Digital Commons Network^™

Measuring Misconduct: A Theoretically Integrated Examination Of The Correlates Of Inmate Misconduct In A State Prison System, Jacob M. Laan

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the differential influence of imported inmate characteristics, the deprivations of the prison environment, and situational determinants on inmate misconduct. Using a systematic, iterative model-building process, this study also investigates and provides support for alternative measurement and operationalization strategies for several key constructs used throughout misconduct literature. Finally, this study employs both single equation models and hierarchical generalized linear models to demonstrate not only the variable influence of certain predictors, but also the importance of context.

Delineating Victims From Perpetrators: Prosecuting Self-Produced Child Pornography In Youth Criminal Justice Systems, Bryce Westlake

Faculty Publications

Video recording technology advancements and accessibility has been paralleled by a growth in self-produced child pornography (SPCP). Although social and judicial attention has been given to instances of teenage sexting, Internet-based forms of SPCP, such as webcam/website sex tourism, have almost been ignored. While some of the proposed legislation reform has referenced video-based SPCP, the majority has focused on SPCP distributed through cellular phones; excluding that which is manifested online or through entrepreneurial efforts. The purpose of this article is to introduce non-sexting SPCP, using the case study of Justin Berry (in the United States), and to propose a broad …

Culture, Socialization, And Firearms Violence In The United States, Jennifer L. Lanterman, Sarah J. Blithe

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Firearm violence persists in the United States despite innumerable social, political, and economic changes throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries. Collaborative Event Ethnography was used at seven gun shows in three regions of the United States to explore childhood socialization into firearm culture via intergenerational communication of values and views regarding violence, safety, and the use of firearms. Children were observed at all gun shows engaged in activities ranging from standard play to potentially dangerous activity in an environment characterized by bias and controversy. The findings support social learning theory and provide some insight into the role of culture …

Assessing The Outcomes Of A Jail-Based Substance Abuse Treatment Program: A Quasi-Experimental Approach, Laura Lutgen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Jails and the needs of their populations are often overlooked despite their nearly 11 million annual admissions. More than 700,000 inmates are housed in jail on any given day in the United States, most of whom are non-violent and not yet convicted of a crime. This large population also reflects a high-need, heavily drug-involved population with nearly 70% of all jail inmates having a diagnosable substance use disorder. These high-need individuals are likely to continue cycling in and out of jail without treatment especially as they often return to the people, places, and things that are conducive to their use. …

Uneven Policing: Low-Level Arrests During Gentrification, Fiscal Crisis, And Suburbanization, Brenden Beck

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation, I analyze trends in low-level policing between 1990 and 2015. I explore how three contextual changes may have shaped policing during this time: gentrification, fiscal crisis, and the suburbanization of poverty and of people of color. I ask four interrelated research questions: How widely did “broken windows” policing, with its emphasis on misdemeanor arrests, diffuse? Do police make more stops and arrests in neighborhoods undergoing gentrification? Do local governments experiencing revenue shortfalls cut their criminal justice functions to save money, or do they increase them to reassert social order? Did the suburbanization of poverty and of people …

Opencrimemapping.Org: An Online Tool For Visualizing Crime, Michael Crowder, Lauren Darr, Gerardo Garza, Brent Allen

SMU Data Science Review

In this paper we present a method for creating geographic visualizations of criminal incidents using open data and open-source software. The motivation for this method is to provide law enforcement agencies (LEAs) and interested citizens an affordable and relatively easy way to start analyzing geospatial data. The National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) is a national standard for LEA incident reporting going into effect for all 18,000 U.S. LEAs in 2021. This project uses the Dallas Police Department's publicly available, NIBRS-style, incident data to develop a geovisual analysis tool called opencrimemapping.org.

