People who report greater belief in pure evil (BPE; the tendency to attribute harmdoing to dispositionally sadistic perpetrators) generally punish criminal perpetrators more regardless of mitigating circumstances (e.g., having a brain tumor). What attributional/cognitive processes underlie such punishment? A national sample (final N = 302) read an…

The pursuit of higher education is a goal that is embedded in secondary education and often correlated with the American dream. This study concentrated on the barriers that women with a felony conviction face when pursuing higher education after incarceration. Based on the identified barriers, current best practices for admission to higher…

It is important to consider the two parameters of signal detection theory, discriminability and response bias, when evaluating eyewitness identification from simultaneous lineups. On the basis of the diagnostic feature-detection hypothesis, we tested a method for increasing discriminability that encourages eyewitnesses to carefully rank each…

This study sought to determine whether criminal thinking possessed by offenders in prison would be significantly reduced through the implementation of motivational curriculum amid a broader menu of treatment and educational programming. This study utilized the Criminal Thinking Scale (CTS) as a pretest and posttest measure of criminal thinking…

Background: The Questionnaire on Attitudes Consistent with Sexual Offending (QACSO) is an assessment developed by Lindsay, Whitefield, Carson, Broxholme and Steptoe (2004). The QACSO was designed to assess cognitive distortions relating to sexual offending in males with intellectual disabilities (ID). Cognitive distortions form part of the offence…

This paper examines four interviews with student survivors about their experiences of reporting sexual harassment and violence to universities in the United States and England, and their experiences of how their universities protected the perpetrators. Interview participants revealed that their assailants were not held accountable because the…

Background: In forensic settings, patients with intellectual disabilities are overrepresented. A relative novel treatment approach for this population is schema therapy. The goals of schema therapy for offenders with intellectual disabilities are to reduce maladaptive emotional states and to reinforce healthy emotional states and enhancing the…

In this dissertation, I analyze the development and dissemination of state-level policies to prohibit colleges from considering criminal history for purposes of admissions otherwise known as ban the box in higher education. This research engages with practical and instructive questions of how individuals or coalitions can learn from other policy…

This study delved into the perspectives of twelve justice-involved students of color, specifically African-American and Latinx students aged eighteen or older, who are identified as serious offenders. The primary objective was to discern effective practices that fostered a meaningful connection between these students and their teachers, thereby…

A common belief in police officers is that guilty suspects' statements are less consistent than innocent suspects'. This could leave guilty suspects more vulnerable to missing inconsistencies externally induced into their alibis. Source monitoring and cognitive load approaches suggest that untruthfulness rather than guilt should predict proneness…

With an increase in students arriving to the U.S. from other countries, many local educational agency (LEA) homeless liaisons have questions about eligibility for services under the McKinney-Vento Act, as well as strategies for best serving these students. This resource provides an overview of the rights of immigrant, migrant, and undocumented…

The purpose of this study was to explore the commonalities between school shooters to gain a better understanding of ways to prevent school shootings. The research question was, Understanding the behavioral impact of a maldeveloped or damaged prefrontal cortex, striatum, and amygdala as contributors of psychopathy, to what extent is the…

Vocational and career wellbeing is of essential importance for the successful reintegration of ex-offenders back into civil society, becoming healthy and productive citizens who contribute to the common good of the general society in which they live. Within a Canadian context, this article intends to draw attention to the vocational wellbeing of…

The eligibility rules of state financial aid programs vary widely by state and by program. This is also true of eligibility rules pertaining to students impacted by the justice system. This goal of this resource is to enable stakeholders to compare eligibility requirements pertaining to justice system impact across major aid programs and states.…

There has been a growing recognition of the value of education in facilitating desistance from offending. Yet, despite a determined push to "widen access" universities continue to be an unwelcoming place for those with a criminal record. To better understand the role of higher education in raising aspiration towards desistance, this…