Law and Society Commons^™

Relations Between Peer Influence, Perceived Cost Versus Benefits, And Sexual Offending Among Adolescents Aware Of Sex Offender Registration Risk, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Hayley M. D. Cleary, Paige M. Oja

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

A policy's general deterrent effect requires would-be offenders to be aware of the policy, yet many adolescents do not know they could be registered as sex offenders, and even adolescents who do know may still commit registerable sexual offenses. We tested whether peer influences shape the perceived costs/benefits of certain sexual offenses and, subsequently, registration policy's general deterrent potential in a sample of policy-aware adolescents. The more adolescents believed their peers approve of sexting of nude images, the more likely they were to have sexted. For forcible touching, having more positive peer expectations about sex and perceiving forcible touching as …

The Quest To End Human Trafficking: An Educational And Practical Guide For Everyone Who Wants To Help Break The Bonds And Assist Survivors, Dennis W. Mccarty

Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security, and Cybersecurity Faculty Scholarship

People often assume that only legislators and law enforcement personnel can take meaningful steps to fight human trafficking, one of the most lucrative transnational crimes in the world. This inquiry sought to assess the validity of that belief. The study was informed by the author’s experience as a college instructor of human trafficking and the inspiration he drew from the range and quality of his students’ projects.

The methodology included examining the strategies that governmental and non-governmental organizations are using to fight trafficking and assist survivors. It also considered the work of individual activists and service providers such as social …

Towards A Psychological Science Of Abolition Democracy: Insights For Improving Theory And Research On Race And Public Safety, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Phillip Atiba Goff

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

We call for psychologists to expand their thinking on fair and just public safety by engaging with the “Abolition Democracy” framework that Du Bois (1935) articulated as the need to dissolve slavery while simultaneously taking affirmative steps to rid its toxic consequences from the body politic. Because the legacies of slavery continue to produce disparities in public safety in the U.S, both harming Black people and the institutions that could keep them safe, psychologists must take seriously questions of history and structure in addition to immediate situations. In the present article, we consider the state of knowledge regarding psychological processes …

A Call To Dismantle Systemic Racism In Criminal Legal Systems, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Margaret C. Stevenson

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Objectives: In October 2021, APA passed a resolution addressing ways psychologists could work to dismantle systemic racism in criminal legal systems. The present report, developed to inform APA’s policy resolution, details the scope of the problem and offers recommendations for policy and psychologists to address the issue by advancing related science and practice. Specifically, it acknowledges the roots of modern-day racial and ethnic disparities in rates of criminalization and punishment for people of color as compared to White people. Next, the report reviews existing theory and research that helps explain the underlying psychological mechanisms driving racial and ethnic disparities …

First Amendment Knowledge And Competence In United States Residents, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Kimberly M. Bernstein

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Lacking adequate knowledge about one's rights could inhibit the likelihood of exercising one's rights or lead one to unwittingly violate laws that place legitimate limits on these rights. Thus, the present research examines First Amendment knowledge as well as competence to apply this knowledge in relevant circumstances. Results revealed that one-quarter of participants failed a test of objective knowledge on First Amendment rights. Furthermore, participants' belief in their ability varied depending on their level of knowledge, in line with the Dunning–Kruger effect. Participants also failed to transfer their limited objective knowledge to “real-world” situations, exhibiting impaired First Amendment competence. These …

Caregivers’ Expectations, Reflected Appraisals, And Arrests Among Adolescents Who Experienced Parental Incarceration, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Melissa Noel

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

This research sought to identify a potential process by which intergenerational crime occurs, focusing on the effect of parental incarceration on adolescents’ subsequent arrests. We drew from Matsueda’s work on reflected appraisals as an explanatory mechanism for this effect. Thus, the present research examined whether caregivers’ and adolescents’ expectations for adolescents’ future incarceration sequentially mediated the effect of parental incarceration on adolescents’ actual arrest outcomes. Propensity score matching was used to examine this effect in a sample of 1,735 15- to 16-year-olds using NLSY97 data. Parental incarceration was positively related to caregivers’ expectations of adolescents’ future arrest. Moreover, caregivers’ expectations …