Tina L. Freiburger

An Examination of the Interactions of Race and Gender on Sentencing Decisions Using a Trichotomous Dependent Variable

This study examined how race, gender, and age interact to affect defendants’ sentences using a trichotomized dependent variable. The findings indicate that the racial and gender disparity found in sentencing decisions was largely due to Black men’s increased likelihood of receiving jail as opposed to probation. The results also show that being young resulted in increased odds of receiving probation over jail for White men and for women but resulted in decreased odds for Black men. Separate analysis of incarceration terms to jail and prison further reveal that legal factors had a greater impact on prison than on jail sentence length. Overall, the results strongly support the argument that sentencing research needs to consider sentences to jail and prison separately.

Examining the Impact of Race and Ethnicity on the Sentencing of Juveniles in the Adult Court

Several studies have examined the effects of race and ethnicity on the sentences of adult offenders in the criminal court. The findings of these studies often show that race and ethnicity influence defendants’ sentencing outcomes. Few studies, however, have examined how race and ethnicity influence juvenile defendants sentenced in the adult criminal justice system. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to determine how race and ethnicity affect the sentences of juveniles, utilizing a national dataset of youth convicted of a felony in adult court. The findings suggest that race and ethnicity do impact the sentencing outcomes of convicted youthful offenders. In addition, the results suggest that the combination of race and other factors (i.e., interactions) has an effect on sentencing. Implications for subsequent research also are discussed.

A Multilevel Analysis of Race on the Decision to Petition a Case in the Juvenile Court

There is a large body of research examining the impact of race on juvenile court outcomes. Fewer studies have specifically examined the decision by prosecutors to formally petition a case to the juvenile court. A much smaller body of literature statistically controls for structural level variables (e.g., population density and racial composition), while examining the impact of race. Using the symbolic threat hypothesis, the current study examines the effect of race on the decision to petition a case to the juvenile court among youths in West Virginia’s juvenile court, while controlling for both individual and structural factors. The results show that race at the individual level did not have a significant impact on odds of petition; although, percentage in poverty significantly interacted with race to increase the odds of Black youths being petitioned in areas of increased poverty. Implications of the results are further discussed.

Status Offenders in the Juvenile Court The Effects of Gender, Race, and Ethnicity on the Adjudication Decision

Prior research has suggested that female status offenders are often treated more harshly than male status offenders in juvenile court processing. This finding is often explained by the traditional role perspective which suggests that the juvenile court is attempting to protect the sexuality of girls. In addition, there is theoretical and empirical evidence that the effect of gender may vary by race/ethnicity. This study examines the joint effects of gender and race/ethnicity in the adjudication of status offenders. The findings suggests that Native American boys are the most likely to be adjudicated followed by Black girls and Hispanic girls. Examination of the treatment of girls separately found that White females were the least likely to be adjudicated and Hispanic girls were significantly more likely than White girls to be adjudicated. For males, Native Americans, followed by Hispanic males, were the most likely to be adjudicated. Implications of the results are further discussed.

Off-Duty and Under Arrest A Study of Crimes Perpetuated by Off-Duty Police

The findings of independent commissions and research derived from a data set of career-ending misconduct among New York Police Department (NYPD) officers suggests that police engage in a wide variety of crimes while they are off duty including domestic violence, bar fights, drunk driving, burglary, and sex offenses (Fyfe & Kane, 2006; Kane & White, 2009; Mollen Commission, 1994). The off-duty misbehavior of police is an important concern for police agencies exposed to potential liability costs, and scholars engaged in debates about whether studies on police deviance should include acts committed while an officer is technically off duty. The problem for scholars interested in understanding off-duty police misconduct is that virtually all of the existing data describes the misbehavior of NYPD police. The purpose of the current study is to explore the nature and character of off-duty police crime in the United States through a content analysis of news articles on arrested off-duty police officers. Data are presented in terms of the arrested off-duty officer(s), his or her agency, and case outcomes including legal and/or employment dispositions. The article includes a discussion regarding the generalizability of existing data on off-duty police crime and the policy implications of our research.