Race, Xenophobia, And Punitiveness Among The American Public, Joseph O. Baker, David Cañarte, L. Edward Day

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

We outline four connections between xenophobia and punitiveness toward criminals in a national sample of Americans. First, among self-identified whites xenophobia is more predictive of punitiveness than specific forms of racial animus. Second, xenophobia and punitiveness are strongly connected among whites, but are only moderately and weakly related among black and Hispanic Americans, respectively. Third, among whites substantial proportions of the variance between sociodemographic, political, and religious predictors of punitiveness are mediated by levels of xenophobia. Finally, xenophobia is the strongest overall predictor of punitiveness among whites. Overall, xenophobia is an essential aspect of understanding public punitiveness, particularly among whites.

Examining The Sources Of Violent Victimization Among Jail Inmates, Jared M. Ellison, Benjamin Steiner, Emily M. Wright

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

This study involves an examination of the individual- and jail-level predictors of violent victimization during short-term incarceration using data from the most recent Survey of Inmates in Local Jails and the corresponding National Jail Census. Findings suggest that individuals whose attributes make them appear more vulnerable or whose attributes antagonize others have a greater risk of violent victimization in jail. In addition, the findings suggest that jails with more stagnant inmate populations and older jails may have higher levels of violent victimization. Overall, the study results add validity to the opportunity framework as a general explanation for victimization risk regardless …

Prison Officer Legitimacy, Their Exercise Of Power, And Inmate Rule Breaking, Benjamin Steiner, John Wooldredge

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Prison officers are directly responsible for transmitting penal culture and prison policy to the confined, yet few studies of officers’ impact on inmate behavior have been conducted. We examined the effect of inmates’ perceptions of officer legitimacy on rule breaking within prisons, as well as the effects of officers’ reliance on different power bases on rates of rule breaking across prisons. The findings from bi-level analyses of data from inmates and officers from 33 prisons revealed that inmates who held stronger views regarding officer legitimacy committed fewer nonviolent infractions but that perceived legitimacy did not affect the number of violent …

Effects Of Senate Bill 4 On Wage-Theft: Why All Workers Are At Risk In Low-Income Occupations, Daniella Salas-Chacon

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming

Undocumented Crime Victims: Unheard, Unnumbered, And Unprotected, Pauline Portillo

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming

Pretrial Release And Failure-To-Appear In Mclean County, Il, Jonathan Monsma

Student Research – Stevenson Center

Actuarial risk assessment tools increasingly have been employed in jurisdictions across the U.S. to assist courts in the decision of whether someone charged with a crime should be detained or released prior to their trial. These tools should be continually monitored and researched by independent 3^rd parties to ensure that these powerful tools are being administered properly and used in the most proficient way as to provide socially optimal results. McLean County, Illinois began using the Public Safety Assessment-Court^TM (PSA-Court or simply PSA) risk assessment tool beginning in 2016. This study culls data from the McLean County Jail …

The Use Of Mythic Narratives In Presidential Rhetoric On Cybercrime, Joshua B. Hill, Nancy E. Marion

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"What politicians say about crime matters, both because of the impact their rhetoric has on public opinion and the policies and motives those words often portend. This is no different when presidents speak about the relatively new area of technocrime. As with other types of crime, political rhetoric on technocrime relies on previous social constructions of the problem, which are (in part) based on myths rooted in popular culture. These myths can be used to help forward political agendas in ways that may be useful to the politician, but that do not address the causes or effects of technocrime. Using …

Why The Uk Needs A Separate Justice System For People With Mental Illness, Karen A. Snedker

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

"Severe mental illness is on the rise in the UK, and an increasing number of people with mental illness are behind bars and supported by inadequate mental health services. This is a situation that could be improved by the introduction of courts specifically geared for hearing cases involving defendants with mental health issues."

