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Unspoken Immunity and Reimagined Justice: The Potential for Implementing Restorative Justice and Community Justice Models in Police-related Shootings
Get PDFThe purpose of this Note is to analyze the limitations of the criminal legal system when faced with cases of police-related shootings. Specifically, I will discuss two instances of police (mis)conduct that captured the attention of the nation in the past three years: the non-indictment of Cleveland Police Officer Timothy Loehmann and the conviction of NYPD Officer Peter Liang. First, by assessing the circumstances and responses to those two cases, I will argue that the criminal legal system is inherently incapable of responding to and remedying the violence that occurs in situations laced with power, privilege, and emotional trauma. Second, I will engage in an analysis of the growth of restorative justice and community justice practices within the United States in the last forty years in an attempt to expand on the current discussion surrounding police-related shootings. Finally, I will assess the potential value of utilizing restorative justice practices, grounded in a community justice model, in situations of police-related violence. The foundation of this Note is rooted in the recognition that attendant issues of power are necessarily bound up in any discussion of interactions between marginalized communities and actors of state-backed power. Therefore, the focus on police violence in marginalized urban communities necessitates an awareness and engagement of the discourses of power, both between individuals and social systems
A Case Study of the Uses Supported by Higher Education Computer Networks and An Analysis of Application Traffic
No full textUniversities and Higher Education Institutions spend large sums of money to maintain and build network infrastructures. Current research and discussions in this area revolve around providing large amounts of bandwidth to students who live in a residence hall. However, there is a lack of information showing what is being used to support research efforts and overall administration of the institutions. There is also discussion and data that shows the growth and demand for Wi-Fi access and a concern for the number of devices that students are bringing with them. Little discussion is taking place about what the network is actively being used for. Spending money, time, and resources to grow a network and its access with no understanding on what it is used for, are these networks being used to support the academic mission or are they just giant entertainment networks? This dissertation shows through data analysis of unidentifiable anonymous data, what applications are utilizing the network by evaluating the unique application signatures in the network packets. This is then categorized with the intent to offer insight as to what the network is supporting. This dissertation can be used as a guide to help others preform their own analysis and it brings current knowledge, offers insight, and confirms the expectations of network administrators
Rule of Law in the Age of the Drone: Requiring Transparency and Disqualifying Clandestine Actors—the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command
Get PDFSince shortly after 9/11, weaponized drones have be-come part of the fabric of United States policy and practice in countering Islamic terrorist organizations and personnel. Although many diplomats, UN officials, and scholars have criticized the widespread use of this weapon system for “targeted killing,” drones are here to stay. But how much investigation and oversight must a democratic country carry out over such a program, and more critically, how can a country do so effectively when the Executive has handed primary responsibility for drone targeted killing attacks to its clandestine forces, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command?
In a confrontation with extremely violent terrorist organizations, the balance between secrecy and transparency is not easily struck. But compiling, in essence, a hit list and telling our secret agents to employ from the safety of a control room a weaponized drone to target individuals on the list demands greater openness. In addition, the line between lawful killing of combatants and extrajudicial taking of life grows increasingly thin, particularly when the state carries out such killings outside of armed conflict zones. A democratic nation and a superpower needs to do more than claim it is in the right and that it complies with international law—that nation must show that it is doing so.
Since they keep their operations and the effects of all their operations secret, the CIA and JSOC cloud the explosive tactic of targeted killing. Consequently, they literally keep the American public and the world community in the dark about deliberate, institutional taking of life. Such a pro-gram of secrecy, with little known accountability, leads to speculation about who and why selected persons were killed and to what extent, if any, civilians were included in their number. Furthermore, such secrecy deprives the United States of the opportunity to show it is complying with applicable international humanitarian law and human rights law.
Because terrorist organizations, to a great extent, operate underground in many countries and because they employ guerilla tactics and can inspire lone wolves anywhere on the globe, little chance exists that the U.S. military alone can eliminate the threat of terrorism. The United States and its Western allies need the help of Muslim countries, Muslim governments, and Muslim communities around the world to stop those extremists who would do us harm. Using our secret forces to engage in such killing may, however, under-mine the moral authority of the United States, especially in the eyes of Muslims. Such secrecy suggests we have some-thing to hide. Using the CIA and JSOC, on top of the perceived Muslim immigration bans, can only add to distrust of the United States in the Muslim community, whose cooperation is crucial to eliminating the extremists’ threat.
Thus, the United States must take away from the CIA and JSOC the responsibility to conduct drone targeted killing at-tacks and give that authority to more transparent armed service commands
Criminal Justice Majors: Are They Tougher on Crime?
