Bureau Of Justice Statistics Research Articles

The validity of open-source data when assessing jail suicides

The Bureau of Justice Statistics’ Deaths in Custody Reporting Program is the primary source for jail suicide research, though the data is restricted from general dissemination. This study is the first to examine whether jail suicide data obtained from publicly available sources can help inform our understanding of this serious public health problem. Of the 304 suicides that were reported through the DCRP in 2009, roughly 56 percent (N = 170) of those suicides were identified through the open-source search protocol. Each of the sources was assessed based on how much information was collected on the incident and the types of variables available. A descriptive analysis was then conducted on the variables that were present in both data sources. The four variables present in each data source were: (1) demographic characteristics of the victim, (2) the location of occurrence within the facility, (3) the location of occurrence by state, and (4) the size of the facility. Findings demonstrate that the prevalence and correlates of jail suicides are extremely similar in both open-source and official data. However, for almost every variable measured, open-source data captured as much information as official data did, if not more. Further, variables not found in official data were identified in the open-source database, thus allowing researchers to have a more nuanced understanding of the situational characteristics of the event. This research provides support for the argument in favor of including open-source data in jail suicide research as it illustrates how open-source data can be used to provide additional information not originally found in official data. In sum, this research is vital in terms of possible suicide prevention, which may be directly linked to being able to manipulate environmental factors.

The validity of open-source data when assessing jail suicides

BackgroundThe Bureau of Justice Statistics’ Deaths in Custody Reporting Program is the primary source for jail suicide research, though the data is restricted from general dissemination. This study is the first to examine whether jail suicide data obtained from publicly available sources can help inform our understanding of this serious public health problem.MethodsOf the 304 suicides that were reported through the DCRP in 2009, roughly 56 percent (N = 170) of those suicides were identified through the open-source search protocol. Each of the sources was assessed based on how much information was collected on the incident and the types of variables available. A descriptive analysis was then conducted on the variables that were present in both data sources. The four variables present in each data source were: (1) demographic characteristics of the victim, (2) the location of occurrence within the facility, (3) the location of occurrence by state, and (4) the size of the facility.ResultsFindings demonstrate that the prevalence and correlates of jail suicides are extremely similar in both open-source and official data. However, for almost every variable measured, open-source data captured as much information as official data did, if not more. Further, variables not found in official data were identified in the open-source database, thus allowing researchers to have a more nuanced understanding of the situational characteristics of the event.ConclusionsThis research provides support for the argument in favor of including open-source data in jail suicide research as it illustrates how open-source data can be used to provide additional information not originally found in official data. In sum, this research is vital in terms of possible suicide prevention, which may be directly linked to being able to manipulate environmental factors.

State Criminal Appeals Revealed

Every state provides appellate review of criminal judgments, yet little research examines which factors correlate with favorable outcomes for defendants who seek appellate relief. To address this scholarly gap, this paper exploits the Survey of Criminal Appeals in State Courts (2010) dataset, recently released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National Center for State Courts (hereinafter, “NCSC Study”). The NCSC Study is the first and only publicly available national dataset on state criminal appeals and includes unprecedented information from every state court in the nation with jurisdiction to review criminal judgments. We focus on two subpools of state criminal appeals: a defendant’s first appeal of right, and defense appeals to courts of last resort with the discretion to grant or deny review. Error correction, of course, is paramount in the first context, for typically an appeal of right is a defendant’s only chance at review. By contrast, courts of last resort with discretionary jurisdiction emphasize law development, selecting cases to clarify or alter legal rules, resolve conflicts, and remedy the most egregious mistakes. Our findings imply that defense appellate success rates may have declined in recent decades. In appeals of right, defendants who challenge a sentence enjoy a greater likelihood of success, as do those who have legal representation, file a reply brief or secure oral argument, and appellants from Florida. In high courts of last resort, appeals from sex offenses, raising certain trial issues, and appellants represented by publicly funded attorneys appear to fare better than others. Also notable is the absence of a relationship between defense success and factors including most crime types and claims raised, the court’s workload, and, for all but one model, whether the appellate judges were selected by election.

