Criminology Commons^™

Tablets As A Vehicle For Imprisoned People’S Digital Connection With Loved Ones, Andrea Mufarreh

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The intersection between criminal justice and technology is fairly understudied, despite increasing technological advancements in the world and within the criminal justice system. A rather recent addition to the technological landscape of prison is the adoption of tablets used by imprisoned people for communication and connection with loved ones and other activities, which is particularly important given the context of COVID-19, a virus which caused a global pandemic from 2020-2022. While the use of tablets by imprisoned people appears to be a new trend, the use of tablets in prison both prior to and during the pandemic has remained an ...

The Spatial Associations Between Crime And Economy In Chicago 2015-2020, Hongtao Huang

Honors Capstones

The severity of the crime is often the most intuitive reflection of whether a region is safe and the top factor for the public when evaluating a region. Economist's list of the safest cities in seven major North American cities, Chicago was ranked at six, just above Dallas. Chicago scored the lowest in personal security, which is closely tied to the crime. Against the backdrop of higher unemployment and prices, this study is interested in how property-based crimes are related to the economic decline in Chicago geographically. The study used the heterogeneity analysis tool Geodetector to investigate the correlation ...

The Influence Of Fraternity And Sorority Characteristics On Alcohol Exposure: Who Is At Risk?, Sydney Shupe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Fraternity and sorority membership has been among the highest contributing factors linked to increased exposure to alcohol consumption among college students. Many have argued that this association persists as a result of the drinking sub-culture among Greek organizations, and report that finding effective methods to minimize alcohol consumption among college students is critical. Using self-reported data from fraternity and sorority members at East Tennessee State University (n=107) the link between observed alcohol consumption and demographic characteristics of the individual Greek member and the Greek organization was examined through a quantitative lens. It was hypothesized that the demographic characteristics of ...

Print News Media And Prisoner Reentry: An Exploratory Study Of Local Newspapers In 2018, Sydney Gaughan

Sociology and Criminology Undergraduate Honors Theses

In hopes to fill gaps on this subject, the current study uses ethnographic content analysis on newspaper articles while investigating the following research questions: (1) How does local news media portray recidivism by reentering prisoners? and in turn, (2) What are some characteristics of those news articles associated with the likelihood of local media using specific portrayals or “frames”?

There are several reasons to examine these research questions. First, this research aims to convey how local news media might use their positions to create narratives for public consumption that foster worry and panic. This study can shed light on the ...

Can Violent Political Rhetoric Influence Bias Homicide Rates? Analyzing The Trump Effect, Tyler Joseph Patrick Ford

Sociology and Criminology Undergraduate Honors Theses

The founding document of the United States declares that all men are created equal. However, history has shown that this is not the case. Citizens in this country have been discriminated against since its inception based on their race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, and many other factors. The first Federal Legislation passed to prevent discrimination against citizens in the United States did not come until 1968, which “made it a crime to use, or threaten to use, force to willfully interfere with any person because of race, color, religion, or national origin” (United States, Department of Justice). It ...

Unequal Treatment: An Exploration Of Immigrant-Related Factors And Likelihood Of Discrimination In The United States, Sophia Woods

Sociology and Criminology Undergraduate Honors Theses

Despite the rapid and considerable growth of the Latino population in the United States, the continual xenophobic rhetoric surrounding Latino immigration along with the nativist public policies set in place have led to higher rates of discrimination. Latino immigrant discrimination has shown to have consequences on mental health, social isolation, physical health, and trust of law enforcement. Using data from the Pew Research Center, I explored the specific factors associated with Latino immigrants that increase the likelihood of experiencing discrimination in the United States. In line with much of the prior literature, age, ethnic identity, English proficiency, Mexican origin, fear ...

Impacts Of Post-Incarceration Programming For Women's Lives And Local Communities, Megan Greenslade

Sociology and Criminology Undergraduate Honors Theses

Previous research on reentry programming has focused mostly on male inmates and less attention is given to female inmates. In Arkansas, where female reentry rates have recently increased, research is needed to add to the conversation surrounding effective programming for previously justice-involved women, its impact on their lives and behaviors, and how this can influence the likelihood of recidivism. This qualitative study also aims to discover whether reentry programming can have a positive impact on the local community. Residents and staff at a local Northwest Arkansas transitional housing facility for previously justice-involved women were interviewed to analyze the effects of ...

The American Racial Divide In Fear Of The Police, Justin T. Pickett, Amanda Graham, Francis T. Cullen

Criminal Justice and Criminology Faculty Publications

The mission of policing is “to protect and serve,” but recent events suggest that many Americans, and especially Black Americans, do not feel protected from the police. Understanding police-related fear is important because it may impact civilians’ health, daily lives, and policy attitudes. To examine the prevalence, sources, and consequences of both personal and altruistic fear of the police, we surveyed a nationwide sample (N = 1,150), which included comparable numbers of Black (N = 517) and White (N = 492) respondents. Most White respondents felt safe, but most Black respondents lived in fear of the police killing them and hurting their ...

Hate In The Heartland: Examining Hate Groups In Nebraska’S Past And Present, Grant Van Robays

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

Hate groups that malign entire classes of people based on race, religion, sexuality, gender, or other characteristic appear in every U.S. state. Nebraska is home to nine such groups, one of the highest figures in the country on a per capita basis. While notoriously secretive, previous research and watchdog reporting has pulled back the curtain on hate groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan and various neo-Nazi organizations, positing theories on how and why groups form. Minimal research has described in depth hate groups in a single state, let alone a quaint state like Nebraska. This case study of ...

