Sexual assault (SA) is an ongoing concern in the United States (US). With a rate above the national average, SA is especially a concern in the Western state in which this study was conducted. Identifying victim vulnerabilities related to SA is an area of research that is currently limited. In this retrospective study, data on victim vulnerabilities were collected from 4,038 standardized SA forensic medical examination forms. Descriptive statistical analyses were conducted to identify vulnerabilities and Pearson's chi-square tests of association were conducted to explore the relationships between extralegal variables. The extralegal variables represent data not contained within the scope of the law, rather data which pertain to the victim or relationship between victim and suspect. Study findings indicate young women are at highest risk for SA. White women are the largest racial group in the state and, accordingly, had the highest rate of SA. However, some racial minorities, including Native American and African American, were found to potentially be at higher risk per capita. A substantial number of SA victims reported having medical problems, and the number of SA victims who reported having a mental illness was double the per capita rate. Victims are most commonly assaulted by an acquaintance. Consumption of drugs or alcohol by the victim or suspect was found in a significant number of cases. A potential trend was noted with victims reporting being asleep and awakened to assault. These results identify various aspects of vulnerability to SA and support the argument that sexual predators attack vulnerable individuals. More research is needed to further evaluate the various associations found in this study. Increasing our understanding of SA and associated vulnerabilities will improve the effectiveness of outreach to vulnerable populations by means of education, screening, and preventative programs.

Extralegal Factors Important to Judges' Decisions in Child Abuse Custody Cases by Marilyn J. Nolan MS, Pittsburg (Kansas) State University, 1986 BS, Missouri Southern State University, 1982 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Human Services Walden University May 2015 Research has shown juvenile court judges are skeptical of mental health testimony; however there is a lack of research regarding what types of testimony by what kinds of experts are valued by judges. Using the theory of legal pragmatism, the purpose of this study was to assess how 83 Oklahoma District Court judges rated extralegal factors influencing their perceptions of the credibility of mental health expert testimony. Quantitative survey research methods were used to collect the data. Friedman ANOVAs by ranks with multiple comparisons were used to test differences across multiple characteristics, and Spearman rho coefficients assessed relationships of age and gender of judges with their importance ratings of extralegal factors. The results showed that judges preferred PhD psychologists over other mental health professionals, witnesses who drew firm conclusions, testimony in layman's terms, and citing theories accepted by the scientific community. A child's testimony and educational credentials of experts were important to younger female judges when deciding custody as was maintaining the integrity of the family when deciding termination issues. Other findings included: all judges agreed sexual abuse was the most important criteria for terminating parental rights, all forms of child abuse were important case factors that influenced judges' decisions, and disparaging parents and substance abuse by a parent were important to older male judges in their decisions. Results from this study will assist in the development of core curricula for courtroom skills training for mental health experts, paving the way for positive social change. With improved training and quality of expert testimony, judges will be more likely to use testimony from knowledgeable unbiased experts when making decisions which will benefit children, families, and communities.

The potential influence of extralegal characteristics on the outcome of post-Furman capital cases (1972) has been a focus of criminal justice researchers and legal scholars. Much of this literature has assessed the impact of victim and defendant race on the likelihood of receiving the death penalty while a relatively underdeveloped body of research focuses on how victim sex may affect capital sentencing decisions. The present study uses focal concerns theory and the chivalry hypothesis to test the potential mediating effect of theoretical variables on the relationship between victim sex and juror capital sentence decision-making. In addition, it uses victim sex specific logistic regression models to examine if different theoretical and/or control variables are important predictors of receiving the death penalty for male victim cases versus female victim cases. Findings demonstrate that victim rape mediates the relationship between victim sex and juror death penalty decision-making. In addition, findings reveal that sex specific models better explain juror decision making than the full model including victims of both sexes and that different extralegal and legal characteristics predict juror decision to choose the death penalty in cases with male victims versus female victims. Theoretical and legal implications as well as directions for future research are discussed.

No description available.