Women Beyond Bars: A Post-Prison Interview with Jennifer Claypool and Wendy Staggs

Jennifer Claypool and Wendy Staggs are inspiring artists, college students, and mothers. They are also returning citizens. Coming home from prison just months apart in 2017, we met and began working together while they were incarcerated at the oldest women’s prison in the state: the California Institution for Women (CIW), [1] a prison reported to have a suicide rate five times the state average and eight times the national average.[2] Women are the fastest growing population behind bars in the United States. Between 1970 and 2015, the number of women behind bars grew from under 8000 to almost 110,000—a fourteen-fold increase primarily for drug related crimes.[3] In 2015, I joined the faculty of the UCLA and worked with incarcerated and university students, faculty, staff, and a dozen community partner organizations, to launch the UCLA Prison Education Program. By the following spring, I taught the university’s first pilot course at CIW.This interview focuses on the experiences of two women I met while teaching at CIW during the first year of the Prison Education Program. Jennifer, Wendy, and I worked together with a group of visionary, incarcerated women to develop the CIW Think Tank—a committee of women at the prison committed to guiding UCLA in the development of educational opportunities.[4] At least 95 percent of those incarcerated in state prisons in the United States will return to society.[5] Evidence overwhelmingly suggests education is a leading factor keeping those who come home from prison from ever returning to the inside of a cell.[6] [1]. The current facility was built in 1952 with 1,398 beds. Today, it incarcerates over 1,800 women. Division of Internal Oversight and Research & Office of Research, Weekly Report of Population as of Midnight October 10, 2018, Cal. Dep’t of Corrections & Rehabilitation, https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/Reports_Research/Offender_Information_Services_Branch/WeeklyWed/TPOP1A/TPOP1Ad181010.pdf [https://perma.cc/BT6X-84EE]; Don Chaddock, Unlocking History: Original Tehachapi Women’s Prison was Novel in Approach, Inside CDCR (Feb. 13, 2015), https://www.insidecdcr.ca.gov/2015/02/unlocking-history-ciw-tehachapi. [2]. Hillel Aron, Why Are So Many Inmates Attempting Suicide at the California Institution for Women?, L.A. Weekly (July 20, 2016, 8:08 AM), http://www.laweekly.com/news/why-are-so-many-inmates-attempting-suicide-at-the-california-institution-for-women-7156615. [3]. Elizabeth Swavola, et al., Vera Inst. of Justice & Safety & Justice Challenge, Overlooked: Women and Jails in an Era of Reform 6 (2016), https://storage.googleapis.com/vera-web-assets/downloads/Publications/overlooked-women-and-jails-report/legacy_downloads/overlooked-women-and-jails-report-updated.pdf; TRT World, Route 66: Who Is benefitting from California’s Cannabis ‘Green Rush’?, YouTube (Mar. 6, 2018), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBPCrSV9jp4&sns=em. [4]. See Appendix B, infra, for information on a project by the CIW Think Tank. [5]. Timothy Hughes & Doris James Wilson, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Reentry Trends in the U.S. (2018), https://www.bjs.gov/content/reentry/reentry.cfm [https://perma.cc/D3T8-F39K]. [6]. Debbie Mukamal et. al., Stanford Criminal Justice Ctr. & Chief Justice Earl Warren Inst. on Law & Soc. Policy, Degrees of Freedom: Expanding College Opportunities for Currently and Formerly Incarcerated Californians 1 (2015), https://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/DegreesofFreedom2015_FullReport.pdf.

Organizational and environmental determinants of ballistics imaging productivity in United States crime laboratories

This study employs a structural contingency theory framework to assess the influence of the formal organizational structure of crime laboratories and their environments, on the productivity of labs’ ballistics imaging systems. We contribute to the nascent evolution of organizational focus in forensics while exploring different ways in which overall lab performance can be conceptualized. We analyze data provided by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) National Integrated Ballistics Information Network (NIBIN), and data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Census of Publicly Funded Forensic Crime Laboratories, 2009. Three Negative Binomial models regressed the organizational and environmental variables on the productivity of crime labs, operationalized as their ability to produce bullet, brass, and total hits. Results indicate that in addition to the number of bullet and brass inputs, local labs are more productive in identifying ballistics imaging hits. Additionally, larger labs with a greater proportion of firearms requests and the ability to process those requests produce more hits. Although the current research did not find that organizational structure significantly predicted labs’ productivity, the importance of the population of bullet and brass inputs was clearly evident. Additionally, jurisdiction plays a vital role in the production of hits.

New Explorations of Data on Prison and Postconfinement Supervision Experiences

ABSTRACTAs part of a recent redesign, postconviction community supervision (PCCS) data was expanded in the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ (BJS) National Corrections Reporting Program (NCRP). The individual-level, multistate design of the NCRP data allow researchers to study the behavior of released offenders supervised in the community in a manner that was not previously possible. This article demonstrates the NCRP’s utility by providing novel descriptions of supervision populations. The purpose of this article is to inspire researchers to consider how these data might be applied in their own research. Descriptive statistics and data descriptions are provided as illustrations to generate discussion about future data use as BJS continues to expand the PCCS coverage across states and over time.