Understanding Police Officer Resistance To Body-Worn Cameras, Jessica Huff, Charles M. Katz, Vincent J. Webb

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Purpose

Body-worn cameras (BWCs) have been adopted in police agencies across the USA in efforts to increase police transparency and accountability. This widespread implementation has occurred despite some notable resistance to BWCs from police officers in some jurisdictions. This resistance poses a threat to the appropriate implementation of this technology and adherence to BWC policies. The purpose of this paper is to examine factors that could explain variation in officer receptivity to BWCs.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors assess differences between officers who volunteered to wear a BWC and officers who resisted wearing a BWC as part of a larger randomized controlled …

Programming In Restrictive Housing: Considerations For Improving Outcome Evaluations, H. Daniel Butler, Starr Solomon, Ryan E. Spohn

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

A number of studies have identified “what works” in regard to the successful implementation of correctional programming over the past several decades. Few studies, however, have examined the complexities associated with programming in restrictive housing. Using data from a Midwestern department of corrections, we examined whether the provision of programming in restrictive housing achieved desired outcomes (e.g., reductions in inmate misconduct). The findings revealed the amount of time served in restrictive housing and confinement in different types of restrictive housing may influence estimations of a treatment effect. As a growing number of states seek to reform the use of restrictive …

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, and …

The Role Of Police Officer Race/Ethnicity On Crime Rates In Immigrant Communities, Joselyne Chenane, Emily M. Wright

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Few studies have examined the role of city police officer racial/ethnic representation on violent crime in immigrant neighborhoods. Yet police officer race/ethnicity might play a significant role in bolstering or weakening the relationship between immigration and violent crime rates. Researchers have posited that increasing the representation of minority officer would be an important avenue for making police departments more accountable to the communities they serve. The current study contributes to existing research by using national (i.e., 89 cities and 8,980 neighborhoods) data on violent crime from large U.S. cities. We examine the relationship between immigration, violent crime rates, and minority …

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 society. The literature …

Disentangling The Relationship Between Social Ties, Prison Visitation, And Recidivism, Cassandra A. Atkin-Plunk, Gaylene Armstrong

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Studies find inmates who receive visits while incarcerated are less likely to recidivate upon release, especially when visits are from spouses and occur frequently throughout incarceration. Absent from these studies is measurement of the quality of an inmate’s relationships prior to incarceration, which may play a more significant role in criminal desistance than visitation itself. Longitudinal data from 205 incarcerated male and female adult offenders were used to test the mediating effects of visitation for offenders with varying levels of preincarceration relationships on recidivism. Findings indicate that quality of an inmate’s preincarceration relationships is more important in reducing the odds …

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 …

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

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 …

Do Students Feel Safe On Campus? A Policy Evaluation Of The Clery Act, Amanda Sidwell

Honors Theses

The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act (the Clery Act) is federal policy aimed at creating safer college campuses. It attempts to provide students with statistics on crimes that occur on campus and inform them of the security policies and various resources available to them. The Clery Act also mandates that institutions of higher education (IHE) send out alerts of emergencies that occur on campus.

So how safe do Western Michigan University (WMU or “Western”) students feel on campus? This study attempted to answer this question by asking students through a survey. The students’ …

Understanding The Experiences And Perceptions Of Specialty Mental Health Probation Officers, Brice Terpstra

Theses and Dissertations

Over the last two decades, specialty mental health probation caseloads have become increasingly common – focusing on offenders with serious mental illness (SMI). Scholars have examined overall effectiveness, the organization and design of these programs, and the differences between standard probation and specialty probation. Less attention, however, has been placed on examining how the officers supervising these SMI caseloads perceive their roles as specialty mental health probation officers and how discretion impacts their caseload management. In the current study semi-structured interviews were conducted with a complete census of 24 SMI caseload probation officers and supervisors in Maricopa County, Arizona over …

Examining The Impact Of A Criminal Background In Social Work Education, Amy S. Vliek

Dissertations

Many returning citizens want to access higher educational institutions (HEIs) to access desired professions and increase employability. However, many HEIs and profession education programs have restrictions in place for returning citizens. An MSW is the most sought-after degree for returning citizens. However, social work education has restrictions in place for returning citizens. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the lived experiences of MSