A Mere Youthful Indiscretion? Reexamining the Policy of Expunging Juvenile Delinquency Records

Recent studies by the U.S. Department of Justice have found that, while adult violent crime rates continue to drop, today\u27s juvenile offenders are the fastest growing segment among violent criminals. The unprecedented increase in juvenile criminality is expected to result in a dramatic increase in the overall rate of violent crime as these juveniles approach majority. Funk argues that most states have not adapted to the troubling reality that the juvenile offenders of today are not the hubcap-stealing youths of days gone by, and that chronic adult criminality is predicated on violent and repeated acts of juvenile delinquency. These jurisdictions retain statutory provisions that allow for, or mandate, the expungement of juvenile crime records once the juvenile reaches a certain age. This policy\u27s stated goal is to allow the juvenile offender to enter adulthood with a clean slate, thereby shielding him from the negative effects of having a criminal record. The author conducts an exhaustive analysis and critique of this policy, examining its philosophical origins, the rehabilitative ideal on which it is premised, and its theoretical and practical impact. He argues that even if one accepts the notion that those who have committed a juvenile indiscretion will outgrow their reckless behavior, it remains necessary to differentiate between those who in fact can be rehabilitated and those whose rehabilitative potential is negligible, a task not accomplished by most contemporary expungement statutes

Cracking Self-Defense’s Intractable “Difficult Cases”

The “ancient right” of self-defense is among the handful of criminal law areas that has received substantial academic (and increasingly public) attention, and deservedly so, given the foundational role it plays in criminal justice systems the world over. The current debate about over-policing, violence, and self-defense has vividly brought to the forefront the challenges inherent in setting boundaries between the state’s claimed “monopoly on force” and the individual’s right to deploy self-preferential violence against an attacker. But, as this Article points out, by continuing to overlook the role values and value judgments play in guiding “just” self-defense outcomes, the bedrock analysis providing the starting point for this debate has been undermined. Put another way, the debate has, in a sense, lacked moral and analytical coherence. In the wake of George Floyd’s brutal killing, drawing the boundaries of appropriate self-preferential force has assumed a central role as society considers how the criminal justice system actually operates and where reform is most needed. This Article seeks to advance that debate by proposing a new, value-centric method of addressing the toughest self-defense questions that have bedeviled commentators for hundreds of years and across all legal systems. For example, is self-defense best viewed as a justification or an excuse? Should a person mistaken about the facts be authorized to use self-defense? What is the relationship between “necessary” defensive force and “imminent threats”? When should a person be required to retreat from a conflict (or avoid it altogether)? How should the law treat morally innocent threats? And should deadly force ever be authorized to defend mere property? A tremendous amount of scholarly ink has been spilled on the various technical and instrumental aspects of self-defense, and one cannot really question the inescapable centrality of value judgments inherent in any adjudication of a self-defense scenario. Yet, curiously, there has been little scrutiny given to the core questions of how, when, and why values should influence self-defense outcomes. Rather, values and the related normative judgments have largely operated in the background and, thus, in the shadows. The approach developed here is tethered to the recognition that justice systems, when confronted with self-defense claims, must always balance various competing interests (and values). These interests include ensuring procedural justice and the need to shore up the justice system’s legitimacy and creditworthiness; the need to allow a defender to use defensive force for protection; the role of equal