No ano de 2016, o Brasil passou a ser o terceiro país com maior população carcerária do mundo. Levantamentos recentes indicam que o sistema de justiça tende a banalizar o uso da prisão cautelar (40% dos presos brasileiros são provisórios), em dissonância à legislação processual penal que traz a prisão preventiva como medida excepcional, assegurando a liberdade como regra até a decisão condenatória definitiva. O estudo dessa questão paradoxal é de interesse da comunidade jurídica por investigar se a tomada da decisão não está associada apenas ao conteúdo das regras jurídicas, mas a fatores extrajurídicos, desafiando as clássicas teorias da argumentação racional sobre a decisão judicial. Também de todo cidadão, potencial vítima de arbitrariedades no direito de liberdade, e da sociedade brasileira, já que o encarceramento em massa resulta em rebeliões, mortes, aumento da violência e canalização de recursos públicos de áreas produtivas para a contenção de pessoas. São os seguintes os problemas da pesquisa: 1) Para os magistrados, os sentidos da prisão preventiva e as razões de sua decretação são mais amplos do que os limites previstos na lei? 2) Em caso afirmativo, quais os sentidos construídos por eles e quais são os fatores considerados ou de influência para as decisões? Analisamos a questão a partir de premissas do realismo jurídico norte-americano, enquanto teoria descritiva da decisão judicial, para a qual o direito não é o único nem o principal elemento determinante das decisões. Objetivamos verificar quais são os sentidos construídos pelos juízes acerca da prisão preventiva e identificar como fatores extrajurídicos influenciam as decisões sobre ela. A investigação foi realizada coletando-se dados por meio de entrevistas semiestruturadas, a partir de amostra formada com dez participantes voluntários (juízes federais e estaduais). Procedemos à análise qualitativa, a partir da metodologia da produção de sentidos, na epistemologia do Construcionismo Social, oriundo da Psicologia Social. Os resultados encontrados indicam que os sentidos construídos pelos juízes acerca da prisão preventiva coincidem em parte, mas são mais amplos do que os conteúdos da legislação. Também revelam alguns fatores extrajurídicos de influência sobre as decisões de prisões cautelares. E demonstram como regras legais podem ser desconsideradas nas decisões quando elas não estiverem em consonância com as concepções individuais que os juízes constroem como solução justa ou correta. Concluímos, que de acordo com esta pesquisa, estão corretas as premissas do realismo jurídico: as regras legais têm influência, mas não exclusiva e nem necessariamente determinante, sobre as decisões. Para se compreender a extensão dos fatores extrajurídicos sobre as decisões judiciais é preciso prosseguir nas pesquisas empíricas interdisciplinares, que busquem compreender o fenômeno jurídico sob a perspectiva e com o instrumental de outros ramos do saber, já que estudos convencionais herméticos e meramente dogmáticos não conseguem revelar todos os seus aspectos, nem permitem conhecer o funcionamento operacional efetivo do sistema de justiça criminal. / Since 2016 Brazil has the third higher prison population in the world. Recent surveys indicate that the justice system tends to overuse pretrial detention (40% of Brazilian prisoners are pretrial detainees), in dissonance with the criminal procedural law that regulate preventive custody as exceptional measure, ensuring freedom to defendants as a rule until definitive conviction. The study of this paradoxical situation concerns to the law community once it investigates if the decision making is not only related to the content of the legal rules but also to extralegal factors, challenging the classic theories of rational argumentation about the judicial decision making. The inquiry matters to all citizens, potential victims of arbitrary imprisonment, and to the Brazilian society, since mass incarceration results in rebellions, deaths, increase of violence and channeling of public resources of productive areas for the containment of people. The research problems are as follows: 1) Are the meanings of pretrial detention for judges and the reasons for their enactment broader than the limits established by law? 2) If so, what are the meanings constructed by them and what are the factors considered or influencing decisions? We analyze the question from the premises of American legal realism as a descriptive theory of judicial decision, for which legal rules are not the only nor the main determinants of decisions. The purpose of the study was to verify which are the meanings constructed by the judges about the preventive custody and to identify extralegal factors influences at the decisions. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews, based on a sample of ten volunteer participants (federal and state judges). We proceed to the qualitative analysis, utilizing the production of meanings methodology, in the epistemology of Social Constructionism, from Social Psychology. The results indicate that the judges\' meanings about pretrial detention coincides in part, but they are broader than the contents of the legal rules. They also reveal some extralegal factors of influence on the decisions. And they demonstrate how legal rules can be disregarded in decisions when they are not in line with the individual conceptions that the judges construct as a just or right solution. We conclude that, according to this research, the premises of legal realism are correct: legal rules have influence, but not exclusively and not necessarily decisive, on decisions. In order to understand the extent of extralegal factors over judicial decisions, it is necessary to continue with interdisciplinary empirical research that seeks to understand the legal phenomenon from the perspective and with the instruments of other branches of knowledge, since hermetic, merely dogmatic studies cannot reveal aspects of how the criminal justice system functions.

