This paper examines the dynamics of relation fraud that resulted in the murder of a grandparent by her grandson. While such instances are admittedly rare as forms of both murder and fraud more generally, this unique case nonetheless demonstrates that relation fraud resulting in murder is a significant problem worthy of further systematic empirical examination. In particular, Cressey’s Fraud Triangle is applied through a process of inductive analytic reasoning to explain the motivations of a grandson who defrauded and then killed his grandmother for her estate money in order to pay off escort debts and make plans for a new financial life post-murder. The paper contributes to the use of fraud typologies, relation fraud, the Fraud Triangle, elder crime victimology, and the use of analytic induction in theory development and refinement.

Drawing on Kuhn's concept of paradigm shift, we lay out the growth of "true crime," how students consume true crime information, and how true crime may fundamentally alter and change the discipline of criminal justice. True crime is the catalyst that is now fostering a paradigm change within the criminal justice scientific community. We will also explore the ramifications of the paradigm change for curriculum, student interest and career preparation, and for the professoriate.

Inmate politics in prisons has been well chronicled. Yet, little is known about the role of inmate politics in county jails. Utilizing data from a natural experiment and complied through longitudinal case study methods, this study observed the dynamic socio-political concepts of the county jail inmate environment that followed California's 2011 sentencing reform. Identifying those aspects of the jail inmate political system that shifted – enhancements in the role of race relations among inmates, an expansion of the inmate economy, and emergence of utilitarian violence – also permits a clearer understanding of the jail inmate political system.

Whether racial bias is intertwined with capital case dispositions continue to be a matter of contention. In 1972, Furman v. Georgia ruled capital punishment unconstitutional on the grounds of being capricious and arbitrary. To better understand this sociological phenomenon, the current paper examines capital punishment within a historical context. Specifically, the present study is an exploratory examination of county-level data consisting of offenders who received a death sentence between 1923 through 1972. Media accounts from a Dallas newspaper during that time period were also examined. Results indicate that Blacks were disproportionately sentenced to death compared to their White counterparts. Capital sentencing trends at the county level reflect national trends of racial bias that characterized this historical period.

This essay reviews the evolution of US procedures for detecting and investigating crimes and other rule infractions committed by inmates during confinement, their apprehension, determination of guilt, and opportunities for appeal. Special attention is paid to due process considerations and how these procedures have evolved since the inmate rights movement. The importance and effectiveness of disciplinary review boards are discussed. Possible biases in these procedures and inmates’ perceptions of bias are also considered in terms of how they might influence cynicism toward legal authority. An overview of possible sanctions imposed upon determinations of guilt is provided along with discussion of how these sanctions vary across facilities based on crowding and other resource constraints.

Technological advances have enabled criminal justice organizations to collect and share offender data. Accompanying these advances are concerns about how various segments of the criminal justice system utilize these data. Specifically, scholars have expressed concerns about the legal consequences of being included in gang databases. This study explored the use of gang affiliation indicators on prosecutorial outcomes by using a sample of 5,111 urban juvenile cases. Using three binary measures of gang affiliation, multinomial logistic regression analysis suggested indicators of gang affiliation influenced prosecutorial outcomes (dismissal, pre-adjudication informal supervision, deferred prosecution, or petition), but in an unanticipated manner. Confirmed gang affiliates, instead of suspected or non-gang affiliates, were significantly more likely to experience pre-adjudication informal supervision over other forms of case outcomes: case dismissal, deferred prosecution, or court petition. Policy implications focus on the inter-connectedness of the criminal justice system.

Purpose: This study explored the effects of prison depopulation on local jail violence through a general systems perspective - where an abrupt shift in the processing of offenders had the potential to create ripple effects through other organizations - of the criminal justice system.Methods: In 2011, California passed the Criminal Justice Realignment legislation aimed to reduce prison population by making low-level felony offenders ineligible for state incarceration and diverting those already in state prison for the included offenses from state to county-level community supervision once paroled. This study incorporated bivariate and negative binomial regression analyses to model officially-recorded county jail panel data to estimate the effects of state prison depopulation on California county jails.Results: Findings demonstrated support for the general systems framework as there was a significant decrease in jail utility in the bivariate analysis and a significant increase in jail violence in the multivariate analysis associated with passage of California's prison depopulation legislation.Conclusions: The results supported the notion of an interconnected criminal justice system. Policy implications include the consequences of increased violence on jail operations, the potential for a cadre of habitual offenders, and generalizing these findings to the community. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This study examined individual and work-level factors that impact job stress and satisfaction for correctional officers. Existing research has explored officer job stress and satisfaction, but very few studies have focused specifically on fear of contracting an infectious disease while at work (HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, and tuberculosis), and the impact fear of and exposure to infectious disease have on correctional officer job stress and satisfaction. Random sample data were collected from 2,999 male and female officers from across the state of Texas to assess job stress, satisfaction, personal safety, and exposure to infectious disease. Ordinary Least Squares analyses indicated that fear of disease was positively correlated with job stress, and inversely correlated with job satisfaction. Exposure to disease however, failed to yield any significant effects on job stress or satisfaction. Officers who felt that their supervisors were supportive of them on the job reported less stress and higher satisfaction levels, while perceived dangerousness of the job was positively correlated with job stress. These findings highlight the importance of supervisory support as well as continuous, in-depth education and training on infectious diseases for officers.

