Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Out Of Reach, Benjamin Tenerella-Brody

Capstones

Months after the city agreed to make half of its taxi fleet accessible to people in wheelchairs, 219 West takes a look at the issue of subway accessibility, which has changed little since 1984. One disability-rights advocate takes us through the system, running into several obstacles. Others tell us why they think it is both immoral — and illegal.

Obscure Certificates Could Cut Down Recidivism, Frank Green

Capstones

When you’re convicted of a crime, your punishment doesn’t end with prison. Your life is harder until you die. New Yorkers with criminal histories can get these Certificates that make life a little less hard. They’re a kind of a diploma of rehabilitation. The standards for getting them aren’t that high. Most people who’ve been convicted of a crime are eligible, in theory. But hardly anybody gets them. This article is about the ignorance and legal contradictions that have made them so obscure.

Violent Youth Arrests Continue To Fall Nationwide, Jeffrey A. Butts

Publications and Research

FBI crime data show that the number of violent youth arrests declined between 2012 and 2013, with aggravated assaults dropping significantly. Youth arrests peaked in the nineties, began to decline sharply before rebounding in 2006, and dropped again in 2008. This databit looks at violent youth arrest rates based on crime offenses from 1980 to 2013.

The Historic Inability Of The Haitian Education System To Create Human Development And Its Consequences, Patrick Michael Rea

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study aims to evaluate the role that a lack of literacy and education has played in Haiti's historic and presently low level of human development. The pedagogical philosophies of two educationists, Paolo Friere and Maurice Dartigue, are used throughout the study as lenses from which to read and interpret the history of Haitian education -its many failed attempts, and recurrent challenges- in creating a literate and educated population. The author concludes that mass literacy is prerequisite if the Haitian people are to achieve self-realization and actualization, which essentially equates to what the United Nations Development Program calls "Human Development". …

Is Burglary A Violent Crime? An Empirical Investigation Of Classifying Burglary As A Violent Felony And Its Statutory Implications, Phillip Kopp

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Under the common law, burglary is defined as a crime committed against the property of another, and is listed as a property offense for purposes of statistical description by the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). However, burglary is prosecuted and sentenced as a violent crime under habitual offender laws at the federal level, and can be regarded as violent in state law, depending on varied circumstances. Using a mixed methods approach, the current study compared state and federal burglary and habitual offender statutes to an empirical description of the offense. First, a comprehensive content …

Policy Partners In The Neoliberal Age: Corresponding School And Prison Reforms Since 1970, Jeremy Paul Benson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a comparative policy study of changes in education and incarceration of the past 40 years. Following national and global trends, New York City saw public school and carceral policies converge as the city experienced massive deindustrialization and governmental cutbacks while its political economy shifted to one driven by finance, investment, real estate, and the growth of a low-wage service sector. These changes dramatically increased economic inequality across racial lines, and spurred the intimate linkage of public education and state incarceration as institutional tools for the mass management of low-income communities of color. Following from a growing policy …

The Politics Of Transportation Megaprojects, Patrizia Christa Nobbe

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Large infrastructure investment decisions, especially for mega-projects defined as costing more than one billion U.S. dollars, are largely based on complex, unclear and non-transparent decision criteria. The project's specific context and a variety of actors and interests add to the complexity of the decision processes. All projects deviate, to a certain degree from a "rational" decision-making process, are politically motivated and subject to multiple interests. Cost-benefit analyses are conducted for about half of the projects. In this work I hypothesize that the politics of project decision-making is comparable across countries, relative to their nature, form of involvement and impact on …

El Bilinguismo Espanol-Ingles Y La Nueva Politica Educativa En Espana: Analisis Ideologico-Linguistico, Vi­Ctor M. Meirino Guede

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The global integration of the labor market, in particular integration at the European level, has produced a tendency towards the integration of educational demands for school populations. An important part of this integration is the formation of a space of transnational linguistic communication, based on the establishment of English as a lingua franca. Within this context, linguistic competency in English is seen not only as a cultural resource, but above all as an economic opportunity--or even a prerequisite. This is why many countries have proposed educational policies that attempt to provide a higher level of linguistic competence in English for …

