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- Volume 1, 2018
Annual Review of Criminology - Volume 1, 2018
Volume 1, 2018
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Reducing Fatal Police Shootings as System Crashes: Research, Theory, and Practice
Vol. 1 (2018), pp. 421–449More LessCan fatal shootings by American police be reduced? If so, what theoretical framework would be most useful in saving more lives? What research agenda would that framework suggest? The purpose of this review is to answer those three questions. It applies the system-accident framework (Perrow 1984) as a pathway to help police agencies reduce fatal police shootings, adapting it as system-crash prevention to encompass a wider range of systemic causes of catastrophic events. In contrast to deterrence, the dominant policy perspective on reducing fatal shootings, a system-crash prevention approach applies lateral thinking (Johnson 2010) from lessons learned about airplane crashes, surgical errors, nuclear power plant meltdowns, and other rare events in complex systems. This framework spotlights the rare combinations of risk factors and errors that can produce fatal shootings, the prevention of which may need to vary widely between large and small communities. Of the 986 fatal police shootings reported nationally in 2015 (Wash. Post 2016), an estimated half occurred in cities with fewer than 50,000 residents; only a third occurred in cities over 250,000 residents (Sherman 2015), where the majority of all research on police shootings has been done. The system designs for fewer police killings in very large versus very small police agencies require a general framework for policy-relevant criminology. The framework suggested by Sampson et al. (2013) requires research to identify (a) causal mechanisms that may generally help to reduce fatal police shootings but may also have (b) heterogeneous effects that may work differently on different subpopulations or when their application is (c) contextualized in different social settings. Future research must therefore include very small communities in order to understand and help prevent the majority of all fatal police shootings.
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The Problems With Prosecutors
Vol. 1 (2018), pp. 451–469More LessMost scholarship on prosecutors in the United States is diagnostic, prescriptive, or both; the motivating questions are, What is the problem with prosecutors, and how do we fix it? Answering those questions has been difficult, in part because there are at least seven different problems with American prosecutors. Six of those problems are relatively familiar: the power of prosecutors, the discretion they exercise, the illegality in which they too often are found to have engaged, the punitive ideology that shapes many of their practices, their often-frustrating unaccountability, and organizational inertia within prosecutors’ offices. These problems intersect, so they are difficult to address separately. The seventh problem is discussed less often but may be the most basic: the ambiguity of the prosecutor's role. That problem needs to be understood as well if progress is to be made addressing the other six.
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Monetary Sanctions: Legal Financial Obligations in US Systems of Justice
Vol. 1 (2018), pp. 471–495More LessThis review assesses the current state of knowledge about monetary sanctions, e.g., fines, fees, surcharges, restitution, and any other financial liability related to contact with systems of justice, which are used more widely than prison, jail, probation, or parole in the United States. The review describes the most important consequences of the punishment of monetary sanctions in the United States, which include a significant capacity for exacerbating economic inequality by race, prolonged contact and involvement with the criminal justice system, driver's license suspension, voting restrictions, damaged credit, and incarceration. Given the lack of consistent laws and policies that govern monetary sanctions, jurisdictions vary greatly in their imposition, enforcement, and collection practices of fines, fees, court costs, and restitution. A review of federally collected data on monetary sanctions reveals that a lack of consistent and exhaustive measures of monetary sanctions presents a unique problem for tracking both the prevalence and amount of legal financial obligations (LFOs) over time. We conclude with promising directions for future research and policy on monetary sanctions.
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Forensic DNA Typing
Vol. 1 (2018), pp. 497–515More LessForensic DNA testing has rapidly become an invaluable tool for identifying suspects and proving guilt in criminal cases. But as DNA technologies evolve and databases grow, a broad range of issues concerning the science, statistics, and social policy of forensic DNA testing have surfaced. This article reviews some of the emerging challenges in the field.
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