Craig Hemmens

Washington State University | WSU · Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology

By January 2024, the COVID-19 pandemic claimed more than 1.1 million deaths in the United States (U.S.). People in prison are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 as they have no ability to socially distance, secure masks, disinfect their environment or have as much access to tests or vaccinations as is available in the community. In addition, many...

In this paper, we review and analyze the criminal justice–related decisions of the 2022 term of the United States Supreme Court. We also provide a summary of the Court's voting patterns and opinion authorship. Fourteen of the Court's 58 decisions touched on criminal justice. There were significant decisions involving the First Amendment, the Sixth...

Purpose The paper examines “lessons learned” from the COVID-19 pandemic by capturing the organizational and operational experiences of police departments in the state of Washington across two waves of survey administration. This study is among the first to document experiences at a state level, affording an opportunity to compare national results a...

In this paper, we review and analyze the criminal justice-related decisions of the 2021 term of the United States Supreme Court. We also provide a summary of the Court's voting patterns and opinion authorship. 18 of the Court's 58 decisions touched on criminal justice. There were significant decisions involving the Second Amendment, the Eighth Amen...

The War on Drugs resulted in increased arrest rates for women. Most of these arrests have been for low-level offenses, often involving cannabis. As states legalize cannabis, it is important to examine trends in arrests for women in a setting of early cannabis law reform. We examine National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) monthly cannabis a...

One of the arguments in support of the legalization of cannabis is that it would help alleviate racial disparities in the criminal justice system. Using UCR data from Colorado and Washington, we explore trends in cannabis arrests disaggregated by rates using interrupted time-series analysis, linear mixed models, and data visualizations. The results...

Cannabis legalisation was viewed with great concern by law enforcement personnel. Here we show that police perceptions of the societal effects of legalisation are shaped to a considerable degree by officers’ geographic context. Urban communities tend to be relatively prosperous and hold political and social views characterised as progressive. In co...

In this paper we review and analyze the criminal justice-related decisions of the 2,020 term of the United States Supreme Court. We also provide a summary of the Court’s voting patterns and opinion authorship. Thirteen of the Court’s 57 decisions touched on criminal justice. There were significant decisions involving the Fourth Amendment, the Eight...

This paper presents qualitative findings associated with the experiences of those tasked with enforcing laws within a novel environment of cannabis legalization. Research partner agencies and participants included local, state, and tribal law enforcement agencies in Washington and bordering areas of Idaho. Semi-structured interviews explored the pr...

Coronavirus has had a significant impact on daily life. Prisons are not exempt from the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Prisons are particularly at risk due to their secure environment and vulnerable inmate populations. We examine steps taken by the 50 state departments of correction and the Federal Bureau of Prisons to mitigate COVI...

The coronavirus (COVID-19) has had a significant impact on how people conduct themselves in their daily lives all around the world. Jails are not exempt from the consequences of COVID-19. In fact, they are particularly affected, as they are contained environments where inmates and staff live and work in close proximity. In this paper, we examine st...

This chapter examines the legal and ethical issues that frequently confront the criminal justice caseworker in the correctional setting and in the community. It provides an overview of the constitutional rights of prisoners, probationers, and parolees, including the right to treatment, the prohibition on “cruel and unusual” punishment, limitations...

In 2012, Washington State legalized the production, sale, and possession of marijuana through Initiative 502. Advocates of legalization argued that it would decrease the jail population and reduce the disproportionate incarceration of minorities, reasoning that the police would refocus their resources on other matters. In order to evaluate this ass...

Research has begun to explore to what extent I-502, the initiative authorising the retail distribution of recreational marijuana in Washington State, influenced a range of public safety outcomes. However, despite a growing body of research exploring potential impacts on crime, absent from this research has been a more nuanced analysis of officer wo...

Children can be unreliable witnesses, and they are especially vulnerable to questionable interview practices. However, in some crimes like child sexual abuse, children may be the only person capable of providing testimonial evidence. States must balance the needs of bringing criminals who target children to justice and ensuring that due process is...

