Criminology Commons^™

Exposure To Violence, Substance Use, And Neighborhood Context, Abigail A. Fagan, Emily M. Wright, Gillian M. Pichevsky

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Adolescent exposure to violence and substance use are both public health problems, but how neighborhood context contributes to these outcomes is unclear. This study uses prospective data from 1416 adolescents to examine the direct and interacting influences of victimization and neighborhood factors on adolescent substance use. Based on hierarchical Bernoulli regression models that controlled for prior substance use and multiple individual-level factors, exposure to violence significantly increased the likelihood of marijuana use but not alcohol use or binge drinking. There was little evidence that community norms regarding adolescent substance use influenced rates of substance use or moderated the impact of …

Stressed, Pregnant, And Behind Bars, Caroline Malory Kelsey

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Abstract Uneducated Injustice: A Social Cognitive Approach To Understanding Juror Misconduct And Verdict Errors, Melinee Melissa Marie Calhoun

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

A continual problem in the adjudication of crime in the United States is the continued occurrence of erroneous convictions and acquittals. This problem impacts the victims of crimes as they endure emotional and mental distress of additional investigations and new trials. Defendants are impacted by errors in verdicts because of the loss of freedom while being factually innocent. These errors may occur because jurors may not be knowledgeable of their role, right and responsibilities. Without regard to the judge's minimum instruction, the jury is not provided direction on the purpose and limitations of their roles. Guided by the social cognitive …

The Influence Of Financial Institutions And Residential Lending On Neighborhood Crime, Anne M. Lee

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

This research aimed to bridge a gap in the literature between banks, mortgage investment, and neighborhood crime. Specifically, the current research uses the political economy approach to social disorganization theory (Bursik 1989) as a theoretical frame to understand the role of external investment on neighborhood levels of crime. This research was guided by several research questions that are derived from the prior literature on banks, mortgage lending and crime. The primary research question was: How do banks affect neighborhood levels of crime? And secondly, how does residential lending affect crime?

These questions are investigated by combining several sources of available …

Powerlessness Within A Budget-Driven Paradigm: A Grounded Theory Leadership Study From The Perspective Of Michigan Corrections Officers, Timothy Michael Eklin

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

This study explored the lived-experiences of 15 correctional officers and 5 sergeants working in adult state-operated prison facilities in Michigan. In particular, this qualitative grounded theory study revealed the impact that budget driven decision-making had on the lives of correctional officers: its effect on institutional custody, security, and safety. The study finds that many recent policy changes resulted in a sense of powerlessness expressed by the participants of the study. Participants found themselves in a precarious position, situated in between the prison population and the administration. Having an understanding of how correctional officers make meaning of their work in relation …

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 …

Mining Social Networking Sites For Digital Evidence, Brian Cusack, Saud Alshaifi

Australian Digital Forensics Conference

OnLine Social Networking sites (SNS) hold a vast amount of information that individuals and organisations post about themselves. Investigations include SNS as sources of evidence and the challenge is to have effective tools to extract the evidence. In this exploratory research we apply the latest version of a proprietary tool to identify potential evidence from five SNS using three different browsers. We found that each web browser influenced the scope of the evidence extracted. In previous research we have shown that different open source and proprietary tools influence the scope of evidence obtained. In this research we asked, What variation …

Understanding The Pathways To Youth Involvement In The Juvenile Justice System: A Longitudinal Investigation Of Poor, Inner-City African American Adolescents, Charlene Harris

Theses and Dissertations--Family Sciences

It is widely recognized that African American youth are disproportionately represented in the juvenile justice system in comparison to other ethnic/racial groups, and this has generated a large body of research into the etiology and prevention of crime in this population. Although there has been considerable research attention to identifying and reducing the disproportionate contact among African American youth within the juvenile justice system, it is still unclear what factors contribute to their involvement in the criminal justice system. Accordingly, the dissertation tests whether self-reports of behaviors in early adolescence are predictive official offending behaviors in late adolescence, as measured …

A Comparative Study Of Perceived Work Stress Among Police Officers Of Color And White Officers And Its Implications For Management., Booker T. Hodges Iv

School of Business Student Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the perceived work stress levels among police officers of color and white officers from three Midwestern law enforcement agencies. A perceived police job stress survey that consisted of five categories (police job stress, felt stress, coping strategies, adverse outcomes, and workplace participation) was sent out via Survey Monkey through participating agency email systems. The survey was emailed to 532 licensed police officers and correctional officers, the response rate was 57.7% (n=304). The results of the survey found that the racial composition of the command staff of a law enforcement organization influences the police organizational stress levels of …

Punishment: Drop City And The Utopian Communes, Paul H. Robinson, Sarah M. Robinson

All Faculty Scholarship

Using stories from the utopian non-punishment hippie communes of the late 1960's, the essay challenges today’s anti-punishment movement by demonstrating that the benefits of cooperative action are available only with the adoption of a system for punishing violations of core rules. Rather than being an evil system anathema to right-thinking people, punishment is the lynchpin of the cooperative action that has created human success.

This is Chapter 3 from the general audience book Pirates, Prisoners, and Lepers: Lessons from Life Outside the Law. Chapter 4 of the book is also available on SSRN at http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=2416484).

