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Social and Behavioral Sciences

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Crime

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Adolescent Maltreatment, Substance Use, And Self-Efficacy : A Test Of General Strain Theory Among A Sample Of Clinical Youth, Sonya Worthington May 2022

Adolescent Maltreatment, Substance Use, And Self-Efficacy : A Test Of General Strain Theory Among A Sample Of Clinical Youth, Sonya Worthington

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The relationship between adolescent maltreatment and delinquency has been of growing interest to social control, social learning, strain, and family-oriented theorist since the 1980’s. While ‘social control’, ‘social learning’, and ‘traditional strain’ theories dominated early delinquency research literature surrounding the association, the past few decades have experienced a shift from these sociological theories to those more social-psychological in nature, lending much support, credibility, and acceptance of Agnew’s General Strain Theory (GST). GST offers a theoretical framework for understanding micro-level and macro level factors that influence the likelihood of delinquency. In short, GST contends some individuals engage in criminal and deviant …


Public Perceptions Of Crime Trends : Measurement, Perceived Causes, And Behavioral Consequences, Luzi Shi Jan 2020

Public Perceptions Of Crime Trends : Measurement, Perceived Causes, And Behavioral Consequences, Luzi Shi

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In the U.S. the public is persistent in believing in worsening crime trends, despite the fact that the crime rate has been falling since the early 1990s. This dissertation is a comprehensive examination of the measurement, perceived causes, and behavioral consequences of crime trend perceptions. It is composed of three interrelated studies. The first step to understanding crime trend perceptions is to have accurate measurement. In the first study, I identify the limitations of existing measurement of crime trend perceptions and argue that it is important to measure perceptions of short-term and long-term crime trends separately. Using three samples, I …


The Effects Of A Proactive Policy-Driven Migration On Neighborhood Crime, Tyler Scott Bellick Jan 2020

The Effects Of A Proactive Policy-Driven Migration On Neighborhood Crime, Tyler Scott Bellick

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The immigrant crime-relationship is one of the most vigorously debated and contentious public policy concerns in present society. The majority of scholarship investigating this link demonstrates that immigrants are no more crime prone than the native-born population, and in fact, may even suppress levels of neighborhood crime. A limitation of this body of scholarship is that it tends focus on immigration, overall, or specifically Latino immigration, failing to account of potentially important between-group differences in offending. The present study addresses this gap by examining the effects of a government-driven Guyanese migration on neighborhood crime rates at five cross-sections. Exploratory analyses …


Immigration And Victimization : Applications Of Criminological Concepts To The Lesser-Known Side Of The Immigration And Crime Nexus, Allen W.C.P. Wong Jan 2017

Immigration And Victimization : Applications Of Criminological Concepts To The Lesser-Known Side Of The Immigration And Crime Nexus, Allen W.C.P. Wong

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In recent decades, scholarly interest on immigration and crime has been on the rise. This increase in interest has even recently produced an academic consensus on the structural-level relationship between immigration and crime: on average, changes in immigration levels do not disproportionately increase crime rates. However, what is less explored in the literature is the individual-level relationship between immigration and criminal victimization, and specifically, the role played by criminological variables among generations of immigrant ethnic groups and their victimization experiences.


The Sex Ratio, Gender Equality, And Women's Victimization : A Cross-National Analysis, Laura M. Demarco Jan 2014

The Sex Ratio, Gender Equality, And Women's Victimization : A Cross-National Analysis, Laura M. Demarco

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The relationship between the sex ratio and crime is underdeveloped in the criminological literature, particularly regarding the victimization of women. Much of the existing work draws on theorizing by Guttentag and Secord (1983) on the interpersonal dynamics related to dyadic power. In this line of research, the characteristics of structural power are largely taken for granted. Drawing on literature about gender inequality and women's victimization, this study recasts Guttentag and Secord's notion of structural power as a continuous measure of gender equality. I examine the effect of the sex ratio on women's victimization, and evaluate if that effect is contingent …


Criminal Behavior In The Life Course : The Sex Difference And The Role Of Childbirth In The Desistance Process, Siyu Liu Jan 2014

Criminal Behavior In The Life Course : The Sex Difference And The Role Of Childbirth In The Desistance Process, Siyu Liu

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

My dissertation demonstrates sex differences in offending over the life course with a flexible model on the age-crime curve using a longitudinal dataset, and examines the causal role of childbirth in the process of desistance for both sexes.


