Criminal Justice Sciences

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  Prerelease Reentry Programs: Posing Problems For Offenders Post-Release

  Melissa Gray

  Prison prerelease programming helps offenders develop the skills they need to successfully reintegrate back into society and provides treatment to offenders who struggle with substance abuse and mental health disorders. Prerelease programs are an important part of an offender's reentry as many offenders lack the community support needed for a healthy and safe prison to community transition. In depth interviews were conducted with reentry case managers and parole agents in Illinois to assess their perception of “what works” in relation to successful prerelease programming. Following a qualitative thematic analysis, results indicate that officers believe job skills, substance abuse treatment, utilization of moral recognition therapy and psychosocial groups are needed to help prepare offenders for the real world once they are outside the wall. Further work needs to be done to increase the number of inmates receiving prerelease programming that include these officer identified components.

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  Privacy Concerns In The Digital Era: An Analysis Of The Third-Party Doctrine's Usage In The Criminal Court System

  Alena Harm

  This project is focused on the judicial impact of a United States Supreme Court decision in Carpenter v US (2018), which modified the judicially created “third party doctrine,” that allows law enforcement to seek information from third parties (banks, phone companies, internet providers, etc.) without the use of a search warrant. The third-party doctrine is based on the principle that when an individual conducts business with a business or organization, like a phone company or bank, they have no privacy interest in the transaction records of the user. As a result, they cannot make a claim of protection under the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution against “unreasonable searches and seizures” and government officials are not required to seek a warrant. The third-party doctrine has become a routine tool by police as a way to gain evidence. In Carpenter, the Supreme Court limited the government’s ability to conduct warrantless searches involving law enforcement requests to cell phone providers to deliver “cell site location information” (CSLI) for specific phones. These records provided a detailed set of breadcrumb information as to the location of a user’s cell phone. The Court held that the privacy interests were so significant that the third-party doctrine would not be applied to this type of request. This study uses legal decisions from litigated cases since 2018 to better understand the scope of third-party usage by law enforcement, focuses on both the primary question of how case outcomes have changed as a result of the Carpenter decision and a broader question of better understanding the population of cases utilizing the third-party doctrine; with additional examinations of criminal investigations involving third-party doctrine requests and what types of third-party doctrine tools were used. A qualitative content analysis was conducted of 231 decisions of criminal cases that involved varying crimes, including: homicide, armed robbery, sexual misconduct, drugs, property, etc. In these cases, law enforcement were able to obtain defendant information utilizing CSLI data, camera surveillance, IP addresses, bank records, subscriber information, GPS, as well as through a variety of other software and databases. Many cases have concluded that law enforcement’s obtained evidence was subject to inclusion through the good-faith exception, resulting in many case decisions being upheld, much of which has opened numerous concerns for future defendants, such as with drug offenses, where CSLI may be obtained despite the existing precedent generated through Carpenter if attained in good-faith.

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  "Student Life: School Environment, Safety, Punishment"

  Karen Lagunas

  In the U.S., many K-12 public schools utilize a variety of safety measures, such as security guards, police officers, metal detectors, and cameras to monitor students in response to recent instances of school violence. This qualitative study features semi-structured interviews with ten students and ten parents of students who attended a high school in Waukegan, Illinois that features intense security measures. Throughout the interviews, the researcher examined students’ and parents’ perceptions of metal detectors, guards, surveillance cameras, and law enforcement officers. This study also stands to provide insight into the fairness of school punishment measures.

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  Food Fraud: How Do Corporations Change?

  Chelsea Perkins

  Food is a crucial necessity required by every living being on this earth in order to survive. When it comes down to the food we ingest, we want to make sure we are putting safe and healthy products into our bodies. Food corporations have cut corners in order to benefit the corporation and shareholders, which results in consequences that have been known to put human health and safety on the line. This study explores how big food corporations convicted of major food fraud crimes change their marketing methods in order to appear safer to the public. Research was conducted by analyzing major food fraud cases among five major food industries, Nestle, Odwalla, The peanut Corporation, and two major Honey corporations. The cases involve four of the most common food fraud crimes: human health and safety, adulteration, mislabeling, and deceit. Marketing trends were also analyzed at the times of these crimes to further explore motivations behind the tampering of products. Furthermore, this study explores what policies were put in place after conviction and if corporations follow through with protocols in order to maintain food health and safety towards the general public. Results from analyzing case studies and marketing trends are compared to corporations today and look at existing issues that are still present. This study shows that corporations still cut corners when it comes to products, and food fraud is on the rise now due to the current pandemic. Implications for the future include policies that force major corporations to comply to health and safety standards when it comes to manufacturing of products. Corporations have shown that when a global crisis is at hand, they are not readily prepared to handle such high demand of products and will continue to cut corners.

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  The Effects Of Less Than Lethal Weapons

  Ryan Rettig

  As the Criminal Justice system is continually evolving, there have been many attempts at reforms and alternatives in policing. One specific alternative that has been implemented is the usage of less than lethal weapons. The ideology of less than lethal weapons stemmed from the Cold War in a militaristic setting, but have become much more prevalent in law enforcement in recent years. The influence and effectiveness of less than lethal weapons is crucial to officer and suspect safety. Previous research has been conducted with an emphasis in statistical analysis. However, in this research the aim is to focus more on the personal traits of police officers when being armed with a less than lethal weapon. This will be completed by conducting interviews with various police officers and discussing the effects less than lethal weapons has had on their career. We are anticipating that the interviews will present a better understanding on how police feel on the use of less than lethal weapons, and the struggles that come along with the use of less than lethal weapons.

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  Police Body Worn Cameras & Policy: Exploration Of Features And Effectiveness

  Christian Reyes

  Body Worn Cameras continue to be a technological tool utilized by law enforcement across the country. As academic inquiry into the effects of this tool are increasing both positive and negative effects have been associated with their implementation. With new legislation being passed in Illinois requiring all police officers to have a body worn camera on them during their shifts by 2025, the topic of their effectiveness and utilization continues to grow. Given the mixed findings found in the current literature, this inquiry aims to identify key points within how the language of body worn camera policy by different departments is phrased regarding the body worn cameras deployment, storage maintenance, footage review and overall officer conduct when the body worn cameras are supposed to be in use. Previous academic studies give insight to how individual law enforcement departments are performing and throughout this article, the content will distinguish whether the policies are consistent or dissimilar in regards body worn cameras.