Criminology Commons^™

Remember My Chains: New Testament Perspectives On Incarceration, Matthew L. Skinner

Faculty Publications

Understanding the physical realities and social attitudes concerning incarceration in the ancient world provides a fuller context to the New Testament’s unadorned and ambiguous references to people’s experience of being held in custody. The context is crucial for interpreting biblical passages that commend caring for prisoners, that reaffirm God’s strength and nullify the ignominy associated with incarceration, and that declare God’s power over the means and motives of imperial coercion. Such passages also compel the contemporary church to advocate on behalf of prisoners and to denounce the systems that regularly victimize them.

Reconsidering Policy Barriers For Justice-Involved College Students, Bradley D. Custer

Journal of College Access

Student affairs professionals are concerned about the access and success of diverse groups of students in U.S. higher education, but systematic barriers continue to confront one understudied population of college students. Justice-involved people–those who have experienced the criminal justice system–face unique challenges on our campuses but are often ignored in discussions of access, retention, and success. To raise awareness about the barriers these student face, this paper offers a descriptive examination of the federal, state, and institutional policies that target justice-involved college students, including policies related to admissions, financial aid, campus housing, student employment, student athletics, and ...

Islamic Terrorism In The United States – The Association Of Religious Fundamentalism With Social Isolation & Paths Leading To Extreme Violence Through Processes Of Radicalization., Shay Shiran

Student Theses

This exploratory study focuses on identifying motivations for religious terrorism and Islamic terrorism in the United States in particular. Terrorism is a crime of extreme violence with the end purpose of political influence. This crime is challenging to encounter for its multi-faced characteristics, the unusual motivations of its actors, and their semi-militant conduct. The hypothesis of this study asserts that religious terrorists are radicalized by passing from fundamental to extreme devout agendas, caused by isolation from the dominant society, and resulted in high potential to impose those agendas by extreme violence. Under the theoretical framework of subculture in criminology, this ...

A Communication Guide For Ex-Offenders, Richard Anthony Contreras

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Incarceration rates and the release rate of ex-offenders into the community are both increasing. Studies have shown, on a consistent basis, that, while incarcerated, ex-offenders experience lower literacy levels than the general population, suffer emotional and mental distress from a harsh prison life, and suffer from the negative effects of public perception. Ex-offender anger abounds. These factors interfere with an inmate’s ability to communicate effectively. Notwithstanding, upon release from custody, how do we help such ex-offenders communicate? Many handbooks exist to help former inmates. However, the vast majority only offer assistance with locating government social services agencies, obtaining documents ...

Does Mental Illness Affect Societal Perception Of Sex Offenders?, Keely A. Bartram

Student Theses

Although mental illness is common in the sex offender population, it has never been examined how evidence of such may influence societal perception. In comparison to the non-sex offender population, it was hypothesized that participants would consider mental illness less mitigating for sex offenders, would be less likely to support the mental health treatment of sex offenders while incarcerated, and would consider certain mental illnesses (schizophrenia and substance abuse disorders) as particularly aggravating for this group of offenders. Respondents were asked to read a short vignette and then respond to a series of questions about culpability, sentencing decisions, and mental ...

A Realist Model Of Prison Education, Growth, And Desistance: A New Theory, Kirstine Szifris, Chris Fox, Andrew Bradbury

Journal of Prison Education and Reentry

This paper articulates the first ‘general theory’ of prison education, offering a new insight into the relevance of desistance theory and understanding of prison sociology to the lives of men engaged in education whilst in prison. Using a realist review method (Pawson, 2002b; Wong, 2013a) we develop a rough, initial general theory of prison education articulated in the form of three context-mechanism-outcome configurations (CMO). We then ‘test’ these CMOs by assessing the current evidence base through a systematic review of literature. This paper articulates three inter-related CMOs that we ground in prison sociology and desistance literature: ‘hook’, ‘safe space’ and ...