We evaluate the effects of cannabis legalization on crime and law enforcement in one of the first states to adopt it, in 2012. We investigated how the police view legalization and how they experienced its implementation. Appreciative Inquiry was employed in 9 focus group interviews of 48 officers from multiple agencies in Washington. Our findings i...

In this article, we review and analyze the criminal justice–related decisions of the 2018 term of the U.S. Supreme Court. We also provide a summary of the Court’s voting patterns and opinion authorship. Eighteen of the Court’s 72 decisions touched on criminal justice. There were significant decisions involving due process, sentencing, and federal c...

Given the legalization of recreational cannabis in 2012 in Washington State and recent mixed results regarding the effects of cannabis on driver safety, the paper examines the link between delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinols (THC) and driver behavior, including speeding and driver errors which may have contributed to a particular fatal crash. The current...

The 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) mandates that U.S. state correctional systems regulate and reduce staff-on-inmate sexual misconduct in state correctional facilities. As data on correctional officer sexual misconduct are limited and its legal definition varies across states, this study utilized statutory analysis to document how staff se...

Previous studies based on relatively weak analytical designs lacking contextualization and appropriate comparisons have reported that the legalization of marijuana has either increased or decreased crime. Recognizing the importance for public policy making of more robust research designs in this area during a period of continuing reform of state ma...

This case limits the ability of police officers and doctors to conduct warrantless, nonconsensual searches of pregnant women on the grounds that such searches violate the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

This case limits the ability of school administrators to conduct warrantless searches of schoolchildren for drugs, and allows aggrieved children to sue for violation of their Fourth Amendment rights if school administrators conduct such searches.

The legalization of recreational cannabis in Washington state (I-502) and Colorado (A-64) created a natural experiment with ancillary unknowns. Of these unknowns, one of the more heavily debated is that of the potential effects on public health and safety. Specific to public safety, advocates of legalization expected improvements in police effectiv...

An impediment to offender reintegration and rehabilitation is so-called collateral consequences—restrictions imposed by state and/or federal laws that apply to people who have been arrested, convicted, or incarcerated. Some laws limit formerly incarcerated individuals’ eligibility for certain occupations and professional licensure and substantially...

Educator sexual misconduct is a problem that has gained increased attention because of the high-profile cases reported by the news media. Yet, the diversity in state law regarding this offense remains somewhat unexplored. In this article, we compare and evaluate state statutory provisions regarding educator sexual misconduct; our focus is on what c...

Police officer roles are typically divided into either crime control or peacekeeping/order maintenance functions. With the prevalence of community-oriented policing (COP), the majority of an officer’s duties are ostensibly more order maintenance in nature, but in the post-Ferguson world, the crime-fighting, warrior cop mentality still holds firm, w...

In this article, we review and analyze the criminal justice–related decisions of the 2016 term of the U.S. Supreme Court. We also provide a summary of the Court’s voting patterns and opine authorship. Twenty-two of the Court’s 69 opinions touched on criminal justice. There were significant decisions involving the Fourth Amendment, the death penalty...

This study assesses the authorship of legal scholarship within 20 criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) journals from 2005 to 2015, examining trends over time and variation across journals in the prevalence of sole-authorship and the mean number of authors and identifying the most prolific authors of legal scholarship published in CCJ journals. Th...

In this research, we quantify the difference in correctional officers’ ethical standards, as perceived by both officers and inmates. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and higher order modeling were used to validate the correctional ethics instrument. Group invariance tests at first-order level were applied to examine the invariance structure of co...

The Supreme Court of the United States recognized in its seminal case Miranda v Arizona, 384 US 436 (1966) that police used overly coercive techniques during custodial interrogations to obtain confessions. Yet, post Miranda, police officers still utilize legal coercive and deceptive techniques during custodial interrogations. Unfortunately, some of...

Accurately identifying death and its causes is integral to the compilation of mortality data and ultimately to the operation of the criminal justice and public health systems. A clear understanding of who is in charge of such processes is paramount to establishing the quality, or lack thereof, of the information provided in death certificates. Our...