Comprehensive Histological and Immunochemical Forensic Studies in Deaths Occurring in Custody.

In-custody deaths have several causes, and these include homicide, suicide, natural death from chronic diseases, and unexplained death possibly related to acute stress, asphyxia, excited delirium, and drug intoxication. In some instances, these deaths are attributed to undefined accidents and natural causes even though there is no obvious natural cause apparent after investigation. Understanding these deaths requires a comprehensive investigation, including documentation of circumstances surrounding the death, review of past medical history, drug and toxicology screens, and a forensic autopsy. These autopsies may not always clearly explain the death and reveal only nonspecific terminal events, such as pulmonary edema or cerebral edema. There are useful histologic and biochemical signatures which identify asphyxia, stress cardiomyopathy, and excited delirium. Identifying these causes of death requires semiquantitative morphologic and biochemical studies. We have reviewed recent Bureau of Justice Statistics on in-custody death, case series, and morphological and biochemical studies relevant to asphyxia, stress cardiomyopathy, and excited delirium and have summarized this information. We suggest that regional centers should manage the investigation of these deaths to provide more comprehensive studies and to enhance the expertise of forensic pathologists who would routinely manage potentially complex and difficult cases.

Where is the US Hepatitis C Epidemic *Now*? Putting the “Pen” on the Map as Elimination Efforts Hunt for Remaining Cases.

Background Hepatitis C disease (hepC) is unevenly distributed both by geography and subpopulation. Our 2013 US prisons survey led to an estimate of 17.4% anti-HCV prevalence in 2006. The 10M persons who pass through jails and prisons each year bear 30–50% of disease burden, but are excluded from traditional sources of surveillance data, such as NHANES. CDC estimates 50% of persons with hepC lack knowledge of infection in life, thus death data are also imperfect. Data for corrections would enrich understanding of geographic representation of hepC.Methods In 11/2016, we surveyed state prison medical directors, providers and testers, for data on non-targeted screening of prisoners between 2010 -2016. Non-responders were phoned for information. Sizes of state prison populations came from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Via published reports, we obtained data on jail prevalence. Estimates of the contribution to the national hepC in prison epidemic came from weighting the size of the prison population of the states with prevalence data.ResultsAs the map (Figure 1) shows, 50% of contiguous states performed non-targeted screening for anti-HCV prevalence in corrections. States with either jail or prison data held 65% of all state prisoners. Seroprevalence ranged from 7.5% to 39.7%. The 2015 prevalence in state prisoners nationwide, weighting by population size, was 18%. Prevalence in states has fluctuated substantially. (Figure 2)Conclusion Data from penitentiaries allow us to estimate an 18% prison anti-HCV prevalence nationwide, which varies by state and time. Better checks for uniformity in reporting in the future, such as how known positives are handled, would improve data quality. Correctional systems that routinely screen provide real-time data on new trends in hepC distribution, which will help ongoing efforts to treat and eliminate hepC. Such data could improve estimates based on NHANES and death data. Over 99% of persons entering jails and prisons leave, so the correctional epidemic closely influences the community epidemic. Adding hepC data from the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which tests persons entering from every state, will further inform our understanding of the changing geographic distribution of hepC, and, by proxy, the underlying opioid epidemic.Disclosures A. C. Spaulding, Gilead Science: Grant Investigator and Scientific Advisor, Consulting fee and Research grant.

Four Ways Forward

This is an evaluation and analysis of attrition in South Carolina police departments. The purpose of the report is to gain clarity on possible causes of attrition and offer potential approaches to mitigating and/or eliminating a current and future issue that may have adverse implications on both quantitative and qualitative services rendered by departments across South Carolina. It then proposes four ways in which departments might be capable of increasing their recruitment to restore legitimacy. This analysis is based on data from two surveys-the Law Enforcement Management and Administration Statistics and Census of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies surveys-collected and made available by the US Bureau of Justice Statistics between 2007 and 2013. Three measures of attrition are used: (1) retention/attrition rates, (2) replacement rates, (3) and civilian-to-officer ratios. Additionally, demographic representation is also examined (e.g. female, minority or nonwhite, educational background, pay rates, etc.). Tables containing this information can be found in the appendix.