A Brief Summary And Critique Of Criminal Liability Rules For Intoxicated Conduct, Paul H. Robinson

Faculty Scholarship

This essay provides an overview of the legal issues relating to intoxication, including the effect of voluntary intoxication in imputing to an offender a required offense culpable state of mind that he may not actually have had at the time of the offense; the effect of involuntary intoxication in providing a defense by negating a required offense culpability element or by satisfying the conditions of a general excuse; the legal effect of alcoholism or addiction in rendering intoxication involuntary; and the limitation on using alcoholism or addiction in this way if the offender can be judged to be reasonably responsible ...

Formerly Incarcerated Adults In Higher Education: A Life-History Study Of A Restorative Approach To Prisoner Reentry, Robert Michael Ehnow

Dissertations

The U.S. is the world’s “leading jailer” with both the highest incarceration rate and the largest number of prisoners. Each year more than 700,000 inmates are released from prison and re-enter their communities. The majority of released prisoners lack the necessary education, work experience, and life skills to successfully reintegrate back into society.

One alternative to the retributive model of justice used in the United States is a restorative justice strategy. A restorative approach to prisoner reintegration seeks to re-establish community support and acceptance for criminal offenders in order to allow them to become beneficial members of ...

The Effects Of Community Policing Practices And Related Social Demographic Variables On City Crime Rates, Keighan Richardson

Honors Projects in History and Social Sciences

Selected studies show that community policing practices help deter crime, meaning that an inverse relationship exists between the two of them. This project does an in-depth analysis of this relationship using a variety of control variables, all of which have been shown to be predictive of crime. Crime is measured as the total crime rate (violent crimes + property crimes per 100,000 population). The data are city level, and my key control variables include city size, economic inequality, race, educational level, and strength of gun laws. There are eight variables that define community policing practices; they correlate strongly in a ...

The Influence Of Rape Myth Acceptance On Self-Reported Perceptions Of Prostitution And Human Trafficking Among College Students, Eva Fontaine

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Adler (1975) contends that, over time, few things in society have changed less than sexual behavior, while few things have changed more than attitudes about sex. As such, myths pertaining to sex work, such as prostitution, human trafficking, and rape myths, support culturally reinforced attitudes that rationalize the sexual exploitation of sex workers (Cotton et al., 2002). Using a convenience sample and revised versions of the Human Trafficking Myths Scale (Cunningham & Cromer, 2016), Attitudes toward Prostitutes and Prostitution Scale (Levin & Peled, 2011), and Updated Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (McMahon & Farmer, 2011), the current study sought to examine the following ...

Who Gets “Saved?” : Making Sense Of Racially Disparate Disciplinary Practices In Urban School Systems., Kala Brown

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

The “racial discipline gap” describes the phenomenon in which black and brown youth disproportionately face exclusionary punishments in schools for instances of misbehavior. Despite the declining trends in youth violence, decades of research still show that this process ultimately leads to minority youth being processed through the courts for mostly non-violent offenses as part of the school-to-prison pipeline. This paper examines minority youth perspectives on disciplinary practices in secondary schools as responses to, and embedded within, bureaucratic practices in school disciplinary systems. Using a review of qualitative research studies and labeling theory as the primary framework for this investigation, I ...

Electric Light: Automating The Carceral State During The Quantification Of Everything, R. Joshua Scannell

All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation traces the rise of digitally-driven policing technologies in order to make sense of how prevailing logics of governance are transformed by ubiquitous computing technology. Beginning in the early 1990s, police departments and theorists began to rely on increasingly detailed sets of metrics to evaluate performance. The adoption of digital technology to streamline quantitative evaluation coincided with a steep decline in measured crime that served as a proof-of-concept for the effectivity of digital police surveillance and analytics systems. During the turbulent first two decades of the 21^st century, such digital technologies were increasingly associated with reform projects designed ...

Policing For The Community, Jeffrey Munoz

Senior Honors Projects

As a society, we are currently in a period of time where the community reflects their dissatisfaction with law enforcement by staging protests, organizing groups who demand change and unfortunately at times displaying a degree of violence towards authority. These issues are products of controversial police shootings like those of the killings of Tamir rice, Freddie Gray and Eric Garner in which all demonstrated a reasonable degree of uncertainty. The fact of the matter lies within the officers’ actions as they manifest an inherent racial bias seen one to many times by populations that have been oppressed throughout history. The ...