Get PDFThe United States of America incarcerates more individuals than any other nation in the world. Therefore, the United States has one of the most active correctional systems and it is imperative to examine the system thoroughly. Generally speaking, there have been 3 accepted models of the correctional system since the 1940’s: custodial, rehabilitation, and reintegration. Although it is possible to find institutions that subscribe to each of these models respectively, the custodial model is the most common in the United States. Therefore, this study seeks to examine college students’ perception of crime, in order to help explain why the general public supports the custodial model of the corrections system. More specifically, this study will examine the perceptions of crime that Pace University’s undergraduate students have, in an attempt to compare the perceptions of criminal justice majors to those of non-criminal justice majors. The hypothesis of the study is that criminal justice majors are more likely to hold punitive viewpoints of the corrections system and crime in general, and that they are more likely to agree with the characteristics that are similar to the custodial/crime control model. This study consists of a sample size of 70 respondents; 17 are criminal justice majors and 53 are non-criminal justice majors. The data shows that there were no differences in level of punitiveness among the students, regardless of major. This study is important because it collects a representative sample of the views of individuals who will soon be professionals in the field
Medieval Literature and Young Adult Fiction: A Comparison of Chaucer and Sarah J. Maas
Get PDFThe medieval works of Geoffrey Chaucer and the contemporary works of Sarah J. Maas employ three of the same themes: forbidden love, insta-love, and love triangles. These themes are based in the medieval literary tradition of courtly love as first written by Andreas Cappellanus in the twelfth century. Sarah J. Maas is a contemporary author of the young adult fantasy series A Court of Thorns and Roses that follows a young girl who by magical circumstances becomes romantically involved with two male faeries. This modern series portrays the same themes that Chaucer’s works of Troilus and Criseyde and The Canterbury Tales display, which makes these antiquated ideas of love relevant. In fact, the medieval depiction of women provides a certain agency that the modern teen fiction novel does not. Critics think such themes in young adult fiction do not portray a healthy and realistic view of romance for young women to strive for. While these themes are not modern romantic notions, they do remain entertaining in fiction, despite their critics
Fault Tolerant, Self-Healing and Vendor Neutral Multi-Cloud Patterns and Framework Focusing on Deployment and Management
No full textMany organizations are looking to migrate to the cloud and looking for the best way to do it securely, reliably and without vendor lock in. Most organizations have to pick a cloud provider that uses proprietary APIs and Software. Most vendors currently do not implement any cloud API standards i.e. TOSCA or OASIS CAMP. Therefore, to date, the standard approaches to cloud computing have not been successful. In addition, cloud providers experience outages, frequently with serious business impact—so fault tolerance in cloud environment still needs more research and clear and prescriptive guidance. Variable performance is also an issue because most cloud providers overprovision their virtualized infrastructure and it results in degradation of performance and quality of service for customers depending on overprovisioning factor set by the cloud provider. This study focuses on development of multi-cloud vendor neutral framework and patterns that deliver non-proprietary APIs and Software above IaaS layer with the functionality that will be on par with proprietary software or service offered by an individual cloud provider. We demonstrate how to design Fault Tolerant, Self-Healing, Performant, Secure and Cost Efficient Deployment using Patterns in the Multi-cloud environment without vendor lock in. We detail and catalog the developed solutions to common multi-cloud problems via patterns and multi-cloud framework using open source software which ensures portability across cloud providers. Framework and patterns can be re-produced by setup scripts, code and examples which are provided in the accompanying code repository. All of the failure scenarios are validated and demonstrated clearly showing the fault tolerance and limits of each solution
Classification of Heart Sound Biometrics for Active User Authentication and Clinical Cardiac Applications
No full textClassification of Heart Sound Biometrics for Active User Authentication and Clinical Cardiac Applications This research presents a method and structure for active user authentication and cardiac risk diagnosis applications using the biometric of heart sound. Active authentication can maintain confidence that the device owner is the current user without the inconvenience of requiring re-authentication. Heart sound, or photocardiogram (PCG), is an interesting possibility for active authentication because it is constantly available, hard to obtain from another person, and has been shown to be reasonably unique between individuals. Furthermore, clinical cardiology applications currently do not take advantage of the algorithms of heart sound authentication, for example to indicate a change in a patient’s heart sound on an in-home wearable smart device application. Heart sound measurements used in this study are from a public dataset created for heart sound biometric research. The data show marked inconsistencies between samples taken from the same user at different times or on a different day, a known problem with recording biometric data. This research presents two methods for preprocessing, filtering, and classifying imperfect datasets: Phase 1 using frequency-based Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) with the MATLAB Classification Learner, and Phase 2 using a custom time-based approach with a python Dichotomy-classifier. Accompanying these methods is a complete software structure to extract features and use machine learning to classify heart sound input from initial capture through classification of individual participants to actively check their heart sound for user authentication and for clinical cardiac applications. This research uses novel and existing methodologies to achieve improved authentication accuracy and to expand the analysis methods available to researchers in the field. The results of time-based feature extraction and dichotomy-classification were an authentication accuracy of 84% (EER = 16%), compared with the previously published accuracy of 63% (EER = 37%) for a structural methodology. Heart sound is different enough between individuals to be part of a multi-factor authentication methodology, and to contribute to diagnosis of cardiac patients for clinical uses
Eating Is Not Political Action
Get PDFFood and environment are cultural stalwarts. Picture the red barn and solitary farmer toiling over fruited plains; or purple mountains majesty reflected in pristine waters. Agriculture and environment are core, distinct, American mythologies that we know are more intertwined than our stories reveal.
To create policy at the interface of such centrally important and overlapping American ideals, there are two options. Passive governance fosters markets in which participants make individual choices that aggregate into inadvertent collective action. In contrast, assertive governance allows the public, mediated through elected officials, to enact intentional, goal oriented policy.
American mythologies of food and environment arise because each is important culturally and physically. Given their essentiality, we must demand more intentionality, must demand policies not only because they are possible, but because they are thoughtful, effective, goal oriented, and intentional. Food and the environment are both too important to do otherwise.
In today’s political climate, finding shared goals will be hard and accidental policy may be the best we can hope for in the short term. Progressive food advocates may settle for passive policies because these policies make fewer normative commitments. For three decades this has been exactly the strategy of environmental advocates. It is the wrong strategy. Without boldly speaking about our goals, even when we know we will fall short, we cannot imagine the big picture that we intend to paint, the new integrated mythology we intend to write