Mayibuye! Let Us Reclaim! Assessing The Role Of Memorialization In Post-Conflict Rebuilding, Ereshnee Naidu-Silverman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The past decade has seen a global increase in scholarly and practitioner interests in memorialization and social memory studies. While memorialization initially gained social and political significance after the Holocaust, as it served as a symbol of recognition of the millions of victims, it gained increased recognition with the growth of the transitional justice field. Initially subsumed under the banner of symbolic reparations, memorialization has over the past few years become a transitional justice mechanism in its own right. Increasingly, victims turn toward memorialization as a mechanism for recognition, justice and healing, and more truth commissions are recommending memorialization as …

The Effects Of School Autonomy On Students' Reading Achievement In Early Grades: A Dose-Response Treatment Approach, Esther Ferreira Dos Santos Carvalhaes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

School autonomy is at the core of influential educational policies aimed at improving school effectiveness and students' academic performance both in the United States and abroad. Initiatives that promote a transfer of authority from higher levels of the school system to local schools, such as the charter school movement and School-Based Management (SBM), have become increasingly popular in the last two decades. These initiatives operate under the premise that local stakeholders (principals, teachers, and parents) understand their students' needs better than higher-level administrators, which enables them to make better educational decisions regarding students' academic success. However, despite the prominence of …

Out-Of-Home Placements Falling Among Younger Juveniles, Jeffrey A. Butts

Publications and Research

According to juvenile court data, the number of formally handled juvenile cases, as well as out-of-home placements for juveniles, dropped between 1996 and 2011. The rate of decline was much lower for 17-year-old juveniles than those 16 and under. This databit looks at the rate of out-of-home placements for juveniles between 1985 to 2011.

The Debt Penalty: Exposing The Financial Barriers To Offender Reintegration, Douglas N. Evans

Publications and Research

Financial debt associated with legal system involvement is a pressing issue that affects the criminal justice system, offenders, and taxpayers. Mere contact with the criminal justice system often results in fees and fines that increase with progression through the system. Criminal justice fines and fees punish offenders and are designed to generate revenue for legal systems operating on limited budgets. However, fines and fees often fail to accomplish this second goal because many offenders are too poor to pay them. If they do not pay their financial obligations, they may be subject to late fees and interest requirements, all of …

Punishment Without End, Douglas N. Evans

Publications and Research

Criminal justice punishments are an investment that societies make to protect the safety and order of communities. Following decades of rising prison populations, however, U.S. policymakers are beginning to wonder if they have invested too much in punishment. Policies adopted in previous decades now incarcerate large numbers of Americans and impose considerable costs on states. Mass incarceration policies are costly and potentially iatrogenic—i.e., they may transform offenders into repeat offenders. Public officials and citizens alike often assume that known offenders pose a permanent risk of future offending. This belief entangles millions of offenders in the justice system for life, with …

State Revenue Forecasting Accuracy, Dan Williams, Joseph Ononchie

Publications and Research

This paper examines forecasting accuracy of state revenue forecasting for 50 states using data published on the National Association of State Budget Officer’s (NASBO) website (www.nasbo.org). The data shows four categories of revenue: sales tax, corporate income tax, personal income tax, and all other (as a residual from total taxes). It shows some evidence that forecast bias reflects a hedge against uncertainty; however, there is also evidence that there is a counterbalancing preference to find the money needed to provide the services demanded.

Compensating Victims Of Crime, Douglas N. Evans

Publications and Research

Victims of violent crime are often unable to access financial compensation to offset the costs of victimization (e.g., medical, lost wages, funeral expenses) despite the massive amounts of money set aside for just that purpose. Currently, there is about $11 billion in the federal Crime Victims Fund (CVF). Less than 10 percent of this amount is allocated to state victim compensation programs. This report explores the funding mechanisms used by federal and state governments to compensate victims of crime, and it describes the administrative and policy problems in these systems. The report offers several recommendations for improvement. States have their …

National Child Maltreatment Response And Foster Care Entries: 2005-2010, Zeinab Chahine

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study involves secondary analysis of the national administrative data contained in two major federal child maltreatment and foster care data systems, the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System and the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System for 2005 to 2010. The study examines the data related to screening in and determination of maltreatment reports (child maltreatment response), as well as the provision of services to children referred for maltreatment. The purpose is to determine how the child welfare services/child protective services systems responses to child maltreatment contributed to the 17% decline in foster care entries from …