Sexual victimization perpetrated by women: Federal data reveal surprising prevalence

Abstract This article examines female sexual perpetration in the U.S. To do so, we analyzed data from four large-scale federal agency surveys conducted independently by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2008 through 2013. We found these data to contradict the common belief that female sexual perpetration is rare. We therefore reviewed the broader literature to identify patterns and provide context, including among high-risk populations such as college students and inmates. We recommend that professionals responding to this problem avoid gender stereotypes that downplay the frequency and impact of female sexual perpetration so as to comprehensively address sexual victimization in all forms.

Estimating the determinants of arrest-related deaths at the state level

ABSTRACTThe purpose of the present study is to ascertain the determinants of arrest-related deaths (ARDs) at the state level. ARDs are civilian deaths that occurred during or shortly after an arrest or detention by state or local law enforcement. These deaths may be attributed to a variety of factors, including use of force by police, injuries sustained when attempting to elude police, self-inflicted injuries and medical conditions. Using data compiled by the Bureau of Justice Statistics for the period 2003–2009 and employing a Poisson regression model, the results of the present study suggest that race is not statistically related to ARDs. Hence, the percentage of a state’s population that is African-American has no effect on ARDs. The factors found to be most significantly related to ARDs include the gun-related murder rate, the percentage of the state population that is under the age of 35, population density and police per capita. All were found to be positively related to ARDs. This study is one of the first studies that examines the determinants of state-level ARDs, and this study is one of the few studies on ARDs that finds that race is not a factor in ARDs

The Role of Capacity and Problem Severity in Adopting Voluntary Intergovernmental Partnerships

Literature on intergovernmental partnerships suggests the importance of several factors including organizational resources, capacity, and problem severity in understanding the adoption of these partnerships. This research improves our understanding about the adoption of intergovernmental partnerships by examining tribal and nontribal governments that adopted voluntary agreements to improve the administration of justice. Using data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, this research examines how socioeconomic conditions, problem severity, and law enforcement authority influence the adoption of partnership agreements between tribal and nontribal law enforcement. The results suggest that tribes that adopt partnerships have better socioeconomic conditions; nontribal actors have lower levels of authority and higher occurrences of violent crime. The presence of Indian gaming also increases the likelihood of adopting cooperative agreements. The results of this study provide an important insight into understanding intergovernmental cooperation in general and what drives cooperation between native and surrounding non-native communities in particular.

Pattern of law enforcement-related injuries in the United States.

The pattern of law enforcement-related injuries of police and civilians in the United States is unknown. Data were aggregated from the Federal Bureau of Investigations, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System, and the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) from 2003 to 2011. Law enforcement-related injuries in the CDC Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System and the NIS were identified using E-codes 970-976, which are meant to identify "injuries inflicted by the police or other law-enforcing agents, including military on duty, in the course of arresting or attempting to arrest lawbreakers, suppressing disturbances, maintaining order, and other legal action." The CDC reported a total of 715,118 nonfatal injuries and 3,156 fatal injuries from 2003 to 2011. In contrast, for the same period, the NIS identified a total of 3,958 patients, ranging from 348 to 572 per year. Among the injured, 1,548 (48.0%) were white, 866 were black (26.8%), and 605 were Hispanic (18.8%); 1,011 patients (25.5%) were injured by firearms, while 2,304 (58.2%) experienced blows or manhandling. Firearm-injured hospitalized patients are more likely to be male, black or Hispanics, and in the age group of 18 years to 39 years. The majority of law enforcement-related injuries are among white or black young men. Hispanic patients are more likely to be injured by a firearm than struck. When injured by firearm, white and black patients are more likely to die compared with Hispanic patients. Unfortunately, data about these injuries are scattered across multiple data systems. A uniform national system to aggregate these data sources is needed to better understand the scope of the problem, for both law enforcement personnel and civilians. Epidemiologic study, level III.

