Michael P. Brown

Electronic House Arrest: An Examination of Citizen Attitudes

This study reports the findings of a survey of attitudes toward the use of electronic house arrest. Data are from a sample of 1,000 randomly selected households from a voter registration list in Oneida County, New York. The return rate was 56%. The results indicate strong, yet conditional support for the use of electronic telemetry to control offenders. Level of support is related to how and why electronic house arrest is used as a criminal sanction, offense seriousness, and the extent to which criminals are monitored.

Persistence to Graduation among At‐Risk Criminal Justice and Criminology Students: Experiences in Intervening with a Sophomore Cohort∗

A Seminar targeting academically at‐risk sophomores was developed and introduced in 2002 to address weak connectedness to the university and poor academic abilities. We measured changes in approaches taken to college studies by those at‐risk sophomores who enrolled in the course, as well as employed a longitudinal, quasi‐experimental design to track this experimental group (n = 29) and the remainder of the at‐risk cohort as a comparison group (n = 36). Our preliminary findings suggest that the Seminar has had a variety of positive outcomes, the most impressive impact being that the experimental group had dramatically better retention and graduation rates than the comparison group. *The Sophomore Seminar on Success would not have been possible without external support from the Lilly Foundation, Inc. to Ball State University, as well as the university’s internal decision to distribute resources necessary to offer this course. The evaluation of this course described herein also was supported in part by Ball State University’s Office of Academic Assessment and Institutional Research directed by Dr. Donald R. Whitaker. Special thanks are extended to Dr. Jacqueline Robertson, Coordinator of the Learning Center’s Study Strategies and Writing, who was instrumental in the initial design, planning, and delivery of this course.

Missouri: An examination of the relationship between the source of referral to juvenile court and severity of sentencing outcomes

Aaron Cicourel conducted research in the 1960s on youths processed by the juvenile justice system, including the referral stage. His work described complex relationships and influences that affected juvenile justice decision making. Juvenile court data from the state of Missouri are used to conduct a partial replication of Cicourel’s work, focusing on the referral stage. The present study also extends the literature by examining the influence of legal and extralegal factors on disposition decisions for five referral sources (i.e., Social Service, School, Family, Juvenile Court, and Law Enforcement). The results suggest that the referral source is related to sentence outcome. The findings are supportive of contemporary theory and highlight the importance of studying context, role responsibilities, and stereotypes that may develop out of human experiences and affect decision making at the referral and disposition stages.

Missouri Juvenile Justice Reform Act of 1995 A Comparison of Case Outcomes for 1994 and 2000

This study evaluates the intended and unintended consequences of the Missouri Juvenile Justice Reform Act of 1995. Factors related to sentence outcomes are examined prior to the Acts passage and then several years after the Act was implemented. The elimination of sex and race biases were intended goals of the Act. Although the analyses reveal mixed findings, the results clearly indicate that sex and race equity was not achieved. Some evidence suggests that judges may be taking a more retributive approach since the passage of the Reform Act, for example, not placing as much emphasis on drug/alcohol use when making sentencing decisions. Alternative explanations are offered.