“Upskirting” or video voyeurism, involves the use of video cameras in public spaces to record underneath women’s clothing. This activity became commonplace with the advent of cell phones cameras and other small video recording devices. A prior (2006) analysis of statutes aimed at criminalizing the practice of upskirting revealed that 2/3 of the sta...

Research has determined that organizational culture is related to employee turnover, job commitment, and job satisfaction. Assessment of this culture requires an instrument that befits the type of organization under examination. Using exploratory factor analysis, Stohr and her colleagues were able to demonstrate that the Organizational Culture Inst...

Recently, concern has been voiced within the academy regarding the marginalization of legal scholarship within the criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) discipline. Although conventional wisdom and anecdotal evidence indicate that it is difficult to get legal scholarship published in CCJ journals, there is a dearth of empirical evidence on the rep...

In this article, we review and analyze the criminal justice–related decisions of the 2015 term of the U.S. Supreme Court. We also provide a summary of the Court’s voting patterns and opine authorship. Twenty-two of the Court’s 76 decisions touched on criminal justice. There were significant decisions involving the exclusionary rule, search incident...

Security guards outnumber police by almost three to one, and they perform many of the same functions as police officers and many even carry a firearm, but to what extent do states regulate the private security industry? Prior research has examined state statutes regulating security guard hiring requirements; this article builds on this research by...

Probationers and parolees have a reduced expectation of privacy. In most states, they are subject to searches by their supervising probation or parole officer without prior notice or cause. However, for law enforcement officers, their ability to search a probationer or parolee can be constrained by the need to articulate probable cause or a reasona...

The 2002 Desktop Guide to Good Juvenile Probation Practice indicated that a state's juvenile justice system should reflect a “balanced and restorative justice” (BARJ) model. Over a decade has passed since this publication, yet little is known about whether juvenile probation followed the BARJ. This study employed a statutory analysis to examine the...

The law plays an important role in society generally and the criminal justice system in particular. Without the law there would be nothing for the police to enforce and no need for courts to adjudicate offenders and impose criminal sanctions. But while the significance of the law and, by implication the courts wherein the law is enforced, is great,...

Juvenile waiver has received much attention from the public, practitioners, and scholars. Prior studies have documented the increased use and effects of waiver. In this study we examine the current state of the law regarding juvenile waiver. We replicate 1995 and 2003 studies that examined state waiver statutes and detail the changes in prosecutori...

Security guards outnumber police by almost 3 to 1, and this discrepancy has been growing steadily since the latter part of the 20th century. Security guards perform many of the same functions as police officers and may even carry weapons, but to what extent do states regulate the private security industry? This article compares the change in state...

This study presents a survey of state statutes which restrict the civil rights of persons with a mental illness or who have been declared mentally incompetent. Five civil rights (voting, holding public office, jury service, parenting, and marriage) are examined. The results of this study are compared with the results of studies conducted in 1989 an...

Written by three leaders in the field, this comprehensive and accessible text for undergraduate courses explores all conventional topics (court structure, courtroom actors, and the trial and appeal process) as well as others seldom covered. The text first reviews the judicial function, the role and purpose of law, sources of law, the various types...

Restrictions on the Citizenship Rights of Felons: Barriers to Successful Reintegration Michael Campagna, Cheyenne Foster, Stephanie Karas, Mary K. Stohr, Craig Hemmens Abstract Felon disenfranchisement is unique to the United States, as our nation is one of the last democratic countries to permit this type of restriction on felons. The right to vo...

Larceny involves the theft of property. Over time, the law of larceny has changed as the forms of property and methods of obtaining property have changed. This essay provides an overview of the historical development of larceny and a discussion of the elements of the crime.

While social support theory has been applied to a variety of criminal justice settings, there has been little empirical research on the effect of social support on inmate behavior. In this article, we test Cullen’s proposition that social support, in whatever form it manifests itself, has an effect on Korean inmates’ experiences. Specifically, we e...

Transgender inmates provide a conundrum for correctional staff, particularly when it comes to classification, victimization, and medical and health issues. Using LexisNexis and WestLaw and state Department of Corrections (DOC) information, we collected state statutes and DOC policies concerning transgender inmates. We utilized academic legal resear...