Stakeholder Perceptions And Potential Barriers To Pretrial Release Reform, Shanell Sanchez, Jacqueline Strenio

Journal of Restoration, Rehabilitation, and Reentry

Pretrial release reform is an important component of justice reinvestment initiatives. However, little work has examined the implementation process or stakeholder perceptions of the implementation of a pretrial release program. In this study, we explore the perceptions and experiences of stakeholders in the criminal justice system in a county in Oregon by conducting interviews with judges, district attorney’s, defenders, and pretrial staff to assess their perceptions of the reform, including the county’s adoption of the Virginia Pretrial Risk Assessment Instrument (VPRAI). Our findings highlight four main themes, which we labeled Just Keep Them Out of System, The Tool ...

Need For Reform: The Prison System And Deaf Inmates, Catherine Pellini

Montserrat Annual Writing Prize

Anecdotal and empirical evidence reveal a severe lack of awareness, education and accessibility in the criminal justtice system for those who are deaf. These issues are most obvious and detrimental in the prison system and have serious ethical implications that need to be addressed.

Reformation Within The Nation: Adapting The Nordic Rehabilitation And Reintegration Model To Positively Recondition The United States Criminal Justice System, Jessica Cornell

Helm's School of Government Conference

An analytical and statistical based comparison of criminal sentencing, incarceration, rehabilitation and reintegration in the United States of America to those of the five countries which follows those of the Nordic Criminal Justice System.

The Secret Struggles Of Law Enforcement: Ending The Stigma Through Counseling, Kelsey Daly

Criminology Student Work

Law enforcement are on the frontlines everyday and see the best and worst society has to offer. They encounter scenes of violence and tragedy and have to learn how to compartmentalize what they see and feel. But what if they struggle to deal with those emotions? Suicide is the second leading cause of death among law enforcement, following behind Covid-19. While there are many reasons including both personal and professional factors that influence suicide ideation in police officers, there are also protective factors that can limit these ideations. Counseling is found to be a protective factor against suicide ideation in ...

Harnessing The Potential Of Google Searches For Understanding Dynamics Of Intimate Partner Violence Before And After Covid-19 Outbreak, Selin Köksal, Luca Maria Pesando, Valentina Rotondi, Ebru Şanlıtürk

Population Center Working Papers (PSC/PARC)

Most social phenomena are inherently complex and hard to measure, often due to under-reporting, stigma, social desirability bias, and rapidly changing external circumstances. This is for instance the case of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), a highly-prevalent social phenomenon which has drastically risen in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper explores whether big data — an increasingly common tool to track, nowcast, and forecast social phenomena in close-to-real time — might help track and understand IPV dynamics. We leverage online data from Google Trends to explore whether online searches might help reach “hard-to-reach” populations such as victims of IPV using Italy ...

Pharmakon In The Firelands: Connecting Historical Discourses And Small-Town Social Contexts With Substance Use Experience, Andrew Robert Burns

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The ongoing increase in opioid and polysubstance-related overdoses and mortality in United States coincides with a shift in the ways substance use is understood. Once almost exclusively treated as a criminal problem, substance use, and overdose is increasingly viewed in terms of public health and from an urban to rural issue. The discourse surrounding the use of psychoactive substances largely omits the voices of the very people who use them. Likewise, the social context of small towns, at once not quite rural nor entirely urban, is generally given little consideration. To address these gaps in the research, I conduct two ...

What Drives The Fracking Boom Crime Relationship? A Fixed-Effects Analysis Of Crime During The Pennsylvania Fracking Boom, Webster Batista-Lin

Masters Theses

The rapid expansion of hydraulic fracturing(fracking) over the past two decades has led to an increasing interest in the relationship between natural resource booms and crime. Since the onset of the fracking boom, numerous anecdotal accounts and an increasing body of empirical studies have suggested that fracking has a significant, positive impact on crime. However, the mechanisms behind this relationship are poorly understood. This study uses a high-resolution dataset and a unique, fixed-effects approach to decompose the effect that fracking has on crime into increases due to the introduction of new wells and increases due to the presence of ...

On-Duty Fatal Police Shootings: Patterns Of Officers Charged With Homicide Offenses, 2005-2021, Chloe A. Wentzlof, Philip M. Stinson

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, Las Vegas, NV, on March 18, 2022.

An Exploration Of The Nature And Disposition Of Crimes Committed By Sheriffs And Sheriff’S Deputies, Adam M. Watkins, Chloe A. Wentzlof, Philip M. Stinson, John Liederbach

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, Las Vegas, NV, on March 18, 2022.

Fatal Victims Of Police Crime: An Exploratory Study Of Law Enforcement Officers Arrested For Fatal Crimes, 2005‐2016, Alexa J. Sir Louis, Chloe A. Wentzlof, Philip M. Stinson

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, Las Vegas, NV, on March 18, 2022.

Drug-Related Police Crime: An Exploratory Study Of Law Enforcement Officers Arrested For Drug-Related Offenses, 2005‐2016, Jarrod Sutton, Chloe A. Wentzlof, Philip M. Stinson

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, Las Vegas, NV, on March 18, 2022.