standing between citizens; everyone’s presumptive “right to life”; the presumptive primacy of the legal process; general and specific deterrence; and the state’s historical claim to a monopoly on force. To date, the scholarly discussion, legislative debate, and judicial decisionmaking have largely failed to engage with this broader array of competing values in any comprehsnive manner, focusing instead on technical and instrumental interests or, to the extent discussed at all, on only one or two narrow values (specifically, the rights of the defender versus the rights of the attacker). As a result, justice systems, and those working within them and impacted by them, from the outset have been limited in their abilities to persuasively, transparently, and fairly address crucial public perceptions of what amounts to “just” and “right” self-defense outcomes as well as the emphasis the legal system places (and should place) on state power. Some prominent self-defense scholars, for example, narrowly focus on one outcome- determinative value when they contend that human life is inviolate except in extreme situations involving fully culpable attackers threatening to kill their victim. The result is a proposed regime that is at odds with all known selfdefense laws and would refuse a defender the right to use deadly force to prevent violent rape and all other forms of culpably inflicted serious bodily injury short of death. The other side of the continuum is occupied by commentators who support “stand-your-ground” and “castle doctrine” laws grounded almost exclusively on protecting the autonomy of the individual defender at any price. Supporters of such uncompromising views argue with equal passion for their respective positions when assessing prominent examples, such as George Zimmerman’s claimed right to self-defense in his deadly encounter with Trayvon Martin; Texas retiree Joe Horn’s shotgun killing of two men he suspected of burglarizing his neighbor’s home; and Travis McMichael’s taking of Ahmaud Arbery’s life while purportedly trying to effect a “citizen’s arrest” for a claimed trespass on a Georgia construction site. The position taken here is that all such hard-edged approaches—whether described as “pro-defender” or “pro-attacker”— are fundamentally flawed because they for no good reason elevate one or two narrow values to the exclusion of all others. As these in-the-public-consciousness examples demonstrate, the absence of a truly value-centric self-defense dialogue has resulted in a weak methodology for meaningfully tackling a critical criminal justice issue in a manner that is transparent, democratic, and sustainable. In the face of the various recent— and often tragic—high-profile incidents such as these referenced above, thoughtful people within and outside the halls of academia have had occasion to pause and think more profoundly about self-defense’s underlying rationale. The present undertaking is designed to fortify this effort. This Article’s admittedly ambitious aim, then, is to dust off the existing approaches (some of which have been dominating the narrative for centuries), hold them to the contemporary light, and suggest that there is a better way of conceiving the doctrine of self-defense, specifically, and the limits on state power, more generally. Closely examining people’s blend of deeply personal views on a range of competing values allows us to understand why the same set of facts may be applauded as justified self-defense in one legal culture or region of the country, while derided as criminal (or even barbaric) in another. This open discussion about the central role value judgments play in assessing selfdefense claims, in turn, encourages more democratic and transparent legislative and judicial decisions and commentary. Put another way, this Article argues that finding solutions to today’s fraught criminal justice reform debates requires, as a starting point, a common language of values. Such a process promises to yield outcomes with staying power because they will have been reached not on the basis of hidden normativity and false dichotomies, but rather through an all-things-considered analysis of values, and the relative weighting of these values, deemed relevant in each challenging self-defense case where rights and interests lock horns

An Analytic Method to determine Habitable Zones for S-Type Planetary Orbits in Binary Star Systems

With more and more extrasolar planets discovered in and around binary star systems, questions concerning the determination of the classical Habitable Zone arise. Do the radiative and gravitational perturbations of the second star influence the extent of the Habitable Zone significantly, or is it sufficient to consider the host-star only? In this article we investigate the implications of stellar companions with different spectral types on the insolation a terrestrial planet receives orbiting a Sun-like primary. We present time independent analytical estimates and compare these to insolation statistics gained via high precision numerical orbit calculations. Results suggest a strong dependence of permanent habitability on the binary's eccentricity, as well as a possible extension of Habitable Zones towards the secondary in close binary systems.Comment: submitted to ApJ, status: accepte

Distributional Consequences of Expunging Juvenile Delinquency Records: The Problem of Lemons

While it is easy to agree that there may well be a subset of delinquents whose records should be expunged once they have remained free of legal trouble for a certain length of time, states differ on who should decide when expungement is appropriate and on what material should be expunged. These differences in turn have a substantial effect upon the distributional consequences that flow from the decision to expunge a given juvenile\u27s record

Augmented reality at the workplace : a context-aware assistive system using in-situ projection

Augmented Reality has been used for providing assistance during manual assembly tasks for more than 20 years. Due to recent improvements in sensor technology, creating context-aware Augmented Reality systems, which can detect interaction accurately, becomes possible. Additionally, the increasing amount of variants of assembled products and being able to manufacture ordered products on demand, leads to an increasing complexity for assembly tasks at industrial assembly workplaces. The resulting need for cognitive support at workplaces and the availability of robust technology enables us to address real problems by using context-aware Augmented Reality to support workers during assembly tasks. In this thesis, we explore how assistive technology can be used for cognitively supporting workers in manufacturing scenarios. By following a user-centered design process, we identify key requirements for assistive systems for both continuously supporting workers and teaching assembly steps to workers. Thereby, we analyzed three different user groups: inexperienced workers, experienced workers, and workers with cognitive impairments. Based on the identified requirements, we design a general concept for providing cognitive assistance at workplaces which can be applied to multiple scenarios. For applying the proposed concept, we present four prototypes using a combination of in-situ projection and cameras for providing feedback to workers and to sense the workers' interaction with the workplace. Two of the prototypes address a manual assembly scenario and two prototypes address an order picking scenario. For the manual assembly scenario, we apply the concept to a single workplace and an assembly cell, which connects three single assembly workplaces to each other. For the order picking scenario, we present a cart-mounted prototype using in-situ projection to display picking information directly onto the warehouse. Further, we present a user-mounted prototype, exploring the design-dimension of equipping the worker with technology rather than equipping the environment. Besides the system contribution of this thesis, we explore the benefits of the created prototypes through studies with inexperienced workers, experienced workers, and cognitively impaired workers. We show that a contour visualization of in-situ feedback is the most suitable for cognitively impaired workers. Further, these contour instructions enable the cognitively impaired workers to perform assembly tasks with a complexity of up to 96 work steps. For inexperienced workers, we show that a combination of haptic and visual error feedback is appropriate to communicate errors that were made during assembly tasks. For creating interactive instructions, we introduce and evaluate a Programming by Demonstration approach. Investigating the long-term use of in-situ instructions at manual assembly workplaces, we show that instructions adapting to the workers' cognitive needs is beneficial, as continuously presenting instructions has a negative impact on the performance of both experienced and inexperienced workers. In the order picking scenario, we show that the cart-mounted in-situ instructions have a great potential as they outperform the paper-baseline. Finally, the user-mounted prototype results in a lower perceived cognitive load. Over the course of the studies, we recognized the need for a standardized way of evaluating Augmented Reality instructions. To address this issue, we propose the General Assembly Task Model, which provides two standardized baseline tasks and a noise-free way of evaluating Augmented Reality instructions for assembly tasks. Further, based on the experience, we gained from applying our assistive system in real-world assembly scenarios, we identify eight guidelines for designing assistive systems for the workplace. In conclusion, this thesis provides a basis for understanding how