This study examined the impact of victim, offender, and case characteristics on the decision to accept cases of child maltreatment for prosecution. Data were collected over a 2-year period from a large southern Children’s Advocacy Center, and the final sample consisted of 467 substantiated cases of child sexual abuse, physical abuse, and neglect. Logistic regression results indicated that sexual abuse cases were significantly more likely to be accepted for prosecution compared to physical abuse and neglect. Additionally, cases involving female victims and male offenders were more likely to be moved forward. When each type of maltreatment was examined separately, logistic regression results indicated that victim and offender age significantly impacted the decision to prosecute sexual abuse cases. Offender gender and age, as well as availability of medical evidence predicted physical abuse case acceptance, and offender gender and frequency of maltreatment significantly impacted prosecutorial decision making for cases of neglect.

National estimates have suggested that less than one-in-five arsons are cleared by arrest. Interestingly, juveniles account for nearly 50% of arson arrests, a proportion greater than all other non-status offenses. While the criminological literature on juvenile arson has been fairly consistent, a dearth of applied criminological literature has observed how the juvenile justice system responds to arsonists. Drawing on data on more than 5,000 juveniles from a large southern state, this study was able to differentiate between the system responses for arsonists and other felons. The findings suggested that the juvenile justice system distinguished between arsonists and other felons in some respects, but these distinctions failed to align with the suggested approaches of the criminological literature.

The importation model is a venerable theoretical explanation for inmate misconduct but it has not been extended in nearly 50 years. The current study advances a life course importation model of inmate behavior where life events in childhood cascade to predict antisocial behavior during adolescence and misconduct occurring during periods of confinement. Based on data from 2,520 institutionalized male delinquents, ordinary least squares, logistic, and negative binomial regression models indicated that family background variables were largely predictive of multiple facets of delinquent careers. Negative binomial regression models of institutional misconduct indicated that proximal delinquent career variables were more consistently associated with misconduct than distal family background factors. Because institutional behavior can be understood as the importing of family deprivation experiences and chronic delinquency, the life course importation model is a useful conceptual framework to study crime over the life course, even including periods of confinement.

In the juvenile justice literature, deep-end interventions such as commitment to a confinement facility are reserved for the most severe delinquents but unfortunately have been shown to have negative consequences. The current study repurposes juvenile confinement within a criminal career context to empirically examine its role in homicide offending based on data from a sample of 445 male, adult habitual criminals. Poisson regression models indicated that juvenile confinement— measured both dimensionally and categorically—predicted murder arrests despite controls for juvenile homicide offending, juvenile violent delinquency, juvenile felony adjudications, juvenile non-compliance violations, juvenile arrest charges, onset, age, three racial/ethnic classifications, career arrests, career violent index arrests, and career property index arrests. Receiver operating characteristics—area under the curve (ROC-AUC) graphs showed that juvenile confinement predicted murder significantly but modestly better than chance although career violent offending was the strongest predictor of murder perpetration.

Boundary violations via inappropriate behaviors committed by correctional staff can cause many problems for prison administrators. This study examines gender differences in inmate perceptions of staff boundary violations. Findings revealed male inmates were significantly more supportive of officers' boundary violations. Younger inmates, Hispanic inmates, and those that had completed high school were also more supportive of staff inappropriate behavior. It is recommended that officers adopt a ofirm but fairo orientation to deal with inmates and, within that framework, use gendered strategies to better interact with and empower women inmates. It is also suggested that agencies adopt effective measures to train staff and educate inmates regarding boundary violations.

The importation model is a venerable theoretical explanation for inmate misconduct but it has not been extended in nearly 50 years. The current study advances a life course importation model of inmate behavior where life events in childhood cascade to predict antisocial behavior during adolescence and misconduct occurring during periods of confinement. Based on data from 2,520 institutionalized male delinquents, ordinary least squares, logistic, and negative binomial regression models indicated that family background variables were largely predictive of multiple facets of delinquent careers. Negative binomial regression models of institutional misconduct indicated that proximal delinquent career variables were more consistently associated with misconduct than distal family background factors. Because institutional behavior can be understood as the importing of family deprivation experiences and chronic delinquency, the life course importation model is a useful conceptual framework to study crime over the life course, even including periods of confinement.