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Welcome to CJ Access

Greetings Everyone,

As we struggle to find a solution to reduce mass shootings, discussion runs a wide gamut of proposals from gun control, to target hardening, to mental health services but will any be truly effective? Perhaps the answer lies not in focusing on our gun culture and mental health services but on our culture at large and how we perceive society and community by taking a cue from the Philippines.  For July 2022 at criminaljusticeaccess.com, in Opinions and Editorials, be sure to check out “Are we missing the discussion of anomie and its role in mass shootings?”

Welcome to Criminal Justice Access

Greetings everyone,

For November at criminaljusticeaccess.com, be sure to check out Research Briefs and explore an improved understanding of jurors’ assessment of eyewitness testimony, learn about profiling efforts to distinguish between single victim and serial rapists, understand how marijuana using mental health professionals relate risk to their marijuana using clients, and consider crime incident risk factors that support the use of tactical officers as opposed to their reported over-use.

Welcome to Criminal Justice Access

Greetings everyone,

For the month of May, at criminaljusticeaccess.com, I’ve posted 2019 UCR crime data (2020 data is not available). For 2019, the FBI summary concludes “For the third consecutive year, the estimated number of violent crimes in the nation decreased when compared with the previous year’s statistics. In 2019, violent crime was down 0.5 percent from the 2018 number. Property crimes also dropped 4.1 percent, marking the seventeenth consecutive year the collective estimates for these offenses declined. The 2019 statistics show the estimated rate of violent crime was 366.7 offenses per 100,000 inhabitants, and the estimated rate of property crime was 2,109.9 offenses per 100,000 inhabitants. The violent crime rate fell 1.0 percent when compared with the 2018 rate; the property crime rate declined 4.5 percent.”

While overall numbers and rates have declined, within the individual index crimes, data on murder shows that while they have been declining since a peak in 2016, they showed a slight increase from 2018 to 2019, comparing CIUS 2018 to 2019. However, there is a discrepancy as the 2019 CIUS states there has been a slight decrease from 2018 and references a higher number of offenses occurring in 2018 than was stated in the 2018 version. Rape offenses have been on a steady rise since 2014, though the slight increase from 2018 to 2019 is flattening the slope of the trend. Robbery offense numbers had been relatively steady from 2014 to 2016 but started to drop in 2017. That trend continues with a slight decrease in robberies from 2018 to 2019. Aggravated assault offenses having been relatively steady from 2016 to 2018 following a rise in previous years, experienced another rise between 2018 and 2019.

Burglary offenses continue their sharp decline but the decline between 2018 and 2019 was not as large as the previous two years. Larceny and theft offenses have also been on a steady decline and 2019 was no exception. Motor vehicle thefts, having been on the rise since 2014, plateaued in 2017 and declined both in 2018 and 2019. Arson as well has seen a slight decline in both 2018 and 2019.

Check out 2019 US Crime Data for more details.

Welcome to Criminal Justice Access

Greetings Everyone,

For March 2021 at CJ Access (criminaljusticeaccess.com), the accent is on sexual violence. Check out Research Briefs to gain some insight into the risk factors for child sex trafficking and exploitation, understand the link between violent cognitive frameworks and violent behavior, explore the little researched area of male sexual victimization that occurs by being forced to penetrate someone, in both its connection to intimate partner violence and in the experiences of those victimized, and finally look into whether a restorative justice approach is appropriate in sexual and family violence cases.

Welcome to Criminal Justice Access

Hello Everyone,

The current social narrative proclaims there is systemic racism in policing. While racial disparities in police interactions are well documented, disparities don’t equal discrimination and in the areas of arrest and use of force, research has shown little evidence of racial bias. Find out why in At Issue for February 2021 at criminaljusticeaccess.com where I explore whether there is evidence for systemic racial bias in policing.

