Thesis (Ph.D.)--Murdoch University, 2005. / Thesis submitted to the Division of Arts. Bibliography: leaves 261-274.

Analyzing the crimes of women murderers and how they fared in the criminal justice system demonstrates that though perceptions of gender evolved, resistance to sentencing women to death often persisted. The nature of homicides committed by women in Oregon set them apart from their male counterparts. Women were, and are, more likely to commit domestic homicides -- murders that involve a family member or partner. These crimes are typically not equated with crimes that warrant capital punishment. As a result, no woman has been subjected to the death penalty in the state. This thesis analyzes the twenty-five women who were convicted of homicide in Oregon between 1854 and 1950. During these years the majority faced all-male court and penal systems. As such, they were handled differently in accordance with various social, cultural, and legislative shifts relating to women's roles as citizens. Through an examination of contemporary newspaper articles, inmate case files, and other Oregon State Penitentiary records, this thesis studies three distinct periods relating to these shifts: 1854-1900, 1901-1935 and 1936-1950. The assumption that it was impossible for a woman to commit murder linked claims of insanity with criminality. The six women defendants between 1854 and 1900 were either deemed insane and transferred to the asylum or quickly released from prison to avoid potential controversy or additional expense. The twelve women convicted of homicide between 1901 and 1935 all received manslaughter convictions, an occurrence unique to this era. Following the Progressive Era, sentimental juries felt more comfortable convicting women of manslaughter. Many received indeterminate sentences of one to fifteen years and were released on parole. The initial first-degree murder charges between 1936 and 1950 signaled a new period in the treatment of women charged with homicide. After gaining the right to vote and serve on juries, women began to be viewed more equally in the eyes of the law. During these years there was a more even distribution of manslaughter, second-degree murder, and first-degree murder convictions for the seven women defendants. This is due in part to women's growing presence in the public sphere. In conclusion, the idea that women were submissive creatures that required the authority and protection of men in the courtroom began to fade by 1950. Each period of study demonstrates how the contemporary perception of women and their roles as citizens affected trial outcomes. However, even when women were charged with first-degree murder they were not sentenced to the death penalty -- likely due to the domestic nature of their crimes.

Sentencing reform and "tough on crime" policies have assisted in the inflation of the United States' prison population by nearly 400% over the last 50 years. In 2003, justice reinvestment was conceptualized as a way to decrease recidivism and remedy the exorbitant correctional spending by reinvesting funds on rehabilitation and reentry assistance to those leaving custodial institutions. Early implementations of justice reinvestment in Connecticut and Texas achieved both savings and reductions in prison populations. This led to the creation of the Justice Reinvestment Initiative by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance in 2010. Officials of the Justice Reinvestment Initiative sought states who were willing to achieve bi-partisan agreements on reform and reinvestment strategies to assist in the creation and implementation of this new policy. The State of Oregon began this process in early 2012 and completed the process with the enrollment of HB 3194 in July of 2013. Despite the implementation of this policy in 17 states, few evaluations have been performed on the effectiveness of justice reinvestment policy. This study employs a quasi-experimental time series analysis of corrections data from the State of Oregon, the high usage county, medium usage county, and the low usage county proxies to assess the effectiveness of the law. Counties were selected as proxies for levels of justice reinvestment grant usage. These data include prison admissions (June 2010-July 2016), probation admissions (June 2010-July 2016), and the number of individuals on community supervision (July 2010-December 2015). Analyses reveal significant changes in all measures. The results of this study have several implications for current and future implementations of justice reinvestment.

This thesis examines major publications produced between 1891-2015 that portray the trial of Florence Maybrick. Inspired by Paul Davis’ Lives and Times of Ebenezer Scrooge, it considers the various iterations of Florence’s story as “protean fantasies,” in which the narrative changed to reflect the realities of the time in which it was (re)written. It tracks shifting patterns of emphasis and authors’ rigid conformity to associated sets of discursive strategies to argue that this body of literature can be divided into three distinct epochs. The 1891-1912 era was characterized by authors’ instrumentalization of sympathy on Florence’s behalf in response to contemporary concerns about the administration of criminal justice in England. From 1923 until 1964, this “Victorian tragedy” was re-structured according to the tropes of detective fiction and non-fiction crime writing in a cultural atmosphere increasingly preoccupied with postmodernism, “the psychological,” and shifting gender relations. The concept of the “permissive society” and emergence of “new social history” following the late 1960s and early 70s produced a revised version of the story that accentuated aspects of the case that were illustrative of the structures of Victorian society. As such, this thesis is a metahistorical examination of how authors’ approaches to the question of whether or not Florence poisoned her husband in 1889 have been shaped by contemporary mentalités. / Graduate

No description available.

This thesis examines privatization of local level corrections in southern California.

Assessing the effect of race on crime is an important topic of criminology and criminal justice research. Prior investigations have sought to uncover if racial disparities exist within certain aspects of the criminal justice system, such as arrests, trials, and sentencing. The existing scholarship, however, has largely focused on assessing differences between Black and Hispanic offenders in relation to White offenders. There has been little academic exploration to examine if racial disparities exist among American Indian offenders during criminal justice processing. To address this gap in knowledge, this study analyzes data collected from the United States Sentencing Commission to assess if American Indians receive different sentencing outcomes, when compared to other racial groups. The findings from a series of binary logistic and ordinary least square regression analyses suggest that American Indians are sentenced to prison more often than White, Black, and Hispanic offenders, but receive similar sentence lengths compared to Whites and shorter sentence lengths compared to Blacks and Hispanics. The implications of these results are discussed.

No description available.

The history of urban policing paints an evolutionary picture describing the various forces that impinged on society's earliest efforts at public policing and led to numerous reforms culminating in what has been termed the professional model of policing. The dynamics of an ever-changing urban society continued to present new challenges to policing and have driven police administrators and politicians to seek new methods of responding to society's criminal element.

No description available.