in-situ projection can be used for providing cognitive support at workplaces. It identifies the strengths and weaknesses of in-situ projection for cognitive assistance regarding different user groups. Therefore, the findings of this thesis contribute to the field of using Augmented Reality at the workplace. Overall, this thesis shows that using Augmented Reality for cognitively supporting workers during manual assembly tasks and order picking tasks creates a benefit for the workers when working on cognitively demanding tasks.Seit mehr als 20 Jahren wird Augmented Reality eingesetzt, um manuelle Montagetätigkeiten zu unterstützen. Durch neue Entwicklungen in der Sensortechnologie ist es möglich, kontextsensitive Augmented-Reality-Systeme zu bauen, die Interaktionen akkurat erkennen können. Zudem führen eine zunehmende Variantenvielfalt und die Möglichkeit, bestellte Produkte erst auf Nachfrage zu produzieren, zu einer zunehmenden Komplexität an Montagearbeitsplätzen. Der daraus entstehende Bedarf für kognitive Unterstützung an Arbeitsplätzen und die Verfügbarkeit von robuster Technologie lässt uns bestehende Probleme lösen, indem wir Arbeitende während Montagearbeiten mithilfe von kontextsensitiver Augmented Reality unterstützen. In dieser Arbeit erforschen wir, wie Assistenztechnologie eingesetzt werden kann, um Arbeitende in Produktionsszenarien kognitiv zu unterstützen. Mithilfe des User-Centered-Design-Prozess identifizieren wir Schlüsselanforderungen für Assistenzsysteme, die sowohl Arbeitende kontinuierlich unterstützen als auch Arbeitenden Arbeitsschritte beibringen können. Dabei betrachten wir drei verschiedene Benutzergruppen: unerfahrene Arbeitende, erfahrene Arbeitende, und Arbeitende mit kognitiven Behinderungen. Auf Basis der erarbeiteten Schlüsselanforderungen entwerfen wir ein allgemeines Konzept für die Bereitstellung von kognitiver Assistenz an Arbeitsplätzen, welches in verschiedenen Szenarien angewandt werden kann. Wir präsentieren vier verschiedene Prototypen, in denen das vorgeschlagene Konzept implementiert wurde. Für die Prototypen verwenden wir eine Kombination von In-Situ-Projektion und Kameras, um Arbeitenden Feedback anzuzeigen und die Interaktionen der Arbeitenden am Arbeitsplatz zu erkennen. Zwei der Prototypen zielen auf ein manuelles Montageszenario ab, und zwei weitere Prototypen zielen auf ein Kommissionierszenario ab. Im manuellen Montageszenario wenden wir das Konzept an einem Einzelarbeitsplatz und einer Montagezelle, welche drei Einzelarbeitsplätze miteinander verbindet, an. Im Kommissionierszenario präsentieren wir einen Kommissionierwagen, der mithilfe von In-Situ-Projektion Informationen direkt ins Lager projiziert. Des Weiteren präsentieren wir einen tragbaren Prototypen, der anstatt der Umgebung den Arbeitenden mit Technologie ausstattet. Ein weiterer Beitrag dieser Arbeit ist die Erforschung der Vorteile der erstellten Prototypen durch Benutzerstudien mit erfahrenen Arbeitenden, unerfahrenen Arbeitenden und Arbeitende mit kognitiver Behinderung. Wir zeigen, dass eine Kontur-Visualisierung von In-Situ-Anleitungen die geeignetste Anleitungsform für Arbeitende mit kognitiven Behinderungen ist. Des Weiteren befähigen Kontur-basierte Anleitungen Arbeitende mit kognitiver Behinderung, an komplexeren Aufgaben zu arbeiten, welche bis zu 96 Arbeitsschritte beinhalten können. Für unerfahrene Arbeitende zeigen wir, dass sich eine Kombination von haptischem und visuellem Fehlerfeedback bewährt hat. Wir stellen einen Ansatz vor, der eine Programmierung von interaktiven Anleitungen durch Demonstration zulässt, und evaluieren ihn. Bezüglich der Langzeitwirkung von In-Situ-Anleitungen an manuellen Montagearbeitsplätzen zeigen wir, dass Anleitungen, die sich den kognitiven Bedürfnissen der Arbeitenden anpassen, geeignet sind, da ein kontinuierliches Präsentieren von Anleitungen einen negativen Einfluss auf die Arbeitsgeschwindigkeit von erfahrenen Arbeitenden sowohl als auch unerfahrenen Arbeitenden hat. Für das Szenario der Kommissionierung zeigen wir, dass die In-Situ-Anleitungen des Kommissionierwagens ein großes Potenzial haben, da sie zu einer schnelleren Arbeitsgeschwindigkeit führen als traditionelle Papieranleitungen. Schlussendlich führt der tragbare Prototyp zu einer subjektiv niedrigeren kognitiven Last. Während der Durchführung der Studien haben wir den Bedarf einer standardisierten Evaluierungsmethode von Augmented-Reality-Anleitungen erkannt. Deshalb schlagen wir das General Assembly Task Modell vor, welches zwei standardisierte Grundaufgaben und eine Methode zur störungsfreien Analyse von Augmented-Reality-Anleitungen für Montagearbeiten bereitstellt. Des Weiteren stellen wir auf Basis unserer Erfahrungen, die wir durch die Anwendung unseres Assistenzsystems in Montageszenarien gemacht haben, acht Richtlinien für das Gestalten von Montageassistenzsystemen vor. Zusammenfassend bietet diese Arbeit eine Basis für das Verständnis der Benutzung von In-Situ-Projektion zur Bereitstellung von kognitiver Montageassistenz. Diese Arbeit identifiziert die Stärken und Schwächen von In-Situ-Projektion für die kognitive Unterstützung verschiedener Benutzergruppen. Folglich tragen die Resultate dieser Arbeit zum Feld der Benutzung von Augmented Reality an Arbeitsplätzen bei. Insgesamt zeigt diese Arbeit, dass die Benutzung von Augmented Reality für die kognitive Unterstützung von Arbeitenden während kognitiv anspruchsvoller manueller Montagetätigkeiten und Kommissioniertätigkeiten zu einer schnelleren Arbeitsgeschwindigkeit führt

