional supervision, their recent supervision experiences, and their aspirations and expectations with regard to professional supervision. In order to provide a background for an informed analysis and discussion of the research findings, the thesis discusses the key themes in the social service supervision and new public management literature. It also examines the Community Probation Service’s context and the history of new public management and professional supervision in this organisation. The thesis is a qualitative study that is informed by social work practice theory and utilises the phenomenological and hermeneutic approaches. The research findings show that amongst the participants there was: (a) an unclear philosophy of supervision; (b) minimal recent experience of supervision and little ownership or support for the agency supervision project; (c) a belief that the context increased their need for supervision, but at the same time reduced their ability to receive or participate in it; (d) an expectation that professional supervision would assist them to work more effectively with clients and staff; (e) an expectation of good committed supervisors who would support and help them develop; and (f) an expectation that the agency would support professional supervision through resourcing, guidelines, accredited supervisors and the establishment of a learning culture. The major implications of these findings are that: (1) there is a need for staff to be socialised into professional social service supervision; (2) that the professional supervision programme within the Community Probation Service, as currently implemented, is unlikely to be successful; and (3) that professional social service supervision needs to be focused upon persons and their environments, rather than upon the agency.

Le 29 juillet 1994, Megan Kanka, une jeune fille de sept ans de la municipalité de Hamilton au New Jersey, est enlevée, agressée sexuellement et tuée par ce qui se révélera être son voisin d’en face, Jesse Timmendequas. À l’époque, l’assaillant de Megan avait déjà fait l’objet de deux condamnations pour agression sexuelle. Suite à cette tragédie, les parents de Megan luttèrent pour la création d’une loi qui révélerait automatiquement au public l’identité et le lieu de résidence des délinquants sexuels. Moins de trois mois plus tard, la « Loi de Megan » était ratifiée. Ainsi un répertoire étatique centralisé de délinquants sexuels en partie disponible au public fut créé. Notre étude se centre sur ce cas et tente de comprendre comment une construction particulière de la délinquance sexuelle comme problème social mena à la réponse pénale spécifique qu’était la Loi de Megan. Pour ce faire, nous analysons les discours et argumentaires politiques en lien avec l’affaire. Huit entretiens avec différents acteurs impliqués dans le débat politique menant à la création de la loi de Megan furent effectués. Une analyse de plus de 150 articles de journaux et de quelques projets et textes de lois fut également effectuée. Nos résultats soulignent d’abord le rôle primordial qu’avait le contexte sociopolitique autant sur la construction du problème social de la délinquance sexuelle que sur la solution qui lui était liée. L’analyse du cas nous indique également que la dyade problème-solution s’élabora en conjonction, dans un cadre temporel uniforme, dont les seules étapes détectables sont celles du narratif de la mort de Megan et de l’élaboration concrète de la loi. En d’autres mots, la mort de Megan ne constituait qu’un point focal qui permit à des acteurs de mettre en pratique des concepts déjà largement partagés. L’étude conclue en liant le contexte sociopolitique du Canada à celui retrouvé dans notre étude de cas et suggère qu’une construction similaire de la délinquance sexuelle comme problème peut facilement être envisageable chez nous. Si personne ne souhaite l’occurrence d’une situation comparable à celle vécue par Megan Kanka et sa famille, cet élément nous apparaît comme étant celui qui propulserait réellement cette construction sur la place publique, à condition bien évidemment qu’une personne ou un groupe de personnes en fassent une question à débattre.<br>On July 29th 1994, Megan Kanka, a 7 year old girl from Hamilton Township in New Jersey, is kidnapped, sexually molested and killed by what will prove to be the Kanka’ front door neighbor, Jesse Timmendequas. At the time, Megan’s assailant had already been twice convicted of sex crimes. Following this tragedy, Megan’s parents fought to obtain a law that would notify the public on the identity as well as the residency of sex offenders. Less than three months later, "Megan’s Law" was ratified. A state-wide sex offender registry was thus created, for which public notification was partly available. Our study focuses on this case, as we try to understand how the construction of sexual offending as a social problem led to the specific penal response that was Megan’s Law. To accomplish this, we analyzed the political discourse and arguments inherent to the case. Eight interviews with different political actors involved in the political debate leading to the implementation of Megan’s Law were conducted. Over 150 newspaper articles and some pieces of legislation were also analyzed. Our results highlight the essential role that the sociopolitical context had on the construction of sex offending as a social problem as well as the solution to which it was linked. Analysis of this case also indicates that the problem-solution dyad was constructed in conjunction, in a uniform time frame, for which the only detectable stages were those of the narrative concerning the death of Megan and the actual development of the law. In other words, Megan’s death was only a focal point that allowed certain political actors to turn into action already widely shared concepts. The study concludes by linking Canada’s sociopolitical context to the one found in our case study, and suggests that a similar construction of the sex offender problem can easily be considered. Though nobody wishes for the occurence of an event comparable to that experienced by Megan Kanka and her family, this element appears to us as one that would propel this construction to a public arena, provided of course that a person or a group of people make the issue the topic of a public debate.

