Criminology Commons^™

Psychology And Criminology Students' Attribution Of Factors Contributing To Criminal Behaviors, Ava Marie Leahy

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences in the attribution of contributing factors to criminal behaviors between psychology and criminology majors. To gauge participant perception, a carefully crafted vignette was presented to participants accompanied by questions asking participants to what extent eight variables (conformation to labels, hostile attribution bias, rational choice based on circumstances, poor attachments, mental illness, upbringing, insufficient deterrence, and learned behavior through observation) contributed to the perpetrator’s criminal behavior and for participants to rank-order these same variables from the largest contributors to the least. Participants were also asked to provide a sentencing recommendation for …

Stigma And Criminalization Of Mental Health In An Inpatient Versus Jail Setting, Zachary C. B. Dumay, Jessica T. Harnais, Christina M. Cerminara

The Graduate Review

Stigmatization is the perceived, negative stereotype assigned to a group of individuals. This stigmatization has contributed to the criminalization of mental health, meaning that individuals with mental health issues are more likely to be arrested for behaviors that are not criminal. This project examines mental health stigma toward an individual in a psychiatric setting and a correctional setting. We hypothesized that when reading a vignette about an individual experiencing a mental health crisis, participants will stigmatize them more if they are incarcerated than if they are in a psychiatric facility. Results showed that participants exhibited a higher level of discrimination …

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 …

Exploring Locus Of Control In Offender Cognition And Recidivism Paradigms, Anistasha Lightning, Danielle Polage

All Master's Theses

Working with four Washington State county jails to administer surveys to currently incarcerated inmates, we investigated locus of control and beliefs in the likelihood of continued legal involvement as possible antecedents to criminal recidivism. The surveys examined whether there was any connection between legal involvement frequency and the externalization of locus of control. We investigated external locus of control with specific respect to involvement with the law, the prospect of future incarceration, and feelings concerning the overall cause of original and/or sustained legal involvement utilizing the Revised Causal Dimension Scale (McAuley, Duncan, & Russell, 1992). We identified statistically significant interactions …

Millennial Generation Law Enforcement Academy Recruits And Their Perception Of Mental Health, Jeffrey M. Mcgill

School of Criminal Justice Theses and Dissertations

The traumatic and cumulative stresses associated with a law enforcement career are well documented both empirically and anecdotally. While previous generations have acknowledged and coped with these stressors with varying levels of success, research shows that the millennial generation has reported more mental health issues than any generation in history. Since suicide is the single leading cause of death for United States law enforcement officers in recent years, addressing mental health should be a priority of all agencies. The introduction of millennial generation law enforcement officers creates the potential for increased mental health needs within the field. 25 millennial-aged Florida …

“Good Guys Do Rape”: An Examination Of College Student Perceptions Of Sexual Assault Perpetrators, Taylor Blythe Martinez

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

When people think of a typical sexual assault, they rely heavily on preconceived notions of sexual violence, which often represents stereotypical rape scenarios. Many stereotypical depictions of perpetrators tend to be centered around individuals who are strangers, mentally ill, lonely, with poor or impoverished upbringing. How perpetrators and victims are depicted impact the likelihood of others believing victims and attributing guilt to perpetrators. This may contribute to societal endorsement of acquaintance rape as not real compared to stereotypical rape scenarios. The current study examines how college students, and in particular fraternity men and sorority women, view perpetrators of sexual assault. …

Lived Experiences Of Secondary Victims During The Parole Process: A Phenomenological Approach, Jessica Millimen

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Secondary victims of traumatic violent crimes are subject to continuing the process of fighting for the loved ones they have lost. Once the offender is incarcerated, such victims may still have to face the process of parole if the offender has been granted a possibility of parole after years served. There is a gap in the literature and a need for research in the area of lived experiences for secondary victims as they progress through the parole process. For this study, a phenomenological study was utilized with 10 secondary victim participants. Participants were interviewed questions via telephone and the data …

Media Coverage Of Domestic Extremists And The Influence On Police Emotions, Jamie Porter