Legal and Extralegal Factors in Argumentation and Decision-making of the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic Abstract The thesis deals with the influence of legal and extralegal factors on the decision-making of the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic. Particularly, it focuses on the questions of which preconditions for decision-making of the Constitutional Court are created by the external political and social environment, how this decision-making reflects the different attitudes and approaches of individual judges and how it is influenced by the composition of the judicial panels. The author first summarizes a wide range of factors whose influence on court decisions has been observed. These include not only the content of legislation, but also judicial philosophy, including activism and self-restraint, and various extralegal factors observed by the attitudinal and strategic model of judicial decision-making, but also by psychological and economic studies. Subsequently, the thesis focuses on the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic. First, it deals with the preconditions for the influence of various factors on its decision-making and argues that the Constitutional Court can be considered a strong court due to its external conditions and its own decision-making activities. Then, with the...

Stafford and Warr (1993) reconceptualized general and specific deterrence into a single theory in which individuals' propensities to engage in criminal behavior are based on some combination of personal experiences with being punished and avoiding punishment and vicarious (or indirect) experiences with being punished and avoiding punishment. The researchers make a substantial contribution to the deterrence literature by accounting for the effect of punishment avoidance when assessing deterrence theory. Despite the theoretical appeal of this restatement, few studies have tested its empirical merit. The current study tests the applicability of Stafford and Warr's model but also addresses several key limitations that still exist in the deterrence literature. The present study was the first of its kind to directly test Stafford and Warr's (1993) model, blending specific and general deterrence, on an offending population. The majority of perceptual deterrence research examines largely pro-social groups. Evidence suggests that offenders may have unique decision-making processes and may be very different from those typically studied in deterrence research. Identifying the relevant deterrents among non-conventional or offending populations has significant policy implications. Additionally, in order to understand the decision-making process of criminals, this study incorporated alternative sanction forms from a rational choice perspective into the deterrence framework. This is a particularly salient point because non-legal costs may be more influential in criminal decision-making than formal sanctions. By examining the deterrent effects of several other factors (besides the traditional variables studied in deterrence models) among a non-conventional population, findings may suggest methods for designing more effective punishments. Therefore, the present study conducted survey research of high-criminality among an adult sample. This dissertation recruited 326 work release inmates from Orange County, Florida, and asked them to complete a written questionnaire. Results from the bivariate analyses revealed some support for the deterrence doctrine and the rational choice perspective. However, more rigorous tests of these predictions revealed no support for deterrence theory. Even though this study concluded that deterrence alone does not adequately predict future offending, the idea of choice was upheld. The results from this dissertation and from several other studies suggest the need for further analysis of the effect of extralegal sanctions on future criminal activity, especially among non-conventional populations. The current study offers suggestions for effective crime control policies and directions on how future research can clarify the inconsistencies between the theoretical predictions of deterrence theory and empirical reality.

No description available.

