Qualifiers

[BG45]

I have Qualifiers in the third week of August, the wonderful test that determines if I stay in the program. Given PM feeds my procrastination tendencies, I think I can combine my desire to procrastinate with my need to study by posting to this thread with my notecard prompts.

First card:

Terry (2011) Topic: Mass Incarceration
1) More police = more racial profiling
2) Public officials are immune to evidence of alternatives to incarceration working

[BG45]

Gottschalk (2011) Topic: Mass Incarceration

1) Prisons are a crimongenic environment that teach people how to become better criminals.
2) Project HOPE is a Hawaii based program that acts more on the swiftness and certainty of punishment instead of the severity. People are placed on probation and then allowed to go along with their daily lives, only having to call in to check in with their probation officer instead of stop by the office. Once a week at random a probation officer will drug test them at work or their home, should the results come back positive, they will be thrown in jail immediately for a few days. The sentence gets progressively longer with each violation. This has resulted in an over 50% reduction in recidivism rates.
3) Because one project works in one state, doesn't mean it will in others. More research needed to adapt to other locations, if possible at all.

[BG45]

Blumstein (2011) Topic: Mass Incarceration
1) More celerity is needed in the process
2) Project HOPE is in Hawaii. It is an evidence based program. Random drug test for probationers per week, if fail, immediate few days in jail with longer sentences each time.
3) HOPE has resulted in over a 50% reduction in recidivism.

[BG45]

Bratton (2011) Topic: Mass Incarceration
1) Reduce crime by using hot spot prevention instead of incarceration
2) Prison cost ins a bankruptcy threat to numerous states, such as California
3) Prison is still criminogenic.

[BG45]

Durlauf & Nagin (2011) Topic: Mass Incarceration
1) Shorten sentences, long term sentences for drug offenses are the majority of the prison population
2) More cops on the street should equal less crime
3) Celerity more important than severity
4) Prison is still criminogenic
5) Need to have less mandatory minimum sentences and three strikes laws.
6) Three strikes laws cost more than the crimes they prevent by lifetime incarceration; stealing an avocado or pomegranate is a felony in California, where the laws started. Stealing three fruits could result in life imprisonment, shows how offbase the laws are.

Rosenfeld (2011) Topic: Mass Incarceration
1( Issue of our time is mass incarceration and how it is bankrupting states

[BG45]

Goldkamp (2011) Topic: Mass Incarceration
1) More celerity
2) Courts take too long and impede certainty of punishment via delays, dismissals, and plea deals
3) Hot spots reduces crime for a short period only
4) More cops would increase incarceration by increased arrests

[BG45]

Wilcox & Eck (2011) Topic: Pay Day Lenders
1) High traffic areas are prone to higher crime rates
2) Payday lending institutions tend to be in higher traffic areas.

[Luigi]

EXCELLENT way to combine your interests!

Who knows? A Phatmasser or two might even learn something!

[BG45]

Thanks! If nothing else, it at least allows me to get it into my head by "writing it again" in addition to reading them again and again. And if anyone learns something from my short jotted notes, all the better!

[BG45]

Kubrin & Squires (2011) Topic: Payday Lenders

1) Seattle study found crime goes up in areas after payday lenders set up shop.
2) Recommends Congress cap the interest rate as federal laws do not currently regulate the APR of payday lending institutions (could also cite Western Sky commercial in the hundreds of percent per year rate here)
3) Recommends cities enact zoning laws to the limit the number and location of payday lenders to keep neighborhoods from becoming high traffic crime areas.

[Lisa]

what the heck are you getting your PhD in?????

[BG45]

Hopefully Criminology, with a specialization in Juvenile Justice and hopefully a dissertation regarding the influences of media on crime (not allowed to even start until after passing these tests x.x It would essentially be an expansion on the ideas of my Master's thesis). My BS and MS were in Criminal Justice with minor and concentration in Computer Forensics. I could never even hope to do a hard science like some of the folks on the board have done at this level.

Side note 1: I zoned last night in post one, I apologize to Dr. Tonry for renaming him Terry.
Side note 2: I hate policy with a burning passion and if I post to this thread with more cards in the next few hours I may be skipping from Payday lending agencies and their predatory practices to a different topic, as those cards are back at the apartment.

Edited July 11, 2011 by BG45

[BG45]

Cook (2011) Topic: Economics and Violent Victimization

1) Legitimate opportunities: Recessions may increase property crime rates by reducing access to legit means for standard of living. Might also increase both property and violent crime rates by reduce opportunity cost of time spent in criminal activity.
2) Criminal opportunities: Recession might affect quality of criminal opportunities. Potential burglary victims more likely to be home (serving as guardians of their property) and robbery victims have less cash. Prices for fenced merchandise goes down.
3) Drugs and alcohol: Alcohol consumption goes down in recessions, therefore violent crime related to intox goes down. Cyclical pattern of drug use less clear.
4) Police & Corrections: Recession reduce state and local tax collections, result in cuts to cops and cor.

[arfink]

[quote name='BG45' timestamp='1310408343' post='2265805']
Hopefully Criminology, with a specialization in Juvenile Justice and hopefully a dissertation regarding the influences of media on crime (not allowed to even start until after passing these tests x.x It would essentially be an expansion on the ideas of my Master's thesis). My BS and MS were in Criminal Justice with minor and concentration in Computer Forensics. I could never even hope to do a hard science like some of the folks on the board have done at this level.