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The media have influenced domestic extremists who are targeting the police, and this is related to negative emotions among the police. These extremists are targeting police officers based on how events are framed by the media. In this way, the media have influenced domestic extremists' target selection and caused negative emotions among police officers because they are now the targets. The purpose of this qualitative narrative study was to understand the perceptions of police officers about how the media have influenced domestic extremists to target them. The narrative of this qualitative inquiry was guided by a semistructured interview sample consisting …

Fitting Eyewitness Identification And Confidence To A Diffusion Model Of Processing, Brittany Nicole Race

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

It is necessary to better serve justice to understand the mechanisms behind eyewitness identification and reports of confidence. The material contained within attempt to fit eyewitness identification to a diffusion model of processing, RTCON (Ratcliff & Starns, 2009). Participants saw eight mock crime videos and were then tasked with using eight showups or eight lineups to identify the suspects within the video. Half of the presentations were target present and half were target absent. Additionally, participants were either presented with biased or unbiased instructions. Strangely, unbiased lineups led to higher hit rates which is contrary to most findings in the …

Framing Responsibility For Bullying: An Ethnographic Content Analysis, Kayla Knight

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the current study is to explore ways in which American print news media frame responsibility for adolescent and teen bullying. More specifically, how media portray responsibility for the underlying causes and consequences of bullying, as well as for responding to bullying, are examined. Drawing from media studies and the construction of Social problems literature, the study is guided by two broad research questions, 1) How do American news media frame responsibility for bullying? and 2) What news sources, or "claims-makers," are selected as authorities on bullying in news media articles? Articles published between 2009 and 2013 are …

Clergy Sexual Abuse: Social Science Perspectives, Claire Renzetti, Sandra Yocum

Sandra A. Yocum

This book brings together experts primarily from the fields of criminology, criminal justice, law, and social work, but also cultural anthropology and psychology, to analyze clergy sexual abuse from the perspective of their individual disciplines. Contributors examine the latest data and analyses on the scope and impact of clergy sexual abuse, frame the problem in terms of sociological and criminological theories of crime and deviance, explore the social and legal issues the problem raises for the personal and communal life of faith communities, and discuss possibilities for reform, reconciliation, and healing. Covering sexual abuse of both minors and adults, chapters …

The Effect Of Confirmation Bias On Criminal Investigative Decision Making, Wayne A. Wallace

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Confirmation bias occurs when a person believes in or searches for evidence to support his or her favored theory while ignoring or excusing disconfirmatory evidence and is disinclined to change his or her belief once he or she arrives at a conclusion. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine whether emotionally charged evidence and evidence presentation order could influence an investigator's belief in a suspect's guilt. The study included 166 sworn police officers (basic training recruits, patrol officers, and criminal investigators) who completed online surveys in response to criminal vignettes across different scenarios to record their measure of …

Enlisting In The Military: The Influential Role Of Genetic Factors, Kevin M. Beaver, J. C. Barnes, Joesph A. Schwartz, Brian B. Boutwell

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Given that enlistment in the U.S. military is completely voluntary, there has been a great deal of interest in identifying the various factors that might explain why some people join the military, whereas others do not. The current study expanded on this line of literature by estimating the extent to which genetic and environmental factors explained variance in the liability for lifetime participation in the military. Analysis of twin pairs drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) revealed that 82% of the variance was the result of genetic factors, 18% of the variance was …

Gender Differences In Risk Factors And Mechanisms For Adolescent Offending, Emma Venell Espel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

From 1985 to 2009, the juvenile justice system processed 86% more offending cases for females, with only a 17% rise in male cases (Puzzanchera et al., 2012), highlighting the urgent need for understanding of gender differences in etiological factors of offending. Specifically, there is an essential need to understand mechanisms of the relationship between risk factors and offending behavior. The current work combines two studies with a gender-sensitive approach and an aim to investigate gender differences in a subset of modifiable mechanisms, such as anxiety and impulse control, which link interpersonal risk and offending. The first study tests gender differences …