L’objectif de cette étude consiste à mieux comprendre le phénomène de l’attrition pénale au Canada. D’une part, elle vise à déterminer quels sont les facteurs d’influence des décisions pénales motivant la poursuite ou l’arrêt des procédures. D’autre part, il est question de vérifier si ces facteurs sont comparables à chaque étape décisionnelle ou non. Pour y parvenir, une analyse de différentes décisions prises par des policiers, des procureurs et des juges fut réalisée. Un total de 525 affaires criminelles a été considéré. Les analyses descriptives montrent que l’échantillon est principalement constitué d’hommes (77%) sans antécédents criminels en matière de fraude (76%). Les analyses multivariées suggèrent que les facteurs légaux sont les meilleurs prédicteurs des décisions pénales. Comme observé dans la littérature, les antécédents criminels et la gravité de l’infraction semblent influencer les décisions. Ainsi, le fait d’avoir fait une tentative de vol d’un certain montant d’argent, le nombre d’infractions commis et la présence d’antécédents criminels de fraude semblent influencer ces décisions. Lorsque le suspect fait une tentative de vol et qu’une infraction a été commise (comparativement à plusieurs), des accusations sont moins susceptibles d’être recommandées contre lui par la police. Cette probabilité est également moindre lorsque le suspect possède des antécédents criminels de fraude (une relation marginale a été observée). De plus, il semble que l’influence des facteurs diffère d’une étape à une autre. Un retour plus explicite sur ces résultats est effectué dans la discussion. / This study aim to better understand the attrition phenomenon in Canada. On one hand, it seeks to identify the factors that influence criminal decisions in the pursuit or stay of proceedings. On the other hand, it seeks to verify whether or not these factors are comparable at each decision-making stage. To achieve this, an analysis of various decisions that have been taken by police officers, prosecutors and judges was carried out. A total of 525 criminal cases was considered. Descriptive analyzes show that the sample consists mainly of men (77%) with no criminal history of fraud (76%). Multivariate analyzes show that legal factors are the best predictors of criminal decisions. As observed in the literature, the presence of criminal history and the seriousness of the offense appear to influence the decisions. Thereby, the attempt to steal a certain amount of money, the number of offenses committed and the presence of a criminal history of fraud appear to influence these decisions. When the suspect makes an attempt theft and an offense has been committed (compared to several), charges are less likely to be recommended against him by the police. This probability is also lower when the suspect has a criminal history of fraud (a marginal effect was observed). Moreover, it seems that the influence of factors differs from one stage to another. A more explicit return on these results is carried out in the discussion.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T20:13:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2008 Marie Therese Yaba Ndiaye.pdf: 7814625 bytes, checksum: d4eab4a0a17148cd52fe0a71238c8c15 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-08-21 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior / In 1998 Senegal passed laws that transferred authority over the management of forests to local communities. This dissertation studies the impact of this decentralization on the health of the Samba Dia and Sambande forests and the livelihoods of forest-dependent populations. I use this analysis to reflect on the broader question of the impact of decentralization on conservation and poverty alleviation. I employ temporal and spatial modes of comparison in this study with qualitative research methods. Decentalization has contained forest degradation in both areas. But while people in Samband? forest report benefits to all from the forest, in Keur Samba Dia members of one village report benefits while others decry a reduction in their benefits from the forest. I argue that the transfer of authority from a largely absent and incapable state to well-organized and knowledgeable local communities account for the containment of environmental degradation in both forests. But while the uniform use of the forest by community members has helped people in Samband? solve distributive conflicts and so universally benefit from the forest, a significant divergence in how the two villages in Keur Samba Dia exploit the forest has worsened distributive conflicts allowing the more powerful people of Yayem to benefit more but exclude the less powerful people of Samba Diallo from these new benefits. The impact of decentralization on poverty alleviation and forest health is mediated by important local factors and we should not expect it to have good effects in all areas in which it is pursued. / A descentraliza??o florestal no Senegal constitui o tema desta pesquisa. Em 1998, o Senegal promoveu novas leis florestais que transferiam as compet?ncias de gest?o das florestas para as comunidades rurais, para frear a pobreza e a degrada??o ambiental. Neste contexto, a tese investiga os impactos destas reformas nas vidas das popula??es e nas florestas. A tese tentou lidar com as duas perguntas, se ap?s a descentraliza??o: - as popula??es locais seriam capazes de manejar efetivemente as florestas e o manejo florestal comunit?rio participaria na redu??o da pobreza rural. Fiz um estudo com varia??o espacial e temporal, comparando duas florestas: Keur Samba Dia e Samband? durante dois per?odos diferentes: antes e ap?s a descentraliza??o. Antes de 1998, a gest?o das duas florestas estava sob a responsabilidade do Servi?o Florestal Nacional. Depois de 1998, as comunidades rurais se tornaram as novas autoridades na floresta Samband? enquanto que a floresta Keur Samba Dia permaneceu sob um sistema de co-manejo entre as comunidades rurais e o Estado. A pesquisa deparou com o fato de que, em ambas as florestas, os impactos ecol?gicos da descentraliza??o foram positivos, pois houve uma regenera??o florestal. Todavia, os impactos econ?micos resultantes da descentraliza??o, foram diferentes de uma floresta para outra. Na floresta de Samband?, todos os vilarejos foram beneficiados pela descentraliza??o, enquanto que na floresta de Keur Samba Dia, um vilarejo se sentiu mais prejudicado do que o outro. Estes resultados nos informam, que a participa??o popular foi ben?fica ? sa?de das florestas, mas n?o foi suficiente para que as popula??es se aproveitassem economicamente de uma floresta regenerada. A distribui??o eq?itativa, dos benef?cios econ?micos da descentraliza??o, ? mediada pela uniformidade ou formas conflituosos do uso florestal e por fatores s?cio - hist?ricos.