Correctional Group Quarters, Neighborhood Crime And Property Values, Kelly Mcgeever Jan 2014

Correctional Group Quarters, Neighborhood Crime And Property Values, Kelly Mcgeever

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The primary aims of this dissertation are to examine the association between correctional group quarters and crime rates and the effect of correctional group quarters on property values in urban neighborhoods. There has been a surprising lack of examination of these relationships, especially since community residents' anticipated fears of correctional facilities have been well documented. The few studies that have considered correctional facilities, crime, and property values have generally focused on one rural location and almost exclusively evaluate state prisons without consideration to the range of correctional facilities. Broken windows theory and `Not in My Backyard' literature are used to …


The New Welfare State : Reconsidering The Welfare-Crime Nexus, Colin Gruner Jan 2013

The New Welfare State : Reconsidering The Welfare-Crime Nexus, Colin Gruner

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

A sizeable body of literature has found that welfare reduces crime, but the majority of these studies have used data from before 1996. In 1996 the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) radically changed the welfare system of the United States. Control of welfare programs shifted from the federal government to the states and PRWORA increased the emphasis on getting people off welfare via the introduction of lifetime limits on the receipt of aid and mandatory participation in work programs for able-bodied recipients. Consistent with this emphasis, researchers have documented a precipitous drop in caseload sizes across the …


Socially Situated Identities Of Gay Gang- And Crime-Involved Men, Vanessa R. Panfil Jan 2013

Socially Situated Identities Of Gay Gang- And Crime-Involved Men, Vanessa R. Panfil

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Within the criminological literature, gay men have primarily been portrayed as victims of anti-gay bias crimes or intimate partner violence, or as sex workers and/or drug users. This coverage, which is limited in scope, largely fails to recognize that gay men have agency (choice or power to control the situation). It also provides an incomplete picture regarding gay men's involvement in gangs, violence, and crime.


Pay It Forward : The Effect Of Social Support On Crime, Jessica Singer Jan 2012

Pay It Forward : The Effect Of Social Support On Crime, Jessica Singer

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The purpose of this research is to explore the relationship between social support and crime. In 1994, Frank Cullen wrote an innovative article which was designed to construct social support as an organizing principle for criminology. Using this work to frame this research, I hypothesize that social support will be negatively related to crime. I explore this relationship on two levels of analysis. First, I investigate the relationship between state-level support and crime rates using a dataset that I constructed from a variety of sources. Second, I investigate the relationship between individual-level support and crime and deviance using data from …


Unstoppable? : A Closer Look At Terrorism Displacement, Henda Yao Hsu Jan 2011

Unstoppable? : A Closer Look At Terrorism Displacement, Henda Yao Hsu

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Since T.A Repetto first introduced crime displacement in 1976, situational crime prevention researchers have long been challenged by the assumption that displacement is an unavoidable consequence of focused crime prevention measures. Despite evidence that criminals do not inevitably shift their offending behavior in response to crime prevention initiatives, recent efforts to extend situational prevention to terrorism have been met with criticisms of displacement. This study examines whether terrorists displace their attacks by changing their methods once the opportunities to carry out acts of terrorism are blocked. To accomplish this, the author examines, through the use of the newly synthesized Global …


Segregation And Social Control : An Agent Based Simulation, Stephen Matthew Pate Jan 2010

Segregation And Social Control : An Agent Based Simulation, Stephen Matthew Pate

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

There exists a considerable body of literature devoted to the evolution of segregated