Emotions are omnipresent in any court of law. In this short take, I suggest applying the Articulated Thought in Simulated Situations (ATSS) paradigm as a useful addition to supplement methodologies like interviewing and observations. ATSS, which originated in social sciences to study cognitive--behavioral topics, can be easily adapted for use in…

The role of emotion in the context of virtual reality learning environments (VRLEs) has lately received increased attention, though there is a gap in the research on VRLEs in criminal justice. The current study examines the impact of a virtual reality experience that focuses on mental illness occurring in those within the criminal justice system.…

This study examined the prevalence and types of criminal justice content being offered in Council on Social Work Education programs. Data were collected through questions sent via e-mail to program administrators and content analysis of school websites for three hundred and eight MSW programs. Criminal justice content was measured in three main…

XR technology (an umbrella term that incorporates virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and in some opinions, 360 immersive video) offers considerable potential for supporting learning in the criminal justice sector. The use of XR can allow students and trainees to experience hard-to-reach, risky and dangerous…

Across two experimental studies, we investigated the role of information loss, contextual information, and distinctive features of fingerprints on novice's ability to judge whether two fingerprints came from the same source. Distinctive fingerprints resulted in more accurate decisions. Information loss diminished performance on the comparison…

A small university in rural Texas explored developing a criminal justice bachelor's degree curriculum through the lens of perspective transformation focusing on humanity courses, resulting in a paradigm shift away from a traditional criminal justice baccalaureate degree curriculum. This article addresses the university's journey in developing the…

Thirty-one U.S. states have laws that may result in students being arrested for misbehavior in school that is often considered a low-level rule violation. The problems with these laws include the vagueness and subjectivity of the language of the law. As a result, the enforcement of such laws has been criticized as being discriminatory, especially…

Cybersecurity has become increasingly important not only in the technology sector but in criminal justice professions as well, and significant challenges have arisen as a result. However, these challenges are not well discussed in the literature. To address this gap, and to study the cybersecurity trends impacting criminal justice professionals…

The analysis of competing hypotheses (ACH) has been suggested to be a method that can protect against confirmation bias in the context of intelligence analysis. In the current study, we aimed to determine whether ACH could counter confirmation bias in the reasoning with evidence in the context of criminal law proceedings. Law students (N = 191)…

Curriculum mapping can be used to visualize, align, and assess the ability of online degree program graduates to meet stated learning outcomes (Rawle et al., 2017). Though consensus has yet to be established on standardized outcomes for curriculum in some disciplines (e.g., criminal justice), educators remain in charge of preparing current and…

We develop a novel application of machine learning and apply it to the interview transcripts from the American Voices Project (N = 1,396), using discourse atom topic modeling to explore social class variation in the centrality of family in adults' lives. We take a two-phase approach, first analyzing transcripts at the person level and then at the…

In this study, we examine how the issue of considering criminal history in college admissions is represented and constructed as a problem in Ban the Box (BTB) policies in Maryland and Louisiana. We draw on Bacchi's "What's the Problem Represented to be?" approach as an analytic tool to interrogate key policy artifacts such as legislative…

This paper probes whether a formal college education is linked to the quality of policing. Citizens desire a higher level of professionalism with ever-increasing demands placed on their police departments. Annual on-the-job training for police is common with proposed reform initiatives, however, the difference between police training and requiring…

Background: Between 70 million and 100 million Americans have a record of interaction with the criminal legal system, a group facing stigma and discrimination in civic participation, housing, employment, and education. Justice-impacted people face collateral consequences in the community, making reentry programs essential to success at…

Monetary sanctions, also known as legal financial obligations (LFOs), are a highly consequential yet underexplored element of the criminal legal system. LFOs consist of fines, fees, costs, restitution, surcharges, and other financial penalties that are imposed on individuals when they encounter the criminal legal system. Drawing on data from a…