Gennaro F Vito
Biographic Data
| ID | 74337 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Gennaro F Vito |
| GIVEN NAMES | Gennaro F |
| FAMILY NAME | Vito |
| SIGNATURE | VITO G F |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Louisville |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0713-6173 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 30 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1982 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The Gender Gap in Attitudes toward Capital Punishment and Life without Parole (LWOP) in Kentucky
Over years of U.S. polls, women have consistently opposed capital punishment—especially in comparison to the attitudes of males. In addition, there has been a shift in the United States away from using the death penalty in cases of murder and toward using the long-term, open-ended, and often permanent confinement provided by the sentence of life without parole among all U.S. respondents. Using data from a poll of a representative sample of Kentuc…
Evaluating the impact of sexual assault training on police officers: A systematic review and meta-analysis
A Comparison of Executions and Death to Life Commutations in Kentucky, 1901–2019
This study examines the administration of capital punishment in Kentucky. Comparing execution and death to life commutation cases from 1901–2019, we consider the purpose of the commutation process and its utilization considering offender-victim relationships and the severity of the homicide as determined by the Barnett Scale. While a higher score on the Barnett Scale predicted execution, there remained a pattern of racial discrimination between t…
Police Stop and Frisk and the Impact of Race: A Focal Concerns Theory Approach
The findings of this study outline the racial differences in stop and frisk decisions by Illinois officers in consent searches and those based upon reasonable suspicion within the context of the elements of focal concerns theory. The analysis for this study was performed using propensity score matching (PSM) and allowed the researchers to create a quasi-experimental design to examine the race of the citizen and police decision making. According t…
Strengths and Weaknesses of Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs: A Focus Group Assessment of Law Enforcement Officers
This study describes how prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) are used and identifies the strengths and weakness found in the four PDMPs studied. Focus groups were conducted with law enforcement officers in four states. The results indicate that making it easier to obtain information from the systems in other states or establishing a regional (or national) system would improve and speed investigations. The study also found that officers …
Police executives’ and managers’ perspectives on Compstat
Developed and implemented by the New York City Police Department, Compstat is a managerial accountability system developed to identify and solve crime problems. It has been adopted police departments throughout the world. This manuscript compares the attitudes of police chiefs with those of other ranks of police administrators through the use of a survey conducted by the Police Executive Research Forum. We replicated the study and surveyed gradua…
The Recidivism of Drug Offenders Following Release from Prison: A Comparison of Kentucky Outcomes
This study presents findings on the community release performance of prisoners incarcerated for a drug offense and released over a 30-month period (July 2002 – December 2004). Within this sample, propensity score matching was used to construct comparable groups of parolees and offenders released unconditionally into the community. The authors find that drug offenders released from prison are highly likely to be returned to prison postrelease and …
On Teaching and Conducting Research on Police Managers: The Administrative Officer’s Course at the Southern Police Institute
The origins and structure of the administrative officer’s course (AOC) at the Southern Police Institute at the University of Louisville is presented. The focus is upon combining the teaching and research functions faced by criminal justice professors. Published research findings conducted on the assignments of AOC police manager students are reviewed and presented
Capital Punishment
The penalty of death still exists in the criminal justice system of the United States. In this entry, we present current information on the operations of capital punishment including the volume of cases and persons on death row and the distribution of death‐row inmates and executions by state. Specific attention is given to the impact of race upon capital sentencing, particularly the introduction of racial bias in terms of the race of the victim …
Searches and Traffic Stops: Racial Profiling and Capriciousness
The purpose of the present study is to examine traffic stop data—in particular data on searches—to better understand racial profiling. We use a measure of capriciousness to understand whether the decision to search occurs at random. Using data from more than 40,000 traffic stops from Louisville, Kentucky, the present study finds that race is one of many factors that are used in the determination of a search. For the overall, White, and Black samp…
Lynching and the Death Penalty in Kentucky, 1866–1934: Substitution or Supplement
Using multivariate techniques, this article reanalyzes data from the Espy file to test a hypothesis by historian George Wright. In Racial Violence in Kentucky, Wright concludes that legal executions became a functional substitute for Black lynchings in Kentucky. Wright assumes that executions formed a legal substitute for lynchings of Blacks. For this reason, Black lynchings declined dramatically during the 1920s and 1930s. We conducted a statist…
Searches: An Understudied Area of Racial Profiling