Hardships Children face in the United States of America by Having a Parent in Prison: How to Help Them! A Program Proposal

This is a qualitative study examining research that has previously investigated the impact the incarceration of parents has on children in the United States of America. The study will explore root causes and causality outcomes for youth behaviors, on a psychological and child development level, by examining data, results and findings from multiple journal articles related to this topic and documenting patterns, commonalities, differences and/or connections that may define why children often develop so many challenging outcomes. The research questions are, (1) why children who have an incarcerated parent are characterized to produce so many negative outcomes, such as emotional, learning and behavioral challenges; what do developmental theories say about this? (2) What will be the best program implementation design to aid effectively in reducing negative outcomes, among youth who have a parent in prison? The data analysis will include statistical reviews from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) to help determine whether this issue is significantly prevalent to warrant societal or governmental intervention. The conclusion will include critical areas (on children and caregivers) any program should address, when implementing programs to help the population of youth dealing with having a parent in prison. Children of Promise, NYC, is an organization specifically designed to work with children having parents in prison and will also be evaluated. In addition, the findings and suggestions are beneficial for social service organizations looking for possible strategies and buffers that can support healthy youth development and assist and/or minimize resulting emotional and psychological hurdles.

Toward a Demographic Understanding of Incarceration Disparities: Race, Ethnicity, and Age Structure.

Objectives Non-Hispanic blacks and Hispanics in the United States are more likely to be incarcerated than non-Hispanic whites. The risk of incarceration also varies with age, and there are striking differences in age distributions across racial/ethnic groups. Guided by these trends, the present study examines the extent to which differences in age structure account for incarceration disparities across racial and ethnic groups.MethodsWe apply two techniques commonly employed in the field of demography, age-standardization and decomposition, to data provided by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the 2010 decennial census to assess the contribution of age structure to racial and ethnic disparities in incarceration.FindingsThe non-Hispanic black and Hispanic incarceration rates in 2010 would have been 13–20 % lower if these groups had age structures identical to that of the non-Hispanic white population. Moreover, age structure accounts for 20 % of the Hispanic/white disparity and 8 % of the black/white disparity.ConclusionThe comparison of crude incarceration rates across racial/ethnic groups may not be ideal because these groups boast strikingly different age structures. Since the risk of imprisonment is tied to age, criminologists should consider adjusting for age structure when comparing rates of incarceration across groups.

Book Review: Religious Faith in Correctional Contexts

As homo sociologicus, we live in an extremely interactive society which greatly relies on predictable and expectable master patterns of human behaviors. Numerous academics have explored breaches in anticipated behavioral patterns and have suggested methods of how to deal with them. A modern government aims to decrease abstruse, belligerent social disturbances mainly based on legal sanctions, primarily incarceration; however, we are without perfect solutions despite those tremendous efforts and investments. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) data show that the number of inmates in US state and federal prisons increased again in 2013 after a 3-year decline in the prison population since 2010 (Carson 2014). As Robert Martinson’s ‘‘nothing works (1974)’’ doctrine casts its dark shadow, we have experienced a breakdown of the criminal justice system in terms of incarceration and recidivism rates. To complicate matters further, recent economic downturns have fed a ‘‘more with less’’ philosophy in governments. This neo-liberal philosophy stimulated the criminal justice market, and we have seen the appearance of private prisons. The Bureau of Justice Assistance started the Justice Reinvestment Initiative in 2006 to address these budgetary concerns (Alarid and Reichel 2013). As a part of the result, most governments have introduced various intermediate sanctions to decrease incarceration rates and adopt a wide range of cost effective rehabilitation programs to decrease recidivism. Here faith-based rehabilitation programs found a niche. Kerley suggests that a faith-based program can be a cost-effective option for inmates’ rehabilitation. Having planned to pave an empirical road for a faith-based rehabilitation program in correctional facilities, Kerley collected data by

National Data on Citizen Complaints About Police Use of Force

National data on citizen complaints about police use of force were collected by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) in 2003 and 2007. These data are a critical component of the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) overall response to 42 USC 14142, which requires the Attorney General to “acquire data about the use of excessive force by law enforcement officers.” The BJS data have the potential to help support democratic policing, provide baseline data on use of force for comparative statistical reporting and research purposes, and enable strong local checks on police abuses, provided their validity and reliability can be demonstrated. This study sought to assess the validity and reliability of the BJS data. Findings indicate that the BJS data suffer from serious measurement flaws, do not provide a valid and reliable basis for comparative statistical reporting and research purposes, and should not be relied on for purposes of litigation.

Judicial Intervention into Prisons: Comparing Private and Public Prisons from 1990 to 2005

ABSTRACTA mid-twentieth century prisoners’ rights revolution gave American prisoners unprecedented access to courts for exercising newly elaborated constitutional rights. The result was a tide of litigation brought by inmates and subsequent remedial court orders requiring corrections officials to improve conditions of confinement. It was in this context of aggressive judicial intervention into prison operations that the private prison industry emerged. Some early proponents of prison privatization claimed that the private sector could provide superior prison conditions and thereby reduce judicial intervention. This article assesses this claim empirically. It uses data on state and federal adult correctional facilities from the Bureau of Justice Statistics to compare the prevalence of reported court orders among public and private correctional facilities in the United States from 1990 through 2005. Results from a series of logistic regression analyses reveal that privatization has had little effect on the likelihood of judicial intervention into correctional facilities.

