Filtering by
- All Subjects: Criminal justice, Administration of
- All Subjects: Elections
- Creators: Morrison Institute for Public Policy
- Status: Published
This brief, the third issue in the "Criminal Justice Issues for Arizona" series, reveals that Pinal County's specialized court for domestic-violence cases offers some promising results for dealing with this common and complex offense. This report contains an analysis of data collected in the Pinal County Domestic Violence Database, which as of April 2008 contained 666 case records of domestic-violence offenders who were processed by one of the three courts. The database also contained information on a comparison group of offenders; however, these offenders are not included in this analysis because of insufficient numbers. Court officials are currently developing a more appropriate comparison group for use in a subsequent analysis. Table 3 presents the frequency and percent of offenses by levels of education: 8th grade and below, some high school, high school diploma, some college, college graduate, post-graduate degree, and unknown. Key findings include: (1) Offenders showed a significant increase in their self-reported coping abilities and in their satisfaction with the criminal-justice system during their period of supervision; (2) Offenders showed a significant decrease in their self-reported propensity for abusiveness to an intimate partner during their period of supervision; and (3) Only 9% of offenders committed another offense while in the program.
A grassroots dialogue-to-action program designed to inspire bottom-up collaboration on issues of domestic violence proved to be a success and several important lessons were learned to help full implementation. This briefing evaluates the pilot program of the Purple Ribbon Study Circles Project, which ran in six cities in Greater Phoenix from September through December 2008.
Arizona’s most significant criminal-justice trend of the 2000s has been the enormous growth of the state’s prison population, which far outpaced state population growth and continued upward even as the rate of major crimes dropped. In this edition, the author explores Arizona incarceration trends into the next decade.
Arizona’s prison population is on the rise and the current fiscal year General Fund has $880 million budgeted for corrections. Read the series debut of Indicator Insight to learn about trends in crime rates, juvenile arrests, and recidivism.
Since statehood in 1912, Arizona has been among the nation’s leaders in using the initiative process to either adopt a statute or amend the state constitution by placing a measure on the ballot. But such efforts are anything but easy. In fact, organizers have found it to be an expensive, time-consuming and exhausting process – and one that is unlikely to end successfully.
The author writes about Arizona's longstanding belief in direct democracy via referendum, initiative and recall. The Legislature continues to grapple with election reform and strike a balance of how much binding authority should remain in the hands of voters in terms of initiative, referendum and recall, but Arizona’s penchant for people power has been demonstrated since before statehood. In the midst of his campaign for Congress in 1911, for example, Arizona’s Carl Hayden noted that everywhere he went he found voters eager to take control. "The people want their own kind of government,” Hayden told reporters. “They want to be the dictators.”
Domestic violence (DV) ranks among the most common 911 calls to police statewide. And a new report reveals that the victims making the calls – and the professionals working in Arizona’s criminal-justice system – say the state’s response is at risk of failing. System Alert: Arizona’s Criminal Justice Response to Domestic Violence, published by the Morrison Institute for Public Policy at Arizona State University, finds that, despite important strides made over the past three decades, the Arizona’s criminal justice system is too often falling short of its goals of achieving victim safety and offender accountability.
This second criminal justice brief is, like the first, based upon further analysis of the data gathered in the preparation of Layers of Meaning: Domestic Violence and Law Enforcement Attitudes in Arizona. The findings presented here expand on the findings and issues presented in the full report. The aim of this briefing is to present additional information and analysis in support of Arizona's ongoing public conversation about reducing and preventing domestic violence.
This briefing is based on further analysis of the data gathered in the preparation of the 2005 Morrison Institute report "Layers of Meaning: Domestic Violence and Law Enforcement Attitudes in Arizona," this briefing presents additional information and analysis in support of Arizona's ongoing public conversation about reducing and preventing domestic violence.
This paper, drawing upon historical data and information from surveys and interviews with more than 50 legislators, lobbyists, and knowledgeable observers, finds that the term limits reform adopted by the Arizona voters in 1992 has caused legislators to make some painful adjustments. Because of term limits many legislators have decided to run for another office prior to the expiration of their terms. This has often meant trying to move from the one legislative house to another, most commonly from the House to the Senate. On the plus side, the report finds that term limits have encouraged greater competition for legislative and other seats and have given voters a greater choice among candidates. To some extent, limits have been a force toward a more inclusive governing process. At the same time, they have generally reduced the power of legislative leaders and generally increased the influence of lobbyists and staff, though not all lobbyists and staff have gained equally. Recent newcomers to the Arizona Legislature are probably not any less knowledgeable than previous classes of newcomers, but under term limits there are more newcomers and members have less time to learn their jobs. For many, the limit to four two-year terms (eight years total) provides too little time to learn how to do the job and do it well.