A “tough on crime” approach in the late 1900s ushered in more punitive sentencing than ever before in American history. As a result of mandatory minimums, three-strikes laws, and other harsh legislation, the American carceral state boomed. Not only were more people incarcerated, but they were incarcerated for longer periods of time. Since then, federal court cases have challenged the constitutionality of life and lengthy sentences, especially for individuals sentenced when they were juveniles. In the wake of these federal decisions, Washington state has enacted a variety of legal pathways towards post-conviction sentence review and early release. This study explores how learning of the possibility of early release affects incarcerated individuals who previously did not expect to have a chance at release. This research will be conducted through qualitative interviews and a survey with a sample of 12-15 individuals who served lengthy sentences and unexpectedly learned of a chance for early release. The findings of the research are expected to make a variety of contributions. First, the research will fill a gap in the literature on the social-psychological dimensions of imprisonment and on the significance of hope for incarcerated individuals. Second, this research will add qualitative insights to the largely policy-related literature on criminal sentencing. Third, the research may influence early-release policy by demonstrating potential benefits of such programs, which may positively contribute to less stringent sentencing and carceral practices. Fourthly, the research may help to shatter preconceived notions that individuals who have served life/lengthy sentences are “burdens” to society and instead replace such negative views with positive, prosocial, and communal experiences.

The American prison system is notorious for the mistreatment and abuse of the incarcerated people left in their care. In the past ten years there have been large pushes for prison reform; yet, these programs have had varying results across states. Why is it that some states have a much higher frequency of sexual assaults in prisons then others? I expect to find that prisons in Democratic-controlled states will have lower rates of sexual assault then their Republican-controlled counterparts. Literature on racial and social justice initiatives point to several differentiating factors between the two parties that aids in explaining this issue. Democrats are more likely to support social welfare and the Black Lives Matter movement, because racial justice activism is important to the Democratic coalition and subsequently their voter base. Additionally, Republican leadership supports tax and social welfare cuts while prison reform depends on subsidization from the government to work. In order to test this theory, I gathered data on sexual assaults in prisons from each state and compared them against each other, controlling for certain factors such as age, population and prison demographic. I ran a multivariate regression to see if Republican-controlled states experience greater frequencies of assault. This study focuses on an underserved population in the United States which greatly deserves thought and attention. Additionally, learning what factors contribute to violence in prisons helps provide a framework for improvements in our judicial system. Through research my goal is to contribute new information to a critical issue that has so far been largely understudied.

The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) of 2000 was passed to protect the rights of incarcerated individuals in the US to freely practice their religion in federal prisons. However, even 22 years after RLUIPA placed a strict scrutiny standard on reviewing inmates; free exercise claims, community organizations have had to repeatedly advocate for civil rights violations in prisons. This project aims to figure out why the free exercise rights of religious minorities are still threatened in the face of strong legislative protection. I will do so first by determining whether there is a bias in RLUIPA decisions for claims made by majoritarian religions, leaving religious minorities with a lower likelihood of success. Then, I will analyze whether the difference in success rates can be explained by a plaintiff's access to resources. Most incarcerated individuals represent themselves in court as they often lack the financial resources necessary for professional legal representation. Pro se plaintiff's often lack the preparation and legal knowledge that goes into a successful court claim. I hypothesize that prisoners with access to more resources, whether it's financial or community-based support, will be more likely to have a successful free exercise claim. My data will be collected from RLUIPA judgements from 2000 to 2022 and compiled into a dataset that includes variables such as the plaintiff's religion, type of representation, and the outcome of the claim. I expect to find that religious minorities will have lower rates of success, and that they will be less likely to have private representation. I also expect that plaintiffs with private representation will have higher rates of success with their RLUIPA claims as compared to pro se plaintiff's. The findings of this research will reveal the difficulties that individuals face in prison because of their religious identity and speak to broader themes of the trust and authority that our political systems give to prisons at the expense of incarcerated individuals' rights. 

International criminal justice is often criticized for being unfairly selective in prosecuting cases. For instance, all suspects brought before the International Criminal Court in The Hague have come from Africa. This is despite the fact that human rights violations have been reported in many other parts of the world during this same period of time. Although restrictions in time and resources limit international courts’ and tribunals' capacity to prosecute all meritorious cases, the criteria used by the Prosecutors of these courts to determine which cases to pursue and which to disregard remain largely unknown, compromising the legitimacy of international criminal law in its application. This raises the question of why international criminal cases were only initiated in certain cases and not in others, and against particular suspects? To address these questions, this research examines four of the most prominent theories on selectivity in the application of international criminal law, including state capacity, popularity (that the courts will single out people from countries that have a bad reputation in their global affairs while granting leniency to others), crime severity, and victor's justice (countries with powerful positions within the international arena are most likely to escape international scrutiny). Most empirical research examines a single theory in isolation and employs a case study approach. However, I compiled an original dataset that encompasses all cases of international criminal law, from the Nuremberg Trials to the most recent cases of the International Criminal Court in order to test all four major theories systematically. I expect multivariate analysis to provide substantial support for the theory of victor's justice by showing that the power of a country correlates with the likelihood of international interference in the prosecution of international crimes committed in the country.

Political scientists have rarely considered the intersection of religious organizations and foreign policy. Currently, there is no literature that investigates why religious organizations decide to either support or oppose American wars overseas and why this support can vary within each organization across conflicts. I attempt to answer these questions by testing whether religions are more likely to favor wars with other countries that have smaller groups of same-faith adherents. The social psychology theory of in-group favoritism and an “open-door” incentive to potential proselytization provide a plausible argument for such a relationship. To test this, I analyzed three different denominations of Christianity with a significant presence in the United States and their public position toward specific military conflicts throughout U.S. history. I created an original dataset containing these public positions of support or opposition to a given war along with the existence or size of like-faith communities (i.e., how many of their own church members were present) in the exterior target state of the conflict. I then utilized a multivariate regression analysis to test my theory and determine the relationship between a church’s support for war and the size of same-creed presence in each target state. I expect to find a positive relationship between these two variables, supporting the theories of in-group favoritism and “open-door” proselytization. These findings will contribute to current literature on American public and religious interest group foreign policy attitudes and offer methods for anticipating faith group positions on future military operations.

As of 2022 there are 103 million displaced people, of which 32.5 million are refugees, and 4.9 million are asylum seekers recognized by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. As the number of displaced people grows, it becomes even more imperative that the United States offers asylum seekers a fair trial in court to pursue refuge in order to comply with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as to uphold strong ethical obligations based on foundational liberal values. However, today the right to seek asylum in U.S. immigration courts is undermined by the stark variation of adjudication rates between immigration judges. In this paper, I use original data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University to examine asylum adjudication variation systemically. Building from social identity theory, I hypothesize that asylum adjudication variation occurs due to the implicit bias exercised by judges based on their personal identities. I define implicit biases as unconscious learned biases that usually take the form of stereotypes and narratives that one automatically associates with particular people. Using a multivariate regression, I examine how the race, gender, political leanings, and religious affiliations of 314 judges correlate with the judges’ adjudication rate as well as the racial makeup of their asylum applicant pool. I expect to find that judges that have the characteristics of white, male, conservative and Christian will be more likely to deny asylum applications and I posit that this will have a disparate impact on asylum seekers who are black, brown, or are coming from majority Muslim countries.