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Criminal law has dramatically expanded since the 1970s. Despite popular and academic attention to overcriminalization in the United States, empirical research on how court actors and, in particular, prosecutors, use the legal tools associated with overcriminalization is scarce. In this chapter, we describe three forms of overcriminalization that, in theory, have created new tools for prosecutors: the criminalization of new behaviors, mandatory minimum sentencing statutes, and the internal expansion of criminal laws. We then use a unique dataset of felony filings and dispositions in Florida from 1995 to 2015 to test a series of hypotheses examining how overcriminalization influences prosecutorial practices given three changes to the political economy during this time: the decline in violent and property crime, the Great Recession, and a growing call for criminal justice reform. We find that prosecutors have been unconstrained by declining crime rates. Yet, rather than rely on new criminal statutes or mandatory minimum sentence laws, they maintained their caseloads by increasing their filing rates for traditional violent, property and drug offenses. At the same time, the data demonstrate nonviolent other offenses are the top charge in almost 20% of the felony caseload between 2005 and 2015. Our findings also suggest that, despite reform rhetoric, filing and conviction rates decreased due to the Recession, not changes in the law. We discuss the implications of these findings for criminal justice reform.

A surprisingly large proportion of the working population of the USA consists of individuals with felony convictions. Moreover, the issue of employability of these individuals is compounded for minorities. This paper aims to present two experimental studies investigating whether minorities with felony backgrounds have a more difficult time being selected for employment than identically situated white applicants. The authors ground the paper in realistic group conflict theory. Results indicate discrimination is more acute against minorities with felony backgrounds than whites with the same background and shed light on the mechanisms leading to this discrimination. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

This paper involves two experimental studies involving working adults engaging with realistic survey situations using mTurk.

Results of both studies indicate discrimination is more acute against minorities with felony backgrounds than whites with the same background, and shed light on the mechanisms leading to this discrimination.

One limitation of the methodology is that the authors used fictional candidates and jobs. This may have led to understating the effects of discrimination on minorities because it allowed applicants to answer in socially desirable ways (e.g. absent of racial bias) without suffering any of the anticipated negative consequences of actually hiring individuals about whom they hold negative stereotypes.

This research has several important implications for practice. First, organizations should be keenly aware of the potential for subtle and unconscious bias to affect the job application process even among well-intentioned hiring managers. Second, as the bias is often triggered by threats, organizations should share with their employees the nature of the threat involved with former felons.

Organizations should deliberately address issues associated with the use of criminal background checks. For many organizations, a felony conviction in an applicant’s background automatically eliminates that person from employment. However, a substantial amount of the workforce now has a felony in their background. Indeed, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (2012) has issued guidelines that detail important factors that organizations should consider on a case-by-case basis when considering employment for former felons. Organizations may consider updating any blanket exclusions regarding the hiring of ex-felons – not only because it makes good policy but also because it may help the organization hire the best people.

This research studies an important – and growing – societal problem related to the hiring of convicted felons, and the related issue of racial discrimination that affects black convicted felons particularly hard. There has been very little work in the management area on this topic. Moreover, there has been very little work in all areas that includes experimental methods. The use of such methods is particularly useful to eliminate confounds found in field data.

Traditional remedies for police misconduct, such as exclusion of evidence illegally seized from the defendant’s trial, permit the offending officer to remain in law enforcement. In most other professions, removal of the license or certificate of the offending professional has been a traditional remedy for serious misconduct. “Decertification” of peace officers is a relatively recent phenomenon. Presents an analysis of changing dimensions of decertification authority among states from 1985 to 1995. National patterns indicated a substantial strengthening of decertification authority and decertification practices among states. The largest movement of states was into the broad revocation category and a majority of states were found to have such authority. Finds that innovative decertification practices concerning departmental reporting requirements about police officers’ conduct to a state board and qualified immunity for police chiefs’ “good faith” reporting about employees alter relationships between local agencies and state boards. Demonstrates that police officer decertification is a national movement.

This conversation focuses on the reproduction of vulnerability incarceration and homelessness and presents the reflections of scholars, writers, activists and practitioners.

This paper is based on the conversations that took place on Disasters: Deconstructed Podcast livestream on the 31st of March 2022.

The prominent themes in this conversation include homelessness, incarceration, stigma and marginalisation.

The conversation contributes to the ongoing discussions around the reproduction of vulnerability and the importance of understanding its root causes of disaster scholarship, practice and activism.

The Cook County State Attorneys’ Deferred Prosecution Program (DPP) is a pre-trial diversionary program that accepts first-time, non-violent defendants charged with a felony crime. The purpose of this paper is to document the development, implementation, and program patterns of the DPP to better understand the program’s scope and reach in diverting defendants from traditional criminal prosecution.

The approach to evaluating Cook County’s DPP is primarily qualitative. Through interviews with program administrators and current and former participants, the authors document the process of creating and implementing such DPP that aims to avoid a felony conviction altogether. The authors provide program participant patterns to shed light on the program’s scope and reach in diverting defendants from traditional felony prosecution.