Side note 1: I zoned last night in post one, I apologize to Dr. Tonry for renaming him Terry.
Side note 2: I hate policy with a burning passion and if I post to this thread with more cards in the next few hours I may be skipping from Payday lending agencies and their predatory practices to a different topic, as those cards are back at the apartment.
[/quote]

Computer forensics is very cool and all, but without a degree in mathematics and/or computer science you'll never get anywhere with that. Modern-day encryption for hard drives is easy to get and surpasses 256bit level encryption in most cases. Even a specially designed CUDA machine at the cost of over a million bucks would take 25 years to crack the basic encryption that ships with my OS. Sure, it's Linux, but in 10 years everyone will have it. Without a leap in supercomputer power that can exceed consumer machines by a factor of at least 20 orders of magnitude or the outright banning of general use computing devices the authorities will never be able to keep up.

Thanks for letting me derail you for a bit. And fyi, I'm looking at the possibility of going into information security. Or possibly mechanical engineering, we shall see.

[Lisa]

[quote name='arfink' timestamp='1310416360' post='2265868']
Computer forensics is very cool and all, but without a degree in mathematics and/or computer science you'll never get anywhere with that. Modern-day encryption for hard drives is easy to get and surpasses 256bit level encryption in most cases. Even a specially designed CUDA machine at the cost of over a million bucks would take 25 years to crack the basic encryption that ships with my OS. Sure, it's Linux, but in 10 years everyone will have it. Without a leap in supercomputer power that can exceed consumer machines by a factor of at least 20 orders of magnitude or the outright banning of general use computing devices the authorities will never be able to keep up.

Thanks for letting me derail you for a bit. And fyi, I'm looking at the possibility of going into information security. Or possibly mechanical engineering, we shall see.
[/quote]

Dude. That was a little dream-crushing. And I'm not even the one getting his degree. On the other hand, you do sound quite smart and I know nothing about it, so I'll shut up now.

Edited July 11, 2011 by Lisa

[BG45]

[quote name='arfink' timestamp='1310416360' post='2265868']
Computer forensics is very cool and all, but without a degree in mathematics and/or computer science you'll never get anywhere with that. Modern-day encryption for hard drives is easy to get and surpasses 256bit level encryption in most cases. Even a specially designed CUDA machine at the cost of over a million bucks would take 25 years to crack the basic encryption that ships with my OS. Sure, it's Linux, but in 10 years everyone will have it. Without a leap in supercomputer power that can exceed consumer machines by a factor of at least 20 orders of magnitude or the outright banning of general use computing devices the authorities will never be able to keep up.

Thanks for letting me derail you for a bit. And fyi, I'm looking at the possibility of going into information security. Or possibly mechanical engineering, we shall see.
[/quote]

Not a problem on derailment! And even with a dedicated degree in Computer Security (you could double major with Computer Science at my last school for 4 more courses) it's hard to get a job in a field that uses it without knowing the right people. The minor was good for what it was good for; looking good to get me into this program, even if it didn't help elsewhere. It was fun too, with guys from the Computer Crimes section of the White Collar Crime Center teaching a lot of the classes.

On the note of encryption, so true. During the first Gulf War with Iraq, Saddam's phone had higher encryption by far than anything between World War Two and a little beyond the Vietnam War.

[quote name='Lisa' timestamp='1310416488' post='2265869']
Dude. That was a little dream-crushing. And I'm not even the one getting his degree. On the other hand, you do sound quite smart and I know nothing about it, so I'll shut up now.
[/quote]

We're not going to let him work in Advising. Trust me, people don't react well when you crush their dreams.
"I'm going to be an FBI profiler!"
"Actually there aren't many in the FBI, you see more on the crime drama about them than actually exist; average entry age to the FBI is 32 years old. What are you going to do for about a decade to make yourself more profitable as a hire?"

[CatherineM]

Pay day loan companies actually harm the readiness of the military. If you have too much debt, the military won't send you overseas because being deeply in debt is a security issue.

[BG45]

[quote name='CatherineM' timestamp='1310438356' post='2266147']
Pay day loan companies actually harm the readiness of the military. If you have too much debt, the military won't send you overseas because being deeply in debt is a security issue.
[/quote]

Makes sense, I remember when one of the Bureau of Prisons facilities approached my last school to encourage people to apply. They could never get enough applicants who weren't drowning in debt and would be a security risk to hire.

[BG45]

Mesner (2011) Topic: Payday Loans
1) Predatory lending practices focus almost exclusively on the poverty stricken
2) Loans can almost not be repaid within a year

[BG45]

Leon (2011) Topic: Sex Offenders
1) Plea deals can place high risk offenders into a lower risk category under the Adam Walsh Act. By pleaing down a sexual assault and murder to a lesser charge, it is capable to go in the federal registry as a Teir One: Low Risk offender than a Tier Three: High Risk offender.

Levenson et al. (2010) Topic: Sex Offenders

1) Whether a sex offender fails to register has no effect on recidivism rates.

Harris et al. (2010) Topic: Sex Offenders
1) Public attitude towards sex offenders is driven primarily by a media created mythos that creates an atmosphere of fear and disinformation