John Smykla

Florida Atlantic University | FAU · School of Criminology & Criminal Justice

Analysis of scholarship in the physical, biological, and social sciences has discovered that peer-reviewed journals publish a much larger proportion of articles with statistically significant findings compared to articles with null results. Publication bias in criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) has received very little attention, however. The c...

This research examines the impact of participation in a federal reentry court program on supervision violations, revocations, and re-arrest. We evaluate a federal reentry court that utilized random selection and random assignment of participants to treatment groups and random selection for control groups. Outcomes examined include: number of superv...

Police body-worn cameras (BWCs) represent one of the latest innovations to permeate policing, and the rapid speed with which law enforcement agencies throughout the United States and internationally have adopted or considered the technology has been greatly influenced by environmental factors, including high-profile deadly force incidents and natio...

Body-worn cameras (BWCs) are increasingly more common in their use among police officers. Research on BWCs is the focus of an increasing number of studies seeking information on stakeholder perceptions and the impact of the technology on behavior and other related outcomes. Although the emerging research is mixed, several studies find that officers...

Despite relatively little extant research, efforts to expand the use of body-worn cameras (BWCs) in policing are increasing. Although recent research suggests positive impacts of BWCs on reducing police use-of-force and citizen complaints, little is known about community members’ perceptions of BWCs. The current study examined perceptions of reside...

Many people are enthusiastic about the potential benefits of police body-worn cameras (BWC). Despite this enthusiasm, however, there has been no research on law enforcement command staff perceptions of BWCs. Given the importance that law enforcement leadership plays in the decision to adopt and implement BWCs, it is necessary to assess their percep...

Criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) as an academic discipline has experienced an increase in the focus on various aspects of academic productivity in recent years. Much of the extant literature examining journal article authorship has focused on various measures of the publication productivity of specific authors but not on the characteristics o...

Corrections in the 21st Century uses a practical approach to introduce students to the ideas and practices characteristic of modern corrections while equipping them with the skills necessary to succeed in the field. Its approach to corrections includes a thorough description of correctional ideology, a comprehensive overview of correctional practic...

The current study uses a mixed methods design to examine the so-called methodological divide in criminology and criminal justice and the extent to which mixed methods are being employed within the discipline. The authors content analyzed research articles from two national and four regional journals to determine the type and frequency of various me...

This paper describes the use of active learning strategies to teach research methods in a criminal justice course. We investigated the public’s response to a drunk asking for help unlocking a car door to drive home. Students learned the methodology of simulations and then participated in creating a psychological and social state of drinking and act...

Juvenile drug courts have emerged as “innovative” responses to juvenile drug offenders, but comparatively little is known about their operations. This paper presents results of a retrospective comparison of drug court participants to an adolescent substance abuse program (ASAP) to examine which participants fared better in terms of future recidivis...

Juvenile drug courts have emerged as “innovative” responses to juvenile drug offenders, but comparatively little is known about their operations. Using Goldkamp's typology of adult drug courts and secondary analyses of Cooper and Bartlett's data from a national-level survey of juvenile drug courts, this article first describes these courts and then...

Very few studies are available that examine annual meetings of professional organizations. Over the years, the Executive Board of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS) has discussed the problem of "no-shows," individuals who have papers accepted for presentation at the ACJS annual meeting but do not show up to present their papers. In ord...

This article provides a critique of Feeley and Simon's claim (1992) that a new transformation in penology is emerging in the United States, vis-a-vis McCorkle and Crank's position (1996) that the transformation is more rhetoric than reality. Data were collected for a 60-day study period, initially to assess intensive supervised probation (ISP) work...

In spite of a growing body of literature on the attitudes of the public and selected groups toward crime and punishment, including communitybased corrections, intermediate sanctions, and intensive probation, very little is known about the attitudes of criminal justice workgroups toward intensive supervised probation. Understanding reactions to ISP...

A comprehensive review of the impact of co-corrections on women prisoners is reported on here. An exhaustive search of the literature found nine studies that report on the impact of co-corrections for women prisoners. The general finding across all nine is that co-corrections offers women prisoners few, if any, economic, educational, vocational, an...

A survey of the 100 largest police departments in the United States was conducted to document the experience of police undercover operations and the existence of agency guidelines. Eighty-nine agencies responded, revealing that all 89 conduct undercover activities but only 64 have guidelines for such operations. Types of crimes investigated by poli...

Ingraham's (1987) model for studying criminal procedure was applied in the context of Uruguay, South America. The research found that the model's six tasks or functions (intake, screening, charging the defendant and safeguarding his/her rights, adjudicating, sanctioning, and appeal) enhanced understanding of criminal procedure in Uruguay. Applicati...

This article examines the relationship between war and capital punishment. Based on Executions in the United States, 1608–1987: The Espy File (Espy and Smykla, 1987), a new, comprehensive computer-readable data collection on the history of capital punishment, changes in execution rates were measured across World Wars I and II and the Korean War wit...

Data collected by the author while a Fulbright scholar to Uruguay, South America for six weeks in June and July, 1986 allowed examination of the macro-setting of a political dictatorship and the transformation of corrections into an instrument of dictatorial rule from 1973 to 1984. The article also addresses a few principles for guiding entry into...

The consequences of capital punishment vibrate throughout the social structure and include persons in an ever widening circle of impact. Previous literature on the human impact of capital punishment has focused on victim families, attending physicians, death row inmates, executioners, witnesses, society, prison guards, wardens, and jurors. These st...

The decision to grant or deny probation or parole is dependent upon making predictions of what activity and behavior can be affected by probation or parole. However, in research conducted on correctional decision-making, the evidence shows that decision-making diverges significantly from what one would expect to be true if there were any validity t...

Changes in economic and social well-being in three Alabama countries, immediately subsequent to the opening of large state prison facilities in those countries, are examined. Case study comparisons of prison and control (no prison) counties, using variables of population growth, total employment, per capita income, retail sales, property value, far...

Shifting correctional philosophies and institutional policies have contributed to what psychiatrist Humphry Osmond calls the “model muddle.” The present article, based on analysis and speculation of a few investigations in the field of sexually integrated prisons (co-corrections), finds that co-correctional institutions suffer from a unique muddle...

The incidence rate of learning disabled and mentally retarded youth among three groups of youth under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court is examined. These three groups are institutionalized delinquents, nonconfined delinquents, and status offenders. The chi-square statistic indicated no significant differences (p > .05) with respect to the pre...

Studied the effects of citizen awareness within the context of an experimental simulation of 16 incidences of auto burglary. 39 undergraduates were assigned to roles of driver, passenger, thief, and observer. Results show that community awareness and involvement in crime prevention were nonexistent. The 16 incidences of burglary were marked by only...