Welcome to Criminal Justice Access

Welcome to the New Year everyone. This month at CJ Access check out a new policing-focused posting under Research Briefs. Find out what police officers think about body worn cameras (BWCs), what factors affect their decision to charge and arrest on stalking behaviors in domestic violence, and how likely officers are to adhere to a “blue code of silence”. Also explore a longitudinal study to see if there is any support for claims of a “war on cops”, examine the factors that increase the likelihood of injury to subjects and officers in use of force incidents, and investigate the claim that witness and suspect interview transcriptions distort and contaminate oral testimony and confessions when used in court.

Welcome to Criminal Justice Access

Greetings everyone,

While there was no posting for August, for September at CJ Access be sure to check out “Analysis of a Traffic Stop” under For Discussion, as I break down the recent traffic stop between Moorhead, MN police and a local BLM organizer. I examine what both parties did right and wrong and how adopting different behaviors and attitudes could make these encounters less confrontational. Links is provided to the dash cam videos and police reports as well.

Also under Editorials and Opinions in “A Free Cup of Coffee”, I briefly examine and critique a couple of prevalent theories regarding police corruption, the Rotten Apple Theory and the Structural (Rotten Barrel) Theory and suggest an interaction exists between the two as well as examining what remedies might exist to address police corruption.

Welcome to Criminal Justice Access

Greetings everyone,

There was no posting for June, but for July 2020, in the  Editorial and Opinion section, I question the current rush to police reform with Careful Examination Not Defunding Needed in Police Reform

Also this month in Research Briefs, discover whether formal criminal sanctions deterred or promoted future juvenile misconduct in a British twins study, understand how Adverse Childhood Trauma scores can both be used and misused in determining the needs and risks of those affected, explore the racial differences, including those of Asians and American Indians, in juvenile homicide offenders, examine the concept of “social death” as a way of understanding honor killings in Turkey, and finally, investigate how a simple Excel formula and social psychology theories may provide a framework for accurate crime hotspot forecasting

Welcome to Criminal Justice Access

Hello Everyone,

For May at CJ Access check out Editorials and Opinions where I examine whether the National Firearms Act has outlived its usefulness. Current firearms designs, the criminality, or lack thereof, associated with NFA weapons, and a faulty registration system used in prosecutions suggest it’s time to amend the National Firearms Act.

And on the Original Research front, I’m going to be starting a new research project utilizing unused data from my dissertation in an exploratory study of beat officer patrol patterns. During the ride-alongs with 59 officers, I tracked the patrol car movement throughout their patrol for approximately six hour periods. I have turn by turn directions, as well as the location in the beats for the calls for service, and self-initiated stops. I’m planning on analyzing this patrol and stop geographic and time data to examine questions such as;

Do some officers cover more area than others working the same beat and shift and is there a similarity in areas that officers think they should patrol?

How do the patrol patterns of each beat differ by shift?

Do some shifts on the beats engage in broader beat coverage and do some beats get broader coverage than others?

Determining the level of patrol based on the number of passes through areas of the beat and in areas surrounding calls for service and self-initiated stops and do officers focus their patrol closer to areas where they receive calls for service?

Data cleanup and operationalization is going to be first on the list and I’ll be providing updates as the research progresses.

Welcome to Criminal Justice Access

This month at CJ Access it’s a Research Brief roundup featuring perceptions and how we perceive crime victims, perpetrators, suspects, and the police. So, explore whether victims’ ambiguous cues and level of physical attractiveness affect the labeling of offenses as sexual assault. Investigate the way bystanders perceive sexual assault and domestic violence and the factors that influence whether they intervene. Find out if factors that typically influence perceptions of police legitimacy in large cities work the same in a medium size city and check out an international view of how lay people perceive the truthfulness of suspects’ alibis. Also in Research Briefs, look into which restrictive firearm policies, if any, may reduce the number of mass shootings and be sure to follow up with research that discusses the differences in mass violence data sources, their limitations, and potential research directions.