La recherche sur les questions touchant aux leaders de groupes sectaires et à la violence sectaire a mené à l’étude du rôle joué par l’autorité charismatique, tel que défini par Weber (1922) et repris par Dawson (2010). À ce sujet, d’éminents spécialistes des études sur les sectes sont d’avis qu’un vide important dans la recherche sur l’autorité charismatique dans le contexte de groupes sectaires et de nouveaux mouvements religieux reste à combler (ajouter les références ‘d’éminents spécialistes’). Ce mémoire vise à contribuer à l’étude cet aspect négligé, le rôle de l’autorité charismatique dans le recours è la violence dans les groupes sectaires, par une étude de cas historique d’un groupe de la Réformation protestante du XVIe siècle, le Royaume anabaptiste de Münster (AKA), sous l’influence d’un leader charismatique, Jan van Leiden. Cette recherche s’intéresse plus spécifiquement aux divers moyens utilisés par Jan van Leiden, pour asseoir son autorité charismatique et à ceux qui ont exercé une influence sur le recours à des actes de violence. L’étude de cas est basé sur le matériel provenant de deux comptes-rendus des faits relatés par des participants aux événements qui se sont déroulés à pendant le règne de Leiden à la tête du AKA. L’analyse du matériel recueilli a été réalisé à la lumière de trois concepts théoriques actuels concernant le comportement cultuel et le recours à la violence.. L’application de ces concepts théoriques a mené à l’identification de quatre principales stratégies utilisées par Jan van Leiden pour établir son autorité charismatique auprès de ses disciples, soit : 1) la menace du millénarisme, 2) l’exploitation d’une relation bilatérale parasitique avec ses disciples, 3) l’utilisation de l’extase religieuse et de la prophétie, 4) l’utilisation du désir de voir survenir des changements sociaux et religieux. En plus de ces quatre stratégies, trois autres dimensions ont été retenues comme signes que le recours à la violence dans le Royaume anabaptiste de Münster résultait de l’établissement de l’autorité charismatique de son leader, soit : 1) la violence liée au millénarisme, 2) la notion d’identité et de violence partagée, 3) des facteurs systémiques, physiques et culturels menant à la violence.<br>Research surrounding questions regarding cultic behaviors, leadership and issues of sectarian violence has lead to the study of charismatic leadership. Prominent cultic scholars have identified that there remains a rather large void in research when analyzing charismatic leadership within the context of sectarian groups and new religious movements. This thesis will attempt to bridge that gap through a historical case study analysis of a 16th century protestant reformation group, the Anabaptist Kingdom of Münster (AKM), under the influence of a charismatic leader, Jan van Leiden. More specifically, this research will focus on the various means utilized by the group’s leader, to establish charismatic leadership and how this affected the group’s recourse to acts of violence. The case material was obtained through two primary source accounts from participants in the events that unfolded in Münster during Leiden’s reign. The analysis of this material was made using three current theoretical concepts on cultic behavior and violence, that is Casoni (2000), Robbins (2002) and Dawson (2010). It appears that four major strategies were utilized by Jan van Leiden to establish his charismatic leadership over his followers: (1) the threat of millenarianism, (2) the exploitation of a bilateral parasitic relationship with his followers, (3) the use of religious ecstasy and prophecy, and (4) the use of their desire for social and religious change. By contrasting the results of the analyses undertaken in chapters three and four, three factors that have played a crucial role in Leiden’s charismatic leadership, as it relates to the recourse to violence in the AKM, will be identified. These are: (1) millennial violence, (2) shared identity, and (3) macro-level dimensions.