Discounting And Criminals' Implied Risk Preferences, Murat C. Mungan, Jonathan Klick

All Faculty Scholarship

It is commonly assumed that potential offenders are more responsive to increases in the certainty than increases in the severity of punishment. An important implication of this assumption within the Beckerian law enforcement model is that criminals are risk-seeking. This note adds to existing literature by showing that offenders who discount future monetary benefits can be more responsive to the certainty rather than the severity of punishment, even when they are risk averse, and even when their disutility from imprisonment rises proportionally (or more than proportionally) with the length of the sentence.

The Westray Mine Incident: Corporate Violence And Governmental Crime As The Roots Of Disaster, Melissa Hughes

2015 Undergraduate Awards

This paper addresses the catastrophic Westray mine disaster that rocked the East Coast of Canada in Plymouth, Nova Scotia, in May 1992 and outlines the causes and factors of the deadly explosion that resulted in the death of 26 miners. From a perspective of white-collar crime, particularly governmental crime and corporate violence, this paper asserts that the negligent actions of inspectors from the Nova Scotia Department of Labour and managers from Curragh Resources Inc., the corporation in charge of the Westray mining operation, led to the conditions in the mine that caused the explosion to occur. Despite there being no …

Methods Of Policing: Deviation From The Standard Model Of Policing And Measured Effectiveness, Elena Stamm

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The Standard Model of Policing is the original method of crime control put into place to increase the effectiveness of policing. However, there have been questions about whether or not the standard model has proven to be of any real effect. Since that time, researchers have sought a different model of policing that would prove more effective in crime reduction. This research seeks to analyze whether or not the methods developed are actually shown to be effective, through their study.

Stereotypes And Deadly Force Decision-Making, Mark R. Chaires

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Abstract

Employment After Incarceration : Exploring The Influence Of Cumulative Disadvantage On Multiple Employment Outcomes, Amanda D. Emmert

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Prisons and jails across the Unites States release more than 600,000 inmates each year. Scholars have posed and addressed numerous concerns for the reintegration outcomes and prospects that face ex-inmates. Yet, little is known about the cumulative employment and economic disadvantages faced by ex-inmates who experienced their first incarceration at early ages or experience multiple incarcerations throughout their lives. Using event history and fixed effects analyses on longitudinal data from the Rochester Youth Development Study (RYDS), this project explores employment acquisition, employment tenure, employment stability, and use of public assistance for signs of differential ex-inmate disadvantages. While cumulative disadvantage is …

Welfare And Crime Revisited : Beyond Yea Or Nay, Colin Gruner

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The criminological literature has found that welfare is negatively associated with crime, but few studies have tested this association with data from after the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (PRWORA) passed in 1996. PRWORA fundamentally altered the structure of the U.S. welfare state. The goals of this dissertation were to identify the research and theories on welfare and crime and test whether the relationship has changed since PRWORA. A review of the literature showed that there were several lines of research on welfare and crime but no studies drawing on the full extent of the welfare-crime literature. After combining …

Predicting Job Performance In Correctional Officers With Pre-Employment Psychological Screening, Shelley S. Hyland

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

There is substantial cost in the hiring and training of a correctional officer, with a high rate of turnover compounding these costs. While pre-employment psychological screening is suggested as one method to prevent these losses, mandates to screen are not as common in corrections as they are in law enforcement. Further, minimal research has examined the validity of psychological testing in correctional officers. This dissertation examined pre-employment psychological screening for 421 correctional officers hired by one of three upstate New York sheriff's departments. Assessments were conducted by Public Safety Psychology, PLLC from March, 1997 to June, 2012. T scores and …

911 : Help Or Hindrance In Reducing Repeat Victimization, Kay Elizabeth Lang

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In my dissertation I examine two pieces of criminological knowledge in order to explore the point at which they converge. First, crime victims call the police for a variety of reasons, one of which is to stop future attacks; and second, research suggests that previous victimization is a significant predictor of future victimization. In my research I seek to expand current knowledge about repeat victimization using the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). I examine repeat victimization at the individual level, with crimes of violence, and at the household level, by examining residential burglary. But my project expands on existing knowledge …

The "New Civil Rights" : The Innocence Movement And American Criminal Justice, Robert Norris

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Few issues have captivated the criminal justice world in recent years like wrongful convictions. An advocacy network has developed around the United States, responsible for exonerating more than 1,500 individuals and successfully passing reforms at all levels of criminal justice policy and practice. This "innocence movement" has been described as a "revolution" and a "new civil rights movement," yet has rarely been examined in-depth by scholars. In this dissertation, I explore the history and theoretical underpinnings of the movement through interviews with 37 actors involved in innocence work, archival materials, and observational research. I draw on the rich body of …

When Is Hacking Ethical?, Sharif Rezazadehsaber

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This thesis examines situations in which computer hacking might be considered ethical. It addresses fundamental questions regarding the motivation and consequences of ethical hacking. The paper is organized into three sections. The first section discusses the history of hackers, classifies them according to their motivational background. The second part of the paper comprehensively describes the features of the ethical or “white hat” hacker group, and explores the positive and negative behaviors of ethical hackers in relation to their ethical principles. In the final section of the paper, I discuss hacktivist groups, their unique ideologies, and the risks they face, including …