Exit Strategy: An Exploration of Late-Stage Police Crime

There are no exhaustive statistics available on the crimes committed by law enforcement officers, and only a small number of studies provide specific data on police crimes. The purpose of the current study is to examine the character of police arrests known to the media. Cases were identified through a content analysis of news coverage using the Internet-based GoogleTM News search engine and its Google Alerts search tool. The study focuses on the crimes committed by experienced officers who are approaching retirement. The occurrence of these late-stage crimes presents a challenge to existing assumptions regarding the relationship between experience and various forms of police misconduct and also provides an opportunity to examine a stage of the police career that has not been the subject of much research. The article concludes with an identification of research and policy implications and includes a discussion regarding how our data should be interpreted within the context of existing studies on police socialization and the production of misconduct.

The Impact of Race, Gender, and Age on the Pretrial Decision

There is an abundance of studies that examine judicial discretion in the final sentencing stages; however, few have examined discretion in the early stages of court decisions. Pretrial release is especially concerning as it has been strongly correlated with a final sentence of incarceration and deprives defendants of their freedom. This study examined whether race, gender, and age influence judges’ decisions to detain or release a defendant prior to trial. The results indicate that females and younger defendants were less likely to be detained. Race was not significant after economic variables were included. When examining males and females separately, race was significant for females, with Black females being the least likely to be detained. For White females, White males, and Black males, offenders aged 30—39 were more likely to be detained than their younger counterparts. Younger and older White females were not significantly more likely to be detained than their Black female counterparts.

Policing possession of child pornography online: Investigating the training and resources dedicated to the investigation of cyber crime

The internet is not a single network, limited to one specific type of information or restrictive of the types of users who can access its information. Conversely, the internet is an intercontinental information highway that has enabled people of all ages to communicate with family and friends with lightning-fast speed, share and collect information, and connect with people and companies thousands of miles from their computer (Roberts, Foehr, Rideout, & Brodie, 1999; Rosenbaum et al., 2000; Smith & Rupp, 2002). However, this growth of information technology has introduced a new form of criminality to the criminal justice system: cyber crime (Denning, 1998). The purpose of this research study is to investigate the prevalence of cyber criminality, specifically possession of child pornography, in law enforcement jurisdictions and the types of training which local and State law enforcement agencies currently offer to effectively combat these technological crimes.

Alcohol outlets, social disorganization, and robberies: accounting for neighborhood characteristics and alcohol outlet types.

We estimated spatially lagged regression and spatial regime models to determine if the variation in total, on-premise, and off-premise alcohol outlet(1) density is related to robbery density, while controlling for direct and moderating effects of social disorganization.(2) Results suggest that the relationship between alcohol outlet density and robbery density is sensitive to the measurement of social disorganization levels. Total alcohol outlet density and off-premise alcohol outlet density were significantly associated with robbery density when social disorganization variables were included separately in the models. However, when social disorganization levels were captured as a four item index, only the association between off-premise alcohol outlets and robbery density remained significant. More work is warranted in identifying the role of off-premise alcohol outlets and their characteristics in robbery incidents.

The Effect of Race/Ethnicity on Sentencing: Examining Sentence Type, Jail Length, and Prison Length

The purpose of this research was to examine the impact of race/ethnicity on criminal sentencing outcomes. The findings from prior studies tend to be mixed on this issue. Using 4 years of data from the State Court Processing Statistics (2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006) and propensity score matching, we examined the impact of race/ethnicity on sentencing outcomes among Blacks, Hispanics, and Whites. The findings suggest that racial/ethnic biases occur in the sentence type (community sanction, jail, or prison) and jail length decisions though not in the prison length decision. It is important to separate jail length and prison length when examining incarceration time. Combining the 2 distinct sentences may confound the true impact of factors on these outcomes.