Theses and Dissertations

The juvenile justice system was established over a century ago with “the goal of diverting youthful offenders from the destructive punishments of criminal courts and encouraging rehabilitation based on the individual juvenile’s needs” (National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, 2001, p. 154). Although significant progress has been made in maintaining the goals set out when the juvenile justice system was established, there is still a lack of awareness about the dehumanization of juvenile offenders who have been incarcerated. Individual failures of juvenile offenders can occur for a variety of reasons, including a lack of support from their communities and the juvenile justice system as a whole. Throughout the years, there have been several reformations made to the juvenile justice system as there seems to have been a prime focus on punishment rather than rehabilitation. Reformations were made through a few court cases regarding sentences such as capital punishment and life imprisonment without parole. The cases that have brought reform to the juvenile justice system have also brought awareness to the immaturity and cognitive development of juvenile offenders. There are numerous risk and mitigating factors that children face as they grow up, which is exacerbated for those who are incarcerated. The fact that juveniles come out of incarceration with more problems than they did when they entered juvenile facilities is an indication of the need to focus on restorative justice rather than punishment.

The portrayal of those with mental health disorders in film and television, particularly those with disorders that label them as psychopaths, have often been overlooked. It is all too common for mental health disorders to be romanticized, dramatized, or simply depicted incorrectly. The historical fiction films Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile and My Friend Dahmer depict serial killers Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer respectively, and while depict historical events to a degree of accuracy, still take creative liberties. The proper definition of psychopathy must be analyzed more and the reason why films about psychopaths are popular with audiences must be as well.

The emergence of COVID-19 has ravaged through the United States generally and prison facilities in particular. By reducing prison populations and protecting a facility's most vulnerable members, compassionate release is a means of mitigating the consequences of COVID-19 facing prison facilities across the country. This thesis will examine compassionate release requests for the months of March 2020 through May 2020 from minimum and low-security prison facilities within the Bureau of Prisons. By examining this data, the goal of this thesis will be to determine whether the Bureau’s use of compassionate release was conducted in a manner that would protect the well-being of incarcerated individuals in response to the emergence of COVID-19. Similarly, the data will be examined in order to identify any significant differences between prison facilities in their use of compassionate release and subsequent outcomes from COVID-19 infections and deaths. Lastly, this thesis will examine this data to determine whether the Bureau’s use of compassionate release was consistent with the general objective of reducing prison populations and overcrowding in response to COVID-19.