Lethal Water Switch: A Matter For Criminology, Jordan A. Kaset

University of Tennessee Honors Thesis Projects

No abstract provided.

Crimmigration, Deportability And The Social Exclusion Of Noncitizen Immigrants, Shirley P. Leyro, Daniel L. Stageman

Publications and Research

The spread of crimmigration policies, practices, and rhetoric represents an economically rational strategy and has significant implications for the lived experience of noncitizen immigrants. This study draws up in-depth interviews of immigrants with a range of legal statuses to describe the mechanics through which immigrants internalize and respond to the fear of deportation, upon which crimmigration strategies rely. The fear of deportation and its behavioral effects extend beyond undocumented or criminally convicted immigrants, encompassing lawful permanent residents and naturalized citizens alike. This fear causes immigrants to refuse to use public services, endure labor exploitation, and avoid public spaces, resulting in ...

The Relationships Among Moral Judgement, Social Identification, And Stigmitization, Rebecca Isaacs

Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Stigma has had a perceived link with the concept of morality since the Grecian era (Goffman, 1963). The purpose of this study was to see if there was a correlation between moral judgement (using the Defining Issues Test 2; DIT2), social identification (using the Identification with all Humanity Scale; IWAHS) and stigma attributions toward those with mental illness. Specifically, whether those with a heightened sense of identification with all humanity and more developed moral judgement schemas are less likely to make negative stigma attributions toward persons with mental illness. The results this study supported correlations between those variables and the ...

The Predictors Of Juvenile Recidivism: Testimonies Of Adult Students 18 Years And Older Exiting From Alternative Education, La Toshia Palmer

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this descriptive, qualitative study was to identify and describe the importance of the predictors of juvenile recidivism and the effectiveness of efforts to prevent/avoid juvenile recidivism as perceived by previously detained, arrested, convicted, and/or incarcerated adult students 18 years of age and older exiting from alternative education in Northern California. A second purpose was to explore the types of support provided by alternative schools and the perceived importance of the support to avoid recidivism according to adult students 18 years of age and older exiting from alternative education.

Methodology: This qualitative, descriptive research design ...

Attitudes Toward Prisoners: An Introductory Study, Kathleen Geyer

Honors Thesis Projects

The United States has the largest prison population in the world and it just seems to keep growing (Tsai & Scommegna 2012). The current research focuses on attitudes toward prisoners and how that may influence someone’s likelihood of returning to prison. Attitudes toward prisoners was measured using the Attitudes Toward Prisoners scale (ATP). The research hypotheses are as follows: 1) females and people of color will have higher original ATP scores than males and whites; 2) people who have experienced discrimination and/or have some connection to the prison system will have higher original ATP scores than those who have not; 3) that people who viewed the Bryan Stevenson Common Book Convocation will have higher original ATP scores than those who did not view the convocation; 4) the scores for the Tendency to Forgive scale (TTF) and for the ATP will be positively related (when one score is higher, the other score will also be higher ...

The Social Dynamics Of Women Policing In Nigeria: Back Door To Equality, Dickson Ogbbonnaya Igwe

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies

The culture of patrimony in pollicising is increasingly failing acceptance test in developing world as clamour inclusiveness in law enforcement continue to gain grounds. Although the topic of women police has been fairly marginal in police studies in Nigeria, however, many of the problems of modern law enforcement corruption, excessive force and neglect of victims are closely associated with the male dominated nature of police work. The available research evidence supports the idea that policing would be considerably improved in many areas were the proportion of women police much more representative of their proportion in the general population. The research ...

Online Socialization And Delinquency: Expanding The Study Of Peer Influence In Criminology, Timothy Mccuddy

Dissertations

Criminologists typically study peer influence within traditional contexts such as schools and neighborhoods. Spurred by the ubiquitous use of electronic devices, recent research finds that online peer delinquency can also have deleterious effects on adolescent behavior. This has important implications for the study of delinquency since youth today are digital natives, meaning their developmental years are spent in a world reliant on technology and Internet-connected devices. Through the use of computer-mediated communication (CMC), adolescents can forge friendships with those found within the cyber context, a virtual environment unrestricted by the confines of space and time. This context not only provides ...