Criminology Commons^™

Preparing Police Recruits Of The Future: An Educational Needs Assessment, Laura Huey, Hina Kalyal, Hillary Peladeau

Sociology Publications

Given increasing demand for post-secondary education (PSE) within Ontario’s police applicant pools, coupled with rising costs in post-secondary education, it is of critical importance we ensure the content and quality of PSE programs marketed to students as appropriate for a policing career, does, indeed, match the needs of potential employers. This study examines this issue by drawing on the results of a mixed-methodological approach, combining qualitative interviews of police recruiters and senior officers with an environmental scan of relevant college and university programs. Our findings indicate there are both strengths and weaknesses in the delivery of PSE when it comes …

Problem Analysis In Community Violence Assessments: Reavealing Early Childhood Trauma As A Driver Of Youth And Gang Violence, Laurie Ross Phd, Samantha Arsenault, Sergeant Miguel Lopez

Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise

Problem analysis conducted by a university-based research partner can provide communities with data-driven options to address the local drivers of serious youth and gang violence. Situated in Worcester, Massachusetts, this article describes how after early childhood trauma was identified as a potential driver of adolescent and young adult violence, problem analysis using local data confirmed that being the victim or witness of a traumatic incident before the age of 12 was significantly correlated with involvement in violence in adolescence or young adulthood. While there is a robust literature on the relationship between early childhood trauma and later delinquency, local decision-makers …

Threat Assessment And Management In Higher Education In The United States: A Review Of The 10 Years Since The Mass Casualty Incident At Virginia Tech, Eugene R.D. Deisinger, Mario Scalora

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Copyright © 2016 American Psychological Association. Used by permission.

The Lucrative Business Of Children: A Study Of Child Trafficking In Nepalese Orphanages, Mira Saxe-Smith

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The purpose of this research paper is to shed light on and explore the detrimental effects orphanage volunteer tourism has on communities in Nepal, especially the orphans themselves and their families who become subject to different degrees of manipulation, deceit and abuse due to the industry. This study will also delve into the Nepal Civil War’s effect on orphan trafficking in Nepal, the effects of institutionalization, media and campaigns launched against voluntourism, and other related topics. The paper particularly focuses on orphanage voluntourism in the tourist heavy and capital of Nepal, Kathmandu.

The information in this report was attained through …

Everyday Racial Interactions For Whites And College Students Of Color, Leslie H. Picca

Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work Faculty Publications

While in the recent past overtly racist comments were tolerated and expected, now social pressures exist to avoid such racist statements (Feagin, 2006). However, subtle measures and tests in psychology and social psychology suggest a nonracist mask is covering an intact racist core, and that whites regularly underestimate the extent of their prejudice (Bonilla-Silva & Forman, 2000; Kawakami, Dunn, Karmali, & Dovidio, 2009). There is much social science literature on modern racism or colorblind racism: negative racial attitudes that haven't disappeared, they've just gone underground (Bonilla-Silva, 2006; Carr, 1997; Dovidio & Gaertner, 1991). Specifically, many argue that racism is hidden, …

Broadening Campus Threat Assessment Beyond Mass Shootings, Brandon A. Hollister, Mario Scalora

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Record reviews of public figure, primary/secondary school, and workplace threateners and attackers displayed the importance of noticing pre-incident behaviors and intervening to prevent violence. General crime prevention strategies did not appear applicable. Similarly, campus threat assessment research has considered targeted violence as distinctive and unable to be reviewed within general collegiate samples, which has related to questions about the prevalence, predictiveness, applicability, and reporting of pre-incident behaviors. This article applies general criminological and crime prevention findings to these questions and presents campus threat assessment methodologies informed by these fields. With college student surveys, pre-incident behaviors have appeared predictive of general …

Review Of 'How We Die Now: Intimacy And The Work Of Dying,' By Karla Erickson, Jennifer Davis-Berman

Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work Faculty Publications

How We Die Now: Intimacy and the Work of Dying takes the reader on an engaging journey through the terrain of aging in America, with an emphasis on how our ideas about aging itself have changed the way we view death in the United States and even the way we actually die. This book has an authenticity to it, as Erickson admits that her own experience with aging and death compelled her to enter this world and study from the perspective of insiders, those who care for older adults and the actual elders themselves. Based on hundreds of hours of …

The New Normal, Hannah M. Frantz

SURGE

On September 19, 2013 an individual wielding a military-grade assault rifle fired sixteen bullets into a Chicago park harming thirteen individuals, among them a 3-year old named Deonta Howard who was shot in the cheek.

