Criminology Commons^™

The Punitive Laboratory Of Neoliberalism: A Cross-National Examination, Beth A. Fera

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A large body of research has been produced to explain global punitive trends in recent decades. Neoliberalism, an economic philosophy expressed by market deregulation, privatization, and the retrenchment of social supports, has been offered as an explanation for increases in cross-national punitiveness. According to neoliberal penality theory, neoliberalism has shifted principles guiding punishment practices and the treatment of offenders, which has resulted in harsher national responses to crime. However, many tenets of this theory have not yet been tested empirically. Drawing heavily on propositions from neoliberal penality, group-threat, and penal populism literature, this dissertation examines the relationship between economic shifts, …

The Ferguson Effect In Contemporary Policing: Assessing Police Officer Willingness To Engage The Public, Christopher Mercado

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Researchers suggest that as public scrutiny and video recording of violent/tumultuous police encounters increase, police would back away from proactive enforcement, resulting in an increase in crime—the Ferguson Effect. Recent scholarship refined these concerns over police disengagement with the study of de-policing, while other scholars explored police self-legitimacy, in order to explain law enforcement behavior, given the immediacy and ubiquity of social media and digital communication. This study surveyed 792 law enforcement officers from 10 different police agencies in the United States, to ascertain if police officers’ personal and contextual characteristics influence their decision to either take enforcement action (i.e., …

Against Criminalization And Pathology: The Making Of A Black Achievement Praxis, Charles M. Green Sr.

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Utilizing 29 in-depth semi-structured interviews, the life-course narratives of Black male scholars who, as victims of varying manifestations of structural violence, have “beat the odds” academically. Findings suggest that Black men and boys benefit from positive, racially-informed socialization that assists in the development of an internalized identity that (a) acts as a protective and resistant barrier against some of the impediments of institutional racism, (b) operates as a counter-criminogenic influence, and (c) facilitates educational resilience. Criminogenic Resistance Theory (C.RT) is presented as an alternative conceptualization of the process by which Black boys resist the criminogenic influences of structuralized violence.

Local Immigration Enforcement Entrepreneurship In The Punishment Marketplace, Daniel L. Stageman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The contemporary neoliberal economic order plays a significant role in American social organization and policy-making. Most importantly, neoliberal ideology drives the creation and imposition of markets in public goods and services and the valorization of free market ideology in cultural life. The neoliberal ‘project of inequality’ is in turn delimited and upheld by an authoritarian system of punishment built around mass incarceration, surveillance, and an unprecedented level of social control directed at the lowest strata of American society – a group that includes both the urban underclass, and unauthorized immigrants.

This study lays out the theory of the punishment marketplace …

Development, Security And Displacement: An Ethnographic Case Study Of Rocinha And Other Key Favelas In Rio De Janeiro, Marcos D. Burgos

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study highlights the complex and generally overlooked relationship between development, urban space, and security, and does so through a multiyear ethnographic study of Rocinha, Brazil’s largest favela (slum/squatter community).

Since 2007 unprecedented resources have been devoted towards improving Rio de Janeiro’s favelas (slums), mainly in the form of large-scale favela upgrading and security programs. Coinciding with the historic improvement schemes in Rio, and in large part responsible for them, Brazil’s economy experienced one of its most sustain period of growth during the first decade of the twentieth century. For the first time, strong economic growth and a historic decrease …