Using data from staff, administrators, and program participants, the authors found that the DPP was developed and implemented through supportive leadership who instilled a culture of collaboration and buy-in. Expanding the program could include increasing the capacity of DPP to include additional participants or having a DPP incorporated into each branch court, instead of the centralized system under which it currently operates. Increasing the capacity and scope of the program could both further decrease criminal court caseloads and most importantly avoid a higher number of stigmatizing felony convictions for first-time non-violent defendants.

DPPs are cost effective and can be easily implemented within existing systems. Collaboration and buy-in from all stakeholders are crucial to the program’s success. DPP offers opportunities for expansion. Increasing the capacity and scope of the program could both further decrease criminal court caseloads and most importantly avoid a higher number of stigmatizing felony convictions for first-time non-violent felony defendants.

The main goals of DPP were two-fold. The first was to minimize the level of resources allocated for non-violent offenders in the criminal justice system by diverting such defendants out of the criminal justice system early in the process and reducing the recidivism rates of program participants. The second aimed to provide an option for eligible defendants to avoid a felony conviction, thereby avoiding the collateral consequences associating with a felony conviction.

The current study aims to examine problematic behaviors of college students who identified policing as their career of choice.

A self‐report survey was administered and behaviors such as alcohol and drug use, arrest histories, and self‐reported criminality were identified in a sample of 874 undergraduate students, 171 of whom identified policing as their career goal.

Findings indicate that over 60 percent of students (including those interested in becoming police officers) engage in some level of problematic behavior. While policing students engaged in more excessive recent binge drinking, they had a lower rate of arrests and less other‐than‐marijuana drug use than other students.

This research relies on self‐reported data and therefore under‐ or over‐reporting may occur. While the sample of policing students has similar characteristics to those of current police officers in terms of sex and race, generalizability issues from the entire sample may be present.

Findings suggest the importance of identifying and conveying information to students about problematic behaviors that may prohibit gainful employment. Recruitment implications are discussed for police departments as well as implications for areas of inquiry important for background hiring investigations.

The current research explores problematic behaviors of college students in the context of vocational restrictions that students may face from law enforcement agencies. Findings can better prepare students for such vocations and inform hiring agencies of the range of issues from this population of applicants.

Collateral consequences (CCs) of criminal convictions such as disenfranchisement, occupational restrictions, exclusions from public housing, and loss of welfare benefits represent one of the salient yet hidden features of the contemporary American penal state. This chapter explores, from a comparative and historical perspective, the rise of the many indirect “regulatory” sanctions flowing from a conviction and discusses some of the unique challenges they pose for legal and policy reform. US jurisprudence and policies are contrasted with the more stringent approach adopted by European legal systems and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in safeguarding the often blurred line between criminal punishments and formally civil sanctions. The aim of this chapter is twofold: (1) to contribute to a better understanding of the overreliance of the US criminal justice systems on CCs as a device of social exclusion and control, and (2) to put forward constructive and viable reform proposals aimed at reinventing the role and operation of collateral restrictions flowing from criminal convictions.

Criminal Medicare and/or Medicaid fraud costs taxpayers $60‐250 billion annually. This paper aims to outline the characteristics of physicians who have been convicted of such fraud.

The names of convicted physicians were first gathered from public databases (primarily, the OIG exclusion list). The names were further cross‐checked and verified with other public records. Details regarding demographics and the particulars of the fraud were obtained by searching court documents, media reports, the internet, and records maintained by the American Medical Association and state medical licensing boards. The paper categorizes these doctors by: age, gender, geographic location, medical school attended, and medical specialty, and compares these demographics to those of the medical profession as a whole. The paper then identifies: the specific Medicare fraud these physicians were charged with; length of prison sentence and/or probation imposed; amount of fines assessed and/or restitution ordered; and professional sanctions imposed.

Physicians convicted of criminal Medicare and/or Medicaid fraud tend to be male (87 percent), older (average age of 58), and international medical graduates (59 percent). Family practitioners and psychiatrists are overrepresented. The amount of fraud averaged $1.4 million per convicted physician. Surprisingly, despite the fact that 40 percent of such fraud compromised patient care and safety, 37 percent of physicians convicted of felony fraud served no jail time, 38 percent of physicians with fraud convictions continue to practice medicine, and 21 percent were not suspended from medical practice for a single day despite their fraud convictions.

The paper makes several practical recommendations including: running as many claims as possible through predictive modeling software to detect fraud before claims are paid; developing metrics on the average rate of diagnoses and procedures by specialty to be used in the predictive modeling software; incorporating the basics of ethical billing and the consequences of fraud convictions into the medical school curriculum and testing this knowledge on the USMLE; and encouraging and/or pressuring state medical boards to hold physicians more accountable for fraud.

The paper categorizes doctors convicted of Medicare and/or Medicaid fraud and makes specific recommendations regarding physician training, licensing and discipline, to reduce the amount of Medicare fraud perpetrated by doctors in the future.