Examining Intimate Partner Violence, Stress and Technology Use Among Young Adults

Intimate partner violence is a problem among young adults and may be exacerbated through the use of technology. Scant research exists examining the influence of technology on intimate partner violence in young adults. Furthermore, young adult couples on university campuses experience additional stressors associated with coursework that may influence their risk of partner violence. We surveyed 138 young adults (ages 18-25) at a large university and examined the relationships between stress, intimate partner violence and technology. Results indicated that those who use technology less frequently are more likely to report inequality in the relationship, thus suggesting a higher risk for partner violence. An exception applies to those who use technology to argue or monitor partner whereabouts. Implications for counseling young adult couples are discussed.Keywords: intimate partner violence, stress, young adults, technology, couplesIntimate partner violence (IPV) occurs among young adults (ages 18 - 24) at a comparable rate with the general population. IPV in the general population occurs among 25%-33% of both men and women (National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, 2010), with studies estimating the prevalence of physical violence among college students to be between 20% and 30% (Fass, Benson, & Leggett, 2008; Shook, Gerrity, Jurich, & Segrist, 2000; Spencer & Bryant, 2000). Additionally, IPV is regularly underreported due to the embarrassment and shame victims may feel (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2003). While causes of IPV are not completely understood, its prevalence among both victims and victimizers has been linked to those who witnessed parental violence as children (Straus, Gelles, & Smith, 1995). However, the increase in college student IPV could be provoked by stress associated with the demands of academics (Mason & Smithey, 2012). IPV victims are more likely to experience symptoms of depression and anxiety, with male victims expressing more shame related to the victimization (Shorey et al., 2011).In the late 1980s and 1990s, researchers identified types of partner violence within adult relationships (e.g., Gottman et al., 1995; Holtzworth-Munroe & Stuart, 1994; Johnson, 1995). Researchers coined these differences as IPV typologies, which helped researchers and practitioners understand that partner violence is heterogeneous, and thus treatment should be tailored to meet the specific needs of the couple (Carlson & Jones, 2010). This perspective differed from the traditional practice of treating all relationship violence as homogeneous, presuming it to be the result of power and control. Additionally, traditional perspectives on IPV assumed that perpetrators were men trying to assert dominance. Typology researchers refuted this perspective, stating that although some violence is male-on-female, the majority is gender mutual and may have more to do with conflict resolution skills than with asserting control. IPV typology research has gained traction due to its potential treatment implications. However, there is a dearth of research examining IPV typologies among young adults and its relationship to the increased use of technology among this population.IPV TypologiesTraditionally, relationship violence was more popularly termed domestic violence and deemed homogenous among couple relationships. Thus, all violence was thought to originate from a batterer's attempt to establish or maintain power and control over a victim. Such violence typically occurred with men as the batterers and women as the victims (in heterosexual relationships). This philosophy gained traction with most practitioners, who assumed that all relationship violence resulted from power and control.Over the past 15 to 20 years, researchers identified types of relationship violence (e.g., Gottman et al., 1995; Holtzworth-Munroe & Stuart, 1994; Johnson, 1995; & Johnson & Ferraro, 2000). …

Staff Sexual Misconduct

This is a study of female staff sexual misconduct, drawing on reports of victims identified in large-scale national surveys of adults in prison and jails and youth in juvenile facilities. Past research has often emphasized the inmate roles and staff member vulnerabilities. More recent scholarship has moved beyond the traditional conception of sexual abuse by female correctional workers as the consequence of manipulative and predatory actions by male inmates and placed greater responsibility on the women for their actions. Although the surveys conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics over the last decade in response to the 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act are unable to speak to the motivations of the victims or the perpetrators, they provide an assessment of the magnitude of the problem and offer extensive detail on the circumstances surrounding female staff sexual misconduct. The findings indicate that female staff members are overrepresented among perpetrators of staff sexual misconduct in prisons, jails, and juvenile facilities. The data reveal a high level of staff misconduct, involving abuse of power, trading in favors, offers of special privileges and protection, and offers of alcohol and drugs, which co-occurs with female staff sexual misconduct.