Understanding The Role Of Social Groups In Radicalisation, Kira Harris, Eyal Gringart, Deirdre Drake

Australian Security and Intelligence Conference

The inability to form psychological profiles of individual members across a variety of extremist groups, as well as the recognition in extremism and terrorism research indicates that no adequate personality profile exists. This requires an analysis of other factors that influence the radicalisation process. By drawing on social identity theory, this paper offers a psycho-social explanation for how people define themselves in relation to their social group, as well as how the intra-group relationships can lead to extreme behaviour and resistance to counter efforts. These groups promote a salient social identity that becomes intrinsic to the self to the extent …

Empirical Desert, Individual Prevention, And Limiting Retributivism: A Reply, Paul H. Robinson, Joshua Samuel Barton, Matthew J. Lister

All Faculty Scholarship

A number of articles and empirical studies over the past decade, most by Paul Robinson and co-authors, have suggested a relationship between the extent of the criminal law's reputation for being just in its distribution of criminal liability and punishment in the eyes of the community – its "moral credibility" – and its ability to gain that community's deference and compliance through a variety of mechanisms that enhance its crime-control effectiveness. This has led to proposals to have criminal liability and punishment rules reflect lay intuitions of justice – "empirical desert" – as a means of enhancing the system's moral …

The Effect Of Mental Illness Under U.S. Criminal Law, Paul H. Robinson

All Faculty Scholarship

This paper reviews the various ways in which an offender's mental illness can have an effect on liability and offense grading under American criminal law. The 52 American jurisdictions have adopted a variety of different formulations of the insanity defense. A similar diversity of views is seen in the way in which different states deal with mental illness that negates an offense culpability requirement, a bare majority of which limit a defendant's ability to introduce mental illness for this purpose. Finally, the modern successor of the common law provocation mitigation allows, in its new breadth, certain forms of mental illness …

A Phenomenological Psychological Study Of The Police Officer's Lived-Experience Of The Use Of Deadly Force, Rodger E. Broome Phd

Rodger E. Broome

A police officer is sometimes required to literally make a potentially life or death decision and act upon it under rapidly evolving and dynamic circumstances involving a variety of mental, physical, and emotional aspects of the deadly force experience. Because the act of using deadly force is so personally impacting, the descriptive phenomenological psychological method was used in this study to provide a qualitative, holistic and personal viewpoint from the officers’ perspective in their lived-experiences. Three city police officers were interviewed and each gave a descriptive account of their experiences with deadly force. It was found that police officers experience …

The Relationship Between The Utilization Of Mental Health Services, Coping Mechanisms, And Reputation In Male Firefighters, Rodger E. Broome Phd, Jessica Bulala Psyd

Rodger E. Broome

The study shows that firefighters believe in masculine ideals, including independence, strength, and straightforwardness. Therefore, it would seem probable that firefighters in treatment would respond well to psychoeducation on communication styles, coping skills, and mental health in general.

Golfing-Unto-Death, Rodger E. Broome Phd

Rodger E. Broome

Drawing from Heidegger’s (2008) Being and Time, the game of golf is analogous to our Being-unto-death. Each day that we awake is another swing at the ball of life. How well we hit the ball determines the position from which subsequent shots can be made, or our “lie.” A poorly made shot tends to send the ball flying into an obstacle like a sand trap, rough turf, or grove of trees that are along each fairway. We begin each day from the Tee, which is a place where we can set up our ball on a tee so that we …

Deadly Paradox Of Self-Defense, Rodger E. Broome Phd

Rodger E. Broome

Police deadly force is not intended to kill, but its purpose is to stop a violent person from hurting others. It is a desperate measure to bring someone physically under control, even at the risk of taking his or her life. In my research, the officers’ lived experience with shooting another person was paradoxical. Each shot fired by the officers was the most horrible thing they had ever done while being vital to surviving the encounters. Every bullet that hit its mark improved the likelihood that the officer would live while each bullet extinguished the life of the adversary. The …