Access To Healthcare For Vulnerable Asian Subgroup Populations In The United States, Deborah Kim-Lu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Objectives: This dissertation examines the barriers for access to healthcare for the top four most uninsured Asian American subgroups (Bangladeshi, Cambodian, Korean, and Pakistani communities). Methods: Combining quantitative and qualitative approaches, this study consisted of: (1) an in-depth review of the Health Services Research literature; (2) qualitative interviews with 24 national health experts and advocates on Asian American health; (3) a survey of a non-probability sample of 107 Koreans in the tri-state region (Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York) using the Access to Healthcare Survey for Koreans in the U.S. instrument, which includes a Likert scale with 21 barrier questions …

Adding Students' Voices To The Discourse On Effective Teaching, Jennie H. Yi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is tremendous pressure at the national, state, and locals level to improve schools and close the achievement gap of education. In an attempt to solve these education questions, policymakers and education administrators are focusing on quality control of what they consider an essential element in education: teachers. Teachers across the nation are put on the defensive as each state tries to somehow measure and assess teacher effectiveness to ensure their schools have teachers that can yield the highest growth among their students.

What has been missing in this inquiry and process, however, are the students' voices. Despite that they …

In Harm's Way: How Philadelphia's Urban Renewal Practices Steered Marginal People To Marginal Land, Katera Ya'shea Moore

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The dumping of locally unwanted land uses (LULUs) on marginal communities has been well documented, however environmental justice scholars have rarely written about how marginal groups have come to occupy their landscapes, particularly when natural hazards lie beneath.

This dissertation research focuses on a broad definition of the environment that includes the built, social, and physical. I am interested in extending Logan and Molotch's Growth Machine theory to consider how the political and economic elite guided the urban renewal process to place particular communities on particular landscapes, despite the presence of a flooding hazard. To understand this issue, I examined …

“Documenting The Untold Stories Of Feminist Activists At Welfare Rights Initiative: A Digital Oral History Archive Project.”, Cynthia Tobar

Publications and Research

This chapter recounts the creation of a digital oral history archive documenting the Welfare Rights Initiative (WRI), a grassroots student activist and community leadership training organization located at Hunter College. The author examines, through these oral history interviews, social movement activity at the level of a grassroots organization as exemplified by WRI, which was developed to aid student welfare recipients to become agents of social change and actively involve them with policymaking. The project depicts the experiences of members in this feminist grassroots organization and provides us with new insights to the origins of advocacy, documenting the singular historical importance …

"When I Heard About The March": Testimonies And Participatory Archiving In Peacebuilding, Carolina Muñoz Proto

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation studies the Memoscopio archive and its collection of testimonies about the 2009 World March for Peace and Nonviolence (the March). This collection came into existence during 2009 and 2010 through a participatory archiving project carried out by a team of peace advocates and researchers in collaboration with March participants. The March was a transnational and decentralized campaign that promoted peace, nonviolence, and justice through activities in 600 cities, social media, and a three-month march around the world. Through the case of Memoscopio and the March, this dissertation explores the personal and cultural meanings of transnational peace marchers in …

Teachers At Work: Factors Influencing Satisfaction, Retention And The Professional Well-Being Of Elementary And Secondary Educators, Patrick Edward O'Reilly

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this study has been to explore the question of how factors in the work lives of teachers influence their experience of workplace satisfaction, and how satisfaction influences retention in the teaching profession. This study had three specific goals: (1) to examine whether five specified factors that teachers' encounter as workers influence their professional satisfaction, (2) to explore whether teacher satisfaction influences retention in the profession and (3) to determine whether school level taught plays a role in degrees of satisfaction a teacher experiences.