Racial profiling is an important issue in contemporary policing. Racial profiling research has primarily involved two things: (1) examining traffic stop data, and (2) using a benchmark or baseline in the discovery of racial profiling. A smaller literature has examined the searches to uncover racial profiling. The purpose of the present study is to examine traffic stop data-in particular searches-in understanding racial profiling. Using data more …
The Great Books in Criminal Justice: As Ranked by Elite Members of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences
Attempts to define the core body of knowledge in criminal justice have provided diverse and disparate explanations of what could be considered as central to the discipline. Previous efforts have focused on frequently cited authors and works, required learning for students and the personal beliefs of individual scholars. The present work adds to this body by examining the works considered by an elite sample of criminal justice educators as classic…
Capriciousness or Fairness: Race and Prosecutorial Decisions to Seek the Death Penalty in Kentucky
Previous research on capital sentencing have discovered quantitative proof of discrimination, especially by race of the victim. The present study examines prosecutorial decision making in Kentucky. Using a method of analysis developed by Berk et al., it seeks to determine the level of capriciousness (uncertainty) present in the prosecutorial decision to seek the death penalty. Kentucky prosecutors were most likely to seek the death penalty in cas…
The effects of the Furman and Gregg decisions on black-white execution ratios in the south
Race, Homicide Severity, and Application of the Death Penalty: A Consideration of the Barnett Scale
This study uses the Barnett scale of homicide severity to analyze the capital sentencing process in Kentucky. In his analysis of Georgia cases, Barnett found that whites were disproportionately the victims of homicides that the scale considered as most serious. This conclusion was cited as an explanation for racial disparity in capital sentencing. When the scale is applied to Kentucky data and the level of seriousness of the murder is controlled,…
The effects of intensive supervision on shock probationers
Combatting the crime of arson: Detection, arrest, and conviction
The use of the determinate sentence—an historical perspective: A research note
Race, Homicide Severity, and Application of the Death Penalty: A Consideration of the Barnett Scale
This study uses the Barnett scale of homicide severity to analyze the capital sentencing process in Kentucky. In his analysis of Georgia cases, Barnett found that whites were disproportionately the victims of homicides that the scale considered as most serious. This conclusion was cited as an explanation for racial disparity in capital sentencing. When the scale is applied to Kentucky data and the level of seriousness of the murder is controlled,…
Police Stop and Frisk and the Impact of Race: A Focal Concerns Theory Approach
The findings of this study outline the racial differences in stop and frisk decisions by Illinois officers in consent searches and those based upon reasonable suspicion within the context of the elements of focal concerns theory. The analysis for this study was performed using propensity score matching (PSM) and allowed the researchers to create a quasi-experimental design to examine the race of the citizen and police decision making. According t…
The effects of the Furman and Gregg decisions on black-white execution ratios in the south
The use of the determinate sentence—an historical perspective: A research note
Combatting the crime of arson: Detection, arrest, and conviction
The use of the determinate sentence—an historical perspective: A research note
Combatting the crime of arson: Detection, arrest, and conviction
The effects of intensive supervision on shock probationers
Race, Homicide Severity, and Application of the Death Penalty: A Consideration of the Barnett Scale
This study uses the Barnett scale of homicide severity to analyze the capital sentencing process in Kentucky. In his analysis of Georgia cases, Barnett found that whites were disproportionately the victims of homicides that the scale considered as most serious. This conclusion was cited as an explanation for racial disparity in capital sentencing. When the scale is applied to Kentucky data and the level of seriousness of the murder is controlled,…
The effects of the Furman and Gregg decisions on black-white execution ratios in the south
Capriciousness or Fairness: Race and Prosecutorial Decisions to Seek the Death Penalty in Kentucky
Previous research on capital sentencing have discovered quantitative proof of discrimination, especially by race of the victim. The present study examines prosecutorial decision making in Kentucky. Using a method of analysis developed by Berk et al., it seeks to determine the level of capriciousness (uncertainty) present in the prosecutorial decision to seek the death penalty. Kentucky prosecutors were most likely to seek the death penalty in cas…
Searches: An Understudied Area of Racial Profiling
Racial profiling is an important issue in contemporary policing. Racial profiling research has primarily involved two things: (1) examining traffic stop data, and (2) using a benchmark or baseline in the discovery of racial profiling. A smaller literature has examined the searches to uncover racial profiling. The purpose of the present study is to examine traffic stop data-in particular searches-in understanding racial profiling. Using data more …
The Great Books in Criminal Justice: As Ranked by Elite Members of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences
Attempts to define the core body of knowledge in criminal justice have provided diverse and disparate explanations of what could be considered as central to the discipline. Previous efforts have focused on frequently cited authors and works, required learning for students and the personal beliefs of individual scholars. The present work adds to this body by examining the works considered by an elite sample of criminal justice educators as classic…
Lynching and the Death Penalty in Kentucky, 1866–1934: Substitution or Supplement
Using multivariate techniques, this article reanalyzes data from the Espy file to test a hypothesis by historian George Wright. In Racial Violence in Kentucky, Wright concludes that legal executions became a functional substitute for Black lynchings in Kentucky. Wright assumes that executions formed a legal substitute for lynchings of Blacks. For this reason, Black lynchings declined dramatically during the 1920s and 1930s. We conducted a statist…
Searches and Traffic Stops: Racial Profiling and Capriciousness
The purpose of the present study is to examine traffic stop data—in particular data on searches—to better understand racial profiling. We use a measure of capriciousness to understand whether the decision to search occurs at random. Using data from more than 40,000 traffic stops from Louisville, Kentucky, the present study finds that race is one of many factors that are used in the determination of a search. For the overall, White, and Black samp…
Capital Punishment
The penalty of death still exists in the criminal justice system of the United States. In this entry, we present current information on the operations of capital punishment including the volume of cases and persons on death row and the distribution of death‐row inmates and executions by state. Specific attention is given to the impact of race upon capital sentencing, particularly the introduction of racial bias in terms of the race of the victim …
On Teaching and Conducting Research on Police Managers: The Administrative Officer’s Course at the Southern Police Institute
The origins and structure of the administrative officer’s course (AOC) at the Southern Police Institute at the University of Louisville is presented. The focus is upon combining the teaching and research functions faced by criminal justice professors. Published research findings conducted on the assignments of AOC police manager students are reviewed and presented
Police executives’ and managers’ perspectives on Compstat
Developed and implemented by the New York City Police Department, Compstat is a managerial accountability system developed to identify and solve crime problems. It has been adopted police departments throughout the world. This manuscript compares the attitudes of police chiefs with those of other ranks of police administrators through the use of a survey conducted by the Police Executive Research Forum. We replicated the study and surveyed gradua…
The Recidivism of Drug Offenders Following Release from Prison: A Comparison of Kentucky Outcomes
This study presents findings on the community release performance of prisoners incarcerated for a drug offense and released over a 30-month period (July 2002 – December 2004). Within this sample, propensity score matching was used to construct comparable groups of parolees and offenders released unconditionally into the community. The authors find that drug offenders released from prison are highly likely to be returned to prison postrelease and …
Strengths and Weaknesses of Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs: A Focus Group Assessment of Law Enforcement Officers
This study describes how prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) are used and identifies the strengths and weakness found in the four PDMPs studied. Focus groups were conducted with law enforcement officers in four states. The results indicate that making it easier to obtain information from the systems in other states or establishing a regional (or national) system would improve and speed investigations. The study also found that officers …
A Comparison of Executions and Death to Life Commutations in Kentucky, 1901–2019
This study examines the administration of capital punishment in Kentucky. Comparing execution and death to life commutation cases from 1901–2019, we consider the purpose of the commutation process and its utilization considering offender-victim relationships and the severity of the homicide as determined by the Barnett Scale. While a higher score on the Barnett Scale predicted execution, there remained a pattern of racial discrimination between t…
Police Stop and Frisk and the Impact of Race: A Focal Concerns Theory Approach
The findings of this study outline the racial differences in stop and frisk decisions by Illinois officers in consent searches and those based upon reasonable suspicion within the context of the elements of focal concerns theory. The analysis for this study was performed using propensity score matching (PSM) and allowed the researchers to create a quasi-experimental design to examine the race of the citizen and police decision making. According t…
Evaluating the impact of sexual assault training on police officers: A systematic review and meta-analysis
The Gender Gap in Attitudes toward Capital Punishment and Life without Parole (LWOP) in Kentucky
Over years of U.S. polls, women have consistently opposed capital punishment—especially in comparison to the attitudes of males. In addition, there has been a shift in the United States away from using the death penalty in cases of murder and toward using the long-term, open-ended, and often permanent confinement provided by the sentence of life without parole among all U.S. respondents. Using data from a poll of a representative sample of Kentuc…
Psychology (17 works) · Criminology (16 works) · Crime Patterns and Interventions (11 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Political science (9 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Social Psychology (8 works) · Law (7 works)