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Articles 1 - 15 of 15

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Education & Crime: A Study In Student Perceptions Of Culpability, Larry Curtis Long Dec 2011

Education & Crime: A Study In Student Perceptions Of Culpability, Larry Curtis Long

Masters Theses

Criminological research has long been concerned with how stereotypes of offender race and gender affect perceived culpability and policy formation. Using data collected from a college student population that were administered six vignettes written in the form of police blotters that depicted different crimes being committed by offenders with differing educational characteristics, this study seeks to identify whether or not an offender’s educational characteristics affect their perceived culpability. Although the data indicates that offender’s are seen as culpable regardless of their educational characteristics, it is evident that some degree or sociopathy is assessed to offender’s that are seen as educated …


Crimes Committed By Tattooed Female Offenders And The Significance Of Body Art Content And Location, Megan Sullivan Oct 2011

Crimes Committed By Tattooed Female Offenders And The Significance Of Body Art Content And Location, Megan Sullivan

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

The body is a site of manipulation, mutilation, and decoration, evident through centuries of body marking and tattooing. There is a very compelling relationship between tattooed individuals and crime, and this descriptive study investigates the presence of tattoos amongst female offenders. Research analysis identified the relationship between tattoos and convicted female offenders, along with the significance of the content and location of the offenders' tattoos.


The Sex Ratio Tipping Point: An Exploration Of Crime During Frontier America, Steven Matthew Stearmer Aug 2011

The Sex Ratio Tipping Point: An Exploration Of Crime During Frontier America, Steven Matthew Stearmer

Theses and Dissertations

Prior research confirms that the number of men in a population is associated with elevated levels of crime. The connection between higher numbers of males relative to females and crime is far less studied in larger aggregate populations, and the nature of the relationship is less clear. This study seeks to answer three questions: are unbalanced sex ratios associated with crime at the state level? At what level does the skew begin to matter? How quickly is the impact observed? These questions are examined through analysis of a novel longitudinal dataset of social characteristics and crime indicators for frontier American …


A Comparison Of The Transition Of Denver Neighborhood Crime From 2000 To 2010, David Muenkel Jul 2011

A Comparison Of The Transition Of Denver Neighborhood Crime From 2000 To 2010, David Muenkel

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

The purpose of this project was to study crime in the City of Denver, Colorado and show how crime moves between neighborhoods over time. The study involved looking at crimes aggregated at the neighborhood level to determine how crime transitioned within the City of Denver from 2000 to 2010. The crime data was also compared with calls for service to determine how police activity and citizen reporting related to crime in the City of Denver. The results indicated that the City of Denver, while increasing in population from 554,636 in 2000 to 600,156 in 2010 had a reduction in the …


A Study Of Intergenerational Crime From A Sociological Standpoint, Anna Robosson Jun 2011

A Study Of Intergenerational Crime From A Sociological Standpoint, Anna Robosson

Social Sciences

The focus of this project will be the patterns and causes of intergenerational crime within the United States. Ultimately, the goal of the project is to explain the phenomenon, as it is becoming a rising problem in the country.


The Juvenile In-Justice System, Kasey Susan Franks Jun 2011

The Juvenile In-Justice System, Kasey Susan Franks

Social Sciences

No abstract provided.


Are All Immigrants Criminals? Societal Perceptions Across Select Social Groups, Catherine F. Tindall May 2011

Are All Immigrants Criminals? Societal Perceptions Across Select Social Groups, Catherine F. Tindall

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the perceptions toward immigrant criminality in Utah of four distinct social groups: state legislators, immigrants, law enforcement personnel, and incarcerated immigrants. Each group was examined separately and found to have a variety of perceptions among their members. Themes emerged that provided insight into the overlap and complexity of these differences across social groups. Legislators appeared the most dichotomous: some believed immigration and crime to be positively correlated, especially for undocumented immigrants, while others perceived no such connection. Among immigrants, perceptions were extremely diverse, but generally represented by reference to an unsubstantiated stereotype that immigrants committed crime at …


Exemplary Practice: Inscribing Conduct Along Upper Canada's Early Frontier, Tim Bisha Apr 2011

Exemplary Practice: Inscribing Conduct Along Upper Canada's Early Frontier, Tim Bisha

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation studies exemplary conduct along Upper Canada's early frontier. Presuming that exemplars reproduce core ideas of conduct for those who construct them, it is no surprise that exemplars by which authorities sought to make Upper Canada in Britain‟s image appeared in multiple arenas including legal discourse, newspaper publication, writings on conduct, informal notions of gender and domesticity, and travel writing. At the overlap of these different spaces, through special attention to an early burglary trial, the private dwelling house emerges in this dissertation as the moral core of Upper Canada. This claim interprets British legal definitions of human rights …