Searching the real world using stationary and mobile object detection

This thesis investigates a new form of search engine, which enables the user to search for objects in the real world, just like traditional search engines locate resources on the Internet. A search engine for the real world is a step towards an Internet of Things, where real-world objects become visible to computer systems. In order to being nonintrusive, the tracking of objects is done using visual object detection. It is examined whether instrumenting the environment or instrumenting the user is more convenient in order to ubiquitously integrate a real-world search-engine into the daily life of a user. To explore those questions, two prototypes are developed and two user studies are conducted. A stationary prototype called Antonius, which instruments the environment, is built. It implements a web-based frontend and a two-dimensional map for representing the location of real-world objects. As a result of the user study, a second mobile prototype called mobile Antonius is built, which instruments the user instead of the environment. It additionally implements a 3D model of the surveyed area to represent the location of sought objects. The results introduce three categories of users represented as personas, which outline the participants' thoughts. Although a visual object detection-based real-world search engine decreases the user's privacy, the user study showed that people are still willing to use such a system for the benefit of never losing an object again. As a result of this research, the mobile system is found to be more convenient regarding privacy and intrusiveness. As well as providing a useful service, the results reveal many promising application areas in personalization, targeting and ubiquitous computing.Diese Diplomarbeit untersucht eine neue Art von Suchmaschine, die einem Benutzer ermöglicht, Objekte in der realen Welt zu suchen, genauso wie traditionelle Suchmaschinen Ressourcen im Internet finden. Eine Suchmaschine für die reale Welt ist ein Schritt in Richtung Internet of Things, in dem reale Objekte für einen Computer sichtbar werden. Um unaufdringlich zu sein, wird die Erkennung der Objekte mit Hilfe von visueller Objekterkennung durchgeführt. Es wird untersucht, ob ein Ausstatten der Umgebung oder des Benutzers praktischer ist um eine Suchmaschine für die reale Welt allgegenwärtig in den Alltag eines Benutzers zu integrieren. Um diese Fragen zu untersuchen werden zwei Prototypen entwickelt und zwei Benutzerstudien durchgeführt. Es wird ein stationärer Prototyp namens Antonius erstellt, der die Umgebung instrumentiert. Er implementiert ein webbasiertes Frontend und eine zweidimensionale Karte um die Position eines realen Objekts darzustellen. In Folge der Benutzerstudie wird ein zweiter mobiler Prototyp erstellt, der anstatt der Umgebung den Benutzer ausstattet. Außerdem implementiert er ein 3D-Modell der überwachten Umgebung um die Position der gesuchten Objekte anzuzeigen. Die Ergebnisse stellen drei Benutzerkategorien vor, die als Personas dargestellt werden und dadurch die Meinungen der Teilnehmer zusammenfassend gruppieren. Obwohl eine visuelle objekterkennungsbasierte Suchmaschine für die reale Welt in die Privatsphäre eines Benutzers eindringt, würden Leute trotzdem ein derartiges System benutzen um ein Objekt nie wieder zu verlieren. Diese Arbeit zeigt, dass ein mobiles System angenehmer bezüglich Privatsphäre und Aufdringlichkeit empfunden wird. Neben der Bereitstellung eines nützlichen Dienstes zeigen die Resultate dieser Diplomarbeit einige vielversprechende Anwendungsgebiete in Personalisierung, Targeting und Ubiquitous Computing auf

Investigating Social Presence and Communication with Embodied Avatars in Room-Scale Virtual Reality

Submission includes video.Room-scale virtual reality (VR) holds great potential as a medium for communication and collaboration in remote and same-time, same-place settings. Related work has established that movement realism can create a strong sense of social presence, even in the absence of photorealism. Here, we explore the noteworthy attributes of communicative interaction using embodied minimal avatars in room-scale VR in the same-time, same-place setting. Our system is the first in the research community to enable this kind of interaction, as far as we are aware. We carried out an experiment in which pairs of users performed two activities in contrasting variants: VR vs. face-to-face (F2F), and 2D vs. 3D. Objective and subjective measures were used to compare these, including motion analysis, electrodermal activity, questionnaires, retrospective think-aloud protocol, and interviews. On the whole, participants communicated effectively in VR to complete their tasks, and reported a strong sense of social presence. The system's high fidelity capture and display of movement seems to have been a key factor in supporting this. Our results confirm some expected shortcomings of VR compared to F2F, but also some non-obvious advantages. The limited anthropomorphic properties of the avatars presented some difficulties, but the impact of these varied widely between the activities. In the 2D vs. 3D comparison, the basic affordance of freehand drawing in 3D was new to most participants, resulting in novel observations and open questions. We also present methodological observations across all conditions concerning the measures that did and did not reveal differences between conditions, including unanticipated properties of the think-aloud protocol applied to VR