Law-related courses, and more broadly the place of the law and lawyers in criminal justice programs, are the focus of this paper. I believe that the importance of the law, the study of legal issues, and the way in which the law is taught in criminal justice programs is in need of significant refinement. We need more law-related courses in the curri...

A recent study by the Justice Center (2013) concerning four California cities revealed that as many as one in five arrests (or 20 percent) involved an individual under probation or parole supervision. More specifically, one in six arrests for violent crimes and one in three substance abuse arrests involved an active probationer/parolee. Though some...

There has long been a debate about what, if anything, differentiates criminology and criminal justice programs. Both grew about of sociology and, to a lesser degree, law and political science. In the 1970s and early 1980s, debate arose over the scope and limits of the two. That debate has faded today but the perceptions emanating from that controve...

This research was conducted to identify and explain factors that shape staff and inmate perceptions of ethical behavior within a correctional setting. Prior research has found that staff do perceive high levels of deviance among their peers, but this varies by both the facility (jails were perceived as more unethical) and staff characteristics, wit...

Previous research on correctional goal orientations has focused on the attitudes of the public, correctional administrators, and correctional staff. Only a few studies have examined inmate attitudes. This research addresses the question: Do jail inmates and staff have similar beliefs about the goals of corrections? Findings from a sample drawn from...

In this paper we review and analyze the criminal justice-related decisions of the 2014 term of the United States Supreme Court. We also provide a summary of the Court’s voting patterns and opinion authorship. Eighteen of the Court’s 74 decision touched on criminal justice. There were significant decisions in the areas of search and seizure, the con...

During the 2009 term the US Supreme Court issued decisions in three cases that involved the interpretation and application of the Miranda warnings. In this article, we examine these decisions and argue that in these cases the Supreme Court erred in allowing the confession obtained by the police to be used as evidence. In a companion article written...

The culture of an organization shapes much that occurs in that environment. Leaders who are oblivious of their organizational culture are less likely to succeed. Organization members who do not understand the culture may be vulnerable to its more negative influences. Assessing the key attributes of an organizational culture in an agency is a tricky...

In 1981, the Supreme Court held that when a police officer arrests the occupant of an automobile, the officer may search the automobile’s passenger compartment incident to the arrest, and this search may take place even after the suspect has been handcuffed and secured in a police vehicle. This decision created a bright-line rule for searches incid...

In Kentucky v. King (2011), the Supreme Court held that police officers may enter a residence under the ‘exigent circumstances’ exception to the 4th Amendment’s search warrant requirement even when it is the police activity which creates the exigent circumstance. This case is the latest in a series of decisions in which the Supreme Court has weaken...

During its 2010 term, the United State Supreme Court decided 28 cases that dealt with a criminal justice-related issue. While a number of these decisions will have only a slight impact on the daily administration of justice, there were several significant cases involving criminal justice-related topics such as search and seizure, interrogations, an...

During its 2009 term, the U.S. Supreme Court decided 26 cases dealing with a criminal justice— related issue. While a number of these decisions will have only a slight impact on the daily administration of justice, there were several significant cases involving criminal justice—related topics such as search and seizure, interrogations, and sentenci...

In this article the authors examine the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Arizona v. Gant and argue that the high court correctly clarified the law regarding what police may do when conducting a search incident to the arrest of someone in a vehicle. In the following article, friend and colleague Martin O’Connor argues the Supreme Court (and this a...

The plain view doctrine allows police officers to seize contraband they see without first obtaining a search warrant. It is one of many exceptions to the warrant requirement. Since the exception was first announced in 1971, the Supreme Court and lower federal courts and state courts have attempted to apply its rationale to situations involving the...

In this paper we review and analyze the criminal justice-related decisions of the 2014 term of the United States Supreme Court. We also provide a summary of the Court’s voting patterns and opinion authorship. Eighteen of the Court’s 74 decision touched on criminal justice. There were significant decisions in the areas of search and seizure, the con...