Voices Of Latino/A Immigrants In Southeast Michigan: Beyond The Criminal/Victim Dichotomy, Maya Barak Jan 2011

Voices Of Latino/A Immigrants In Southeast Michigan: Beyond The Criminal/Victim Dichotomy, Maya Barak

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Following humanitarian, social justice, and labor organizing traditions that readily incorporate Latino immigrants’ voices into their work, and drawing upon postmodern, feminist, and activist schools of thought, this study illuminates the history of immigration policy and discourse in America and the Latino community’s knowledge and expertise about life as an undocumented Latino immigrant in Southeast Michigan. The development of increasingly restrictive immigration policies is traced, paying special attention to the adaptation of a criminal justice/enforcement models to the realm of immigration control and the concurrent criminalization of undocumented immigrants. The effects of current immigration and immigrant-specific policies on criminal offenses …


The School Resource Officer In Public Schools: Perceived Deterrent Effect On Campus Crime, David A. Rhinehart Jan 2011

The School Resource Officer In Public Schools: Perceived Deterrent Effect On Campus Crime, David A. Rhinehart

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine student perceptions of the deterrent effect of School Resource Officers on crimes that may occur on school campuses and the factors that may influence those perceptions. The first school resource officer (SRO) program was implemented in 1953 and gained popularity in the 1990s. This study (conducted in 2008) reveals that the majority of students perceive that school resource officers are a deterrent to specific crimes and the overall crime rate on school campuses. The results of the survey indicated that the crimes of rape (74.1%), homicide (73.7%), aggravated assault or threat with …


A Comparative Analysis Of Genocidal Rape In Rwanda And The Former Yugoslavia: Implications For The Future, Jessica Kruger Jan 2011

A Comparative Analysis Of Genocidal Rape In Rwanda And The Former Yugoslavia: Implications For The Future, Jessica Kruger

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This work examines the genocidal rape policies that occurred in the Rwandan and former Yugoslavian conflicts. Traditionally, rape has been considered an unfortunate yet inescapable consequence of war. In the early 1990s, the Hutu and Serbian regimes developed a new tactic and utilized rape as a genocidal weapon. Following a comparative analysis framework, the present study will examine the similarities and differences of the genocidal rape in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. Five points of comparison were established: perpetrators, victims, global economics, social disorder, and militias. Results of this analysis show that Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia possessed common pre-genocidal …


An Exploration Of The Calls Received By The Kentucky Council On Problem Gambling Help Hotline, Carleigh Jones Jan 2011

An Exploration Of The Calls Received By The Kentucky Council On Problem Gambling Help Hotline, Carleigh Jones

Online Theses and Dissertations

Studies that focus on crisis hotlines are abundant, however very few deal with the subject of gambling. The literature reviewed examines gambling as an addiction and the general existence of hotlines. This study examines the use of the hotline provided by the Kentucky Council on Problem Gambling (KYCPG) in a dichotomous breakdown of gender. There are some significant differences between males and females, particularly regarding criminal behavior in the effort to recoup gambling losses or to continue gambling. An additional breakdown of seasonal and regional call logs further analyzes the use of the KYCPG hotline.


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 …


Essays On The Economics Of Crime, Duha T. Altindag Jan 2011

Essays On The Economics Of Crime, Duha T. Altindag

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation includes three essays on the application of economics to various aspects of crime and criminal activity. The research presented in this dissertation points out a cause and a consequence of crime as well as the possible influence of a law on criminal activity. The first chapter provides an introduction to the ways that economic reasoning can be used to analyze criminal activity. The second chapter examines individuals' gun carrying activity in the presence of concealed weapon laws. The results suggest that allowing law-abiding individuals to carry concealed handguns is more likely to reduce crime than to increase it. …


The Economics Of Discrimination In The Court System: Police, Technology, And Their Interaction, Sarah Marx Quintanar Jan 2011

The Economics Of Discrimination In The Court System: Police, Technology, And Their Interaction, Sarah Marx Quintanar

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three essays which utilize automated traffic enforcement data to investigate the existence of police discrimination in issuing speeding tickets and potential crime reduction as a secondary effect of using such programs. In the first chapter, I use tickets issued by automated traffic enforcement cameras as a measure of the population of speeders to compare with police-issued tickets. The novel dataset has an advantage over previous literature because data collection was not a result of suspected police bias. I find that a ticketed individual is more likely to be African-American and more likely to be female when …