Existential Cycling, Rodger E. Broome Phd

Rodger E. Broome

As I reflected on my thoughts, I reflected on my reflections while my body was hammering through the revolutions of the machine I was riding. I was feeling alive! Pulse racing, hard breathing, and beginning to sweat, I could feel myself cutting through the air as my race carved a rut through the light breeze. There is a transcendence that can be experienced when one is overcoming his or her normal human limitations. Driving power through this highly engineered piece of metal, carbon fiber, and rubber machinery to propel my body at 20 MPH down a city street is expansive …

Fulfilling The Mission - Police Tactical Psychology Bulletin, Rodger E. Broome Phd

Rodger E. Broome

I don’t know if it is still a stock question in hiring and promotional processes or whether it is just to cliché to use, but “why do you what to be a…” is an important question when considering one’s job choice. In the beginning, aspiring police officers and rookies who are becoming cops are driven by a motivation to become a member of something bigger than themselves.

What's The Problem? - Police Tactical Psychology Bulletin, Rodger E. Broome Phd

Rodger E. Broome

An obvious fact is that police officers are problem solvers. Sometimes the most obvious things in life are also those we don’t spend much time reflecting upon.

A Typology Of Preadolescent Sexual Abusers Based On The Emerging Personality Patterns In The Millon Preadolescent Clinical Inventory, Sam Wallace

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to develop a personality-based typology of preadolescents with sexual behavior problems based the Emerging Personality Patterns in the Millon Preadolescent Clinical Inventory (M-PACI, Millon et al., 2005). Grounding a typology in a theory driven personality system may offer clarity and specificity in understanding preadolescents with sexual behavior problems in a manner that has not yet been explored. A personality and theory driven typology could provide a more comprehensive framework for assessing and treating children who sexually abuse than any of the current taxonomic models.

The study used an ex post facto design with test …

Radicalization In Post-War Bosnia And Herzegovina: Social Disorganization And Its Consequences, Mirela Dapo

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This thesis will explain how social disorganization leads to the radicalization. During the process of rapid change (e.g. abrupt democratization of previously authoritarian Bosnian society) new situations cause development of new desires (e.g. a need for greater independence from social controls) which results in development of new attitudes (e.g. individualism). When the society is unable to satisfy the new desires and attitudes, people resort to illegal acts and even violence to meet their new needs, and social disorganization develops. Due to lack of research that focuses directly on Bosnia this thesis will analyze similar researches conducted in other regions (e.g. …

It's Not Personal, It's The Law - Police Tactical Psychology Bulletin, Rodger E. Broome Phd

Rodger E. Broome

Meta-communication is the message behind the explicit message(s) in language. In other words, when we say something we always say more than what was there in the words and sentences. There are presumptions and hidden premises that are there which makes each verbal utterance “pregnant” with meaning of which even the speaker is not fully aware.

Biased Visual Attention To Out-Group Members' Skin Tone Does Not Lead To Discriminatory Behavior, Sathiarith Chau

Honors Projects

According to the racial phenotype theory, the extent to which members resemble or depart from the physical prototype of a particular race will determine how strongly the perceiver associates them with preconceived racial stereotypes. For Blacks, skin color was predicted to be a primary feature attended to and those with dark skin were more negatively stereotyped. The current study aimed to explicitly measure visual attention during judgment of faces through the use of eye-tracking. Past methodologies measuring the attention to skin tone and its relationship to stereotype judgment were not directly measured. The study used a mixed model design: Label …

Deliver Us From Evil - Police Tactical Psychology Bulletin, Rodger E. Broome Phd

Rodger E. Broome

There is no hero or protector without a menace from which to protect or save others. Therefore, it is essential to understanding our adversaries better so that we may better appreciate our service to our citizens

Family Systems - Police Tactical Psychology Bulletin, Rodger E. Broome Phd

Rodger E. Broome

In the criminal justice system, we deal with people in terms of their individual rights and actions. But often times, police officers are called to deal with families in conflict or turmoil. In these situations, police have to work within the framework of individual rights, responsibilities, and duties, but often are frustrated, confounded or inhibited by complex family dynamics.