Data was collected over a period of five months, using a survey administered to …

In And Out Of Uniform: The Transition Of Iraq And Afghanistan War Veterans Into Higher Education, Vienna Messina

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

IN AND OUT OF UNIFORM:

THE TRANSITION OF IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN WAR VETERANS INTO HIGHER EDUCATION

by

Vienna Messina

Advisor: Professor Colette Daiute

With the exit of US combat troops from Iraq in 2011 and the subsequent drawdown of forces in Afghanistan, much public attention became focused on the reintegration of veterans of these wars into all aspects of civilian life. Record numbers of returning veterans enrolled in higher education. Abramson (2012) reported that, since 2009, when the Post-9/11 GI Bill became effective, more than 860,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans had used its generous provisions for further education and projected …

On Becoming A Teacher (Or Not): Students Of Color's Perceptions Of Teachers' Work, Consideration Of Teaching As A Career, And Implications For Diversifying The Teaching Force, Amanda Lee Winkelsas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The racial/ethnic demographics of the American public school teaching force stand in contrast to the racial/ethnic demographics of the students and families who are served by our public school system. In an effort to understand the racial/ethnic demographic disparities between the teaching force and the public school student population, this study explores the perceptions of students of color as they relate to teachers' work, authority, and power. Utilizing a participatory, mixed methods approach in one public, urban, college preparatory school, I analyze the experiences, cultural models, and knowledges that shape students' perceptions of teachers' work and their own consideration of …

Brooklyn's Thirst, Long Island's Water: Consolidation, Local Control, And The Aquifir, Jeffrey A. Kroessler

Publications and Research

The creation of greater New York City in 1898 promised a solution to the problem of supplying Brooklyn and Queens with water. In the 1850s, the City of Brooklyn tapped ponds and streams on the south side of Queens County, and in the 1880s, dug wells for additional supply. This lowered the water table and caused problems for farmers and oystermen, many of whom sued the city for damages. Ultimately, salt water seeped into some wells from over-pumping. By 1896, Brooklyn’s system had reached its limit. Prevented by the state legislature from tapping the aquifer beneath Suffolk’s Pine Barrens, the …

Public Administration More Than Just Politics, Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Standing-Up To The Politics Of Comedy, Don Waisanen

Publications and Research

This study examines the discourses of the U.S.'s 10 top-earning comedians in 2009 and 2010 through systematic textual analyses. Building from two prior case studies and working toward a communicative worldview for comedy as a pervasive mode of public communication, the results indicate that there are several generic clusters emerging across these acts involving rhetorics of optimism, uncertainty, individualism, and others. Many distinctive characteristics in the comedians' messages are also noted. Through such practices, humorists advance a language with political significance-so this essay draws several connections and implications regarding comic discourses in public culture

Interdisciplinary Perspectives On Corruption, David Jancsics

Publications and Research

Corruption has become one of the most popular topics in the social scientific disciplines. However, there is a lack of interdisciplinary communication about corruption. Models developed by different academic disciplines are often isolated from each other. The purpose of this paper is to review several major approaches to corruption and draw them closer to each other. Most studies of corruption fall into three major categories: (i) rational-actor models where corruption is viewed as resulting from cost/benefit analysis of individual actors; (ii) structural models that focus on external forces that determine corruption; and (iii) relational models that emphasize social interactions and …

Theorizing More Inclusive Cities: A Relational Model Of Boundary Transformation And Urban Research Agenda, Leigh Graham

Publications and Research

To generate more inclusive environments for marginalized urban communities of color demands a strategy that privileges symbolic boundary change and uses it as the inroad towards spatial changes. This paper theorizes a three step relational process of a) communicative democratic activism, b) "multicultural" capital brokers providing access to the policy making process, and c) practices of community building that reflect the role of cities as key sites for sociospatial boundary transformation. An emphasis on discursive and ideational change, relying on communicative democratic processes steeped in historical, comparative analysis opens up our minds towards different classification schemes for stigmatized groups. Participating …

Merit, Luck, And Historical Recognition: A More Comprehensive Treatment Of Justice In Public Administration, Nicole M. Elias, Courtney Jensen

Publications and Research

John Rawls' A Theory of Justice has served as an important basis for theorizing merit, deservedness, and fairness, and in turn, continues to influence the intellectual development of many disciplines, including political thought, public administration, and the practical application of democratic governance. Yet, Rawls' failure to account for luck and historical difference renders his work an incomplete framework for pursing the end of justice in public administration. We argue for a more comprehensive treatment of merit, deservedness, and fairness, one that incorporates luck and takes into account social values rooted in historical preference and identity.