LAW ENFORCEMENT AND JUSTICE ADMINISTRATION BLOG

This post was written by Martin Braun. He is currently a junior at WIU in the School of Law Enforcement and Justice Administration and minoring in pre-law. Martin reports he has always wanted to work in service to the community and hopes to advocate for people who have been impacted by serious crimes. He hopes to fulfill this through a career with the FBI. The following information is a synopsis from a larger manuscript Martin wrote for his Research Methods course at WIU . When asking how we reduce prison recidivism, we first must find out the who contributes to recidivism the most and how we can change their actions. Recidivism is defined as an arrest and conviction for an offense committed within two years after release from a previous conviction. Studies have found that the person most likely to contribute to the recidivism rate is an African American male, age 18-25 that has had prior prison convictions, is or was under government surveillance, has or has had a high use of nar

This post was written by Darius Billingsley who is a Law Enforcement and Justice Administration student at WIU currently enrolled in Research Methods. This piece is a synopsis of a research manuscript he produced for the course. In National Needs Assessment Conducted to Determine Juvenile Justice Training and Service Needs, a manuscript written for the Journal of Correctional Education by Dianne Carter, she identifies the following information concerning juvenile justice.   First, The National Institute of Corrections (NIC), and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency and Prevention (OJJDP) entered into an agreement to initiate training for juvenile justice professionals through the National Academy of Corrections. The main goal was to described “current and emerging training service needs for the juvenile justice community.” In this process, over 200 issues and needs were identified; which include, Leadership/Management, Strategic Planning, Programs, Human Resources, Public/C

Gabby Bandovich is currently a LEJA Graduate Assistant and student in the Law Enforcement and Justice Administration Department. She graduated from WIU in May 2019 as a double major in Law Enforcement and Justice Administration and Foreign Languages and Cultures. Gabby will graduate from the LEJA Master’s Program in May 2020 and is looking forward to pursuing a career in federal Law Enforcement. In a book entitled Law Enforcement Ethics: Classic and Contemporary Issues , author Brian Fitch claims “the patchy, haphazard implementation of ethics training remains little more than a knee-jerk reaction to police abuse or corruption” (Fitch, 2014).  Ethics training fails primarily due to its lecture based methods and lack of practical application during training.  Utilizing The Ethics Primer , by James Svara, an evaluation of Fitch’s ideology can be made through Svara’s ethical triangle. Svara claimed that the three concepts within the ethical triangle, virtue, principle, and consequence, ar

Chloe Layne is currently a Graduate Assistant and student in the Law Enforcement and Justice Administration Department. She graduated the undergraduate portion of the integrated program with a major in law enforcement and justice administration and minors in Spanish and psychology.   Chloe is also an active researcher working with multiple faculty to produce peer-reviewed articles and conference presentations. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) first made its introduction into the American court system in 1986. Since then, not only has DNA aided in the conviction of a multitude of offenders, but it has also led to the exonerations of those who are innocent but were found guilty. DNA has proven other forensic sciences that were largely accepted in the courtroom as proof of identification, to be faulty. More recently, DNA has been used for another purpose within the criminal justice field. In recent cases, DNA has been used through genealogy websites to identify suspects of unsolved cases where

Kelsey Maldonado is a current Graduate Assistant and graduate student with the Law Enforcement and Justice Administration Department. Kelsey spent the first four years of schooling as an undergraduate student here at Western Illinois University. She majored in Law Enforcement and Justice Administration, and minored in Spanish and Forensic Science. Currently, she is working on a thesis on the topic of detecting deception. With the completion of this work she will graduate from the university in the summer of 2019. Kelsey is looking toward the future considering both municipal Law Enforcement positions as well as Federal positions. Rise of the Warrior Cop by Radley Balko examines the militarization of police forces. At the start of the book the author illustrates our beginnings. In colonial times the faction that did the policing of the people were the British soldiers. Balko expresses the impact the military force had on the public and for its part it contributed to the Revolutionary W