On September 16, 2013 a man by the name of Aaron Alexis opened fire on the cafeteria at the Navy Yard in Washington D.C. Thirteen people died, and eight others were injured.

On December 14, 2012 Adam Lanza shot twenty-six people—twenty of whom were children between the ages of 6 and 7—in Newtown, Connecticut. Barack Obama called it the “worst day of [his] presidency.”

On …

On Learning And Unlearning, Katherine M. Patterson

SURGE

I remember passing our lunch lady–the nice one with a big bleach-blond afro. She was perched on an elementary-school-sized desk, eyes fixated to the television. I glanced at the screen on the way into my classroom while my teacher hesitated in the hallway, whispering to the other adults. She reentered the room a few minutes later to explain.

In the following months, my television provided me with one of the most formative, practical and comprehensive educational experiences of my life. First it was vocabulary building, with the words like “hi-jacker,” and “terrorist.” Then it was physics, learning that inertia is …

Sins Of Our Fathers (And Mothers): Impact Of Parental Incarceration Upon Education Outcomes, Patrick Habecker

Department of Sociology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In 2007, it was estimated that 2.3% of all children in the U.S. under the age of 18 had a parent currently in prison or jail (Glaze and Maruschak 2008). A growing body of research on the experiences of children who have had a parent to go prison or jail has exposed a number of detrimental outcomes associated with parental incarceration, including lower education outcomes (Foster and Hagan 2007), higher risk of mental health problems (Farrington et al. 2001), and increased contact with the criminal justice system later in life (Huebner and Gustafson 2007). This study used data from the …

Defining Safety For Universities: The Slippery Conceptual Slope, Pam Jenkins

DRU Workshop 2013 Presentations – Disaster Resistant University Workshop: Linking Mitigation and Resilience

In this presentation, we address the issue of the fragility of campus safety. The uniqueness of a college campus creates a context for safety that requires an intentional and specific understanding. Campus life for many is no longer (or perhaps never was) ‘an ivory tower’— a place separated and protected from the rest of the community. However, many still have the attitude that a campus is not like the real world in the United States. And in fact, colleges and universities are often much safer and more open than communities around them. Yet, ask any student affairs director or safety …

Yogahome: Emotional, Physical And Social Impacts Of A Yoga Program On Community Homeless Shelter Residents, Jennifer Davis-Berman, Jean Farkas

Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work Faculty Publications

This article reports on a qualitative analysis of semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted with 12 women and 2 men who participated in a community-based yoga program, run by a certified yoga teacher and a social worker, at a homeless shelter in a medium-sized city in the Midwestern United States. This restorative yoga program was developed in the shelter in response to the severe stress of being homeless and the chaotic nature of shelter life. Based on an analysis of transcribed interviews, the following themes were generated and discussed: Yoga as Relaxation, Stress Relief, Pain Relief, and Future Practice. The challenges and …

Social Work, Yoga, And Gratitude: Partnership In A Homeless Shelter, Jennifer Davis-Berman, Jean Farkas

Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work Faculty Publications

This narrative explores the personal lessons learned about life and practice from YogaHome, a yoga program for homeless adults. The yoga program, taught in partnership by a social worker/professor of social work (Jenny) and a yoga teacher (Jean) with 17 years of experience, exemplifies the merging of social work and yogic practices , but also illustrates the evolution of these two professionals in their chosen fields as many of their traditional views, values, intentions, and expectations unraveled and led to a re-revaluation of their professional practices, transforming their personal perspectives on life. This reflection is based on the YogaHome program, …

Gender, Social Bond, And Academic Cheating In Japan, Emiko Kobayashi, Miyuki Fukushima

Sociology & Criminology Faculty Publications

There is evidence that females are less likely to cheat than males on college campuses. A frequently offered but still untested explanation is that females, with a stronger sense of responsibility for the maintenance of social relationships, tend to develop a stronger bond to a conventional society—a key explanatory concept in Hirschi’s (1969) social control theory. With academic cheating as the dependent variable, we test the hypotheses that the four elements of social bond are the intervening variables linking gender to such dishonesty among Japanese students who, due to their stronger orientation toward masculinity on Hofstede’s (1980) scale of gender …

The Great Condom Adventure: Analyzing College Students’ Narratives Of Buying Condoms, Leslie H. Picca, Kristin E. Joos

Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work Faculty Publications

This project analyzes college students’ narratives buying condoms. Research suggests young persons do not consistently use condoms, and this study will provide an in-depth analysis to students affect toward condoms. We analyzed narratives written by 115 undergraduate students of their condom buying experiences. The vast majority of the students’ narratives about their condom buying experience fit a common framework, with elements including: preplanning, walking in the store, looking inconspicuous while wandering, finding the “hidden” condom location, making their selection, carrying and hiding the condoms, selecting a cashier and rushing through checkout, anticipating ridicule, and walking out of the store. Research …

Sunday Friends: The Working Alternative To Charity, James D. Lee, Yoko Baba, Claudio V. Sanchez, Rebecca Wang, Chelsey White

Faculty Publications

Sunday Friends is a non-profit organization in San José, California, that provides multiple activities for families who are in need of financial support. Given the particular location of the program, most families are Latino and bilingual. Participants and program volunteers form a community at an elementary school on a couple of scheduled Sundays each month. When family members participate in activities designed to educate, improve skills, and to give back to the larger community, they earn tickets that they can redeem for items that they need and want from the Sunday Friends store. Activities include healthy cooking projects, “Thank You …

Two-Faced Racism: Whites In The Backstage And Frontstage, Leslie H. Picca, Joe R. Feagin

Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work Faculty Publications

Racial events that reveal the larger forces of racism in society are common and obvious in the sociospatial realm we term the backstage, especially in situations where whites interact with white friends and relatives. Backstage settings, where interactions typically take place among whites only, involve an array of complex interactions and performances. There we observe all dimensions of racial events-- indications of who is allowed and not allowed in the backstage, what racialized performances are tolerated or expected there, the sociospatial character of contexts, the impact of conventional racial framing, and the pervasive influence of the larger society. Here we …

Spots On A Gnat’S Ass, Good Soldiers, And Sociology Departments: Stan Saxton’S Pragmatist Approach To Sociology, Dan E. Miller, Fred P. Pestello, Patrick G. Donnelly

Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work Faculty Publications

Most academics build their careers and establish reputations in the traditional manner, through research and publications. Certainly, this is not the only way to secure a place in the lore of academia. Some are great teachers who gather a large following of students. Still others get involved in professional organizations. While Stan Saxton had a respectable record of publications, was a masterful teacher, and a marvelous critic, his notable contributions to sociology came through his organizational work as a chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Dayton. After his tenure as chair, Stan continued to …

Review: 'High Risk And High Stakes: Health Professionals, Politics And Policy', Patrick G. Donnelly

Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work Faculty Publications

Many studies of the law and policy creation process examine the efforts of particular interest groups and coalitions to influence the views and votes of legislators. Wysong focuses on the role of professional associations, specifically associations of health care professionals, in the legislative debate over the High Risk Occupational Disease Notification and Prevention Act, an example of what is most commonly known as "right-to-know" legislation.

The ethical codes and service-oriented goals of professions suggest that associations of professionals might act differently than interest groups. Wysong shows that the core groups in debates over health and safety legislation recognize that their …

Predictors Of Success In A Co-Correctional Halfway House: A Discriminant Analysis, Patrick G. Donnelly, Brian E. Forschner

Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work Faculty Publications

Considerable research and debate have focused on the effectiveness of community correctional programs. Much of the research does not address the issue of the effectiveness of programs for persons with different types of problems or criminal histories. This article utilizes discriminant analysis to determine the characteristics of persons most likely to succeed in one halfway house. The results indicate that strong socializing and integrating ties in the community and few previous contacts with the criminal justice system are major predictors of success in a halfway house program. The seven discriminators for females are used to accurately predict 87 percent of …

Neighborhood Criminals And Outsiders In Two Communities: Indications That Criminal Localism Varies, Daniel Baker, Patrick G. Donnelly

Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work Faculty Publications

Most research on the mobility of criminal offenders examines distance travelled. This paper examines instead whether neighborhood boundaries are crossed. Comparisons of two neighborhoods in Dayton, Ohio, indicate community variations in criminal mobility. Juveniles from poorer, more transient neighborhoods are surprisingly less likely to stay in the neighborhood to commit their offenses than were adults.

Client Success Or Failure In A Halfway House, Patrick G. Donnelly, Brian E. Forschner

Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work Faculty Publications

Halfway houses today are diverse entities. Seiter, et al. (1977) found that almost 60 percent of the houses in the United States are private nonprofit organizations. One-third were state operations with the remainder being federal, local or private profit organizations. The programs in the houses varied from those providing supervision and custody to those providing a full range of intensive in-house treatments for particular client needs. Some halfway houses handle only particular types of offenders (e.g., drug addicts) while others handle a wide range of offenders.

Latessa and Allen (1982) suggest that the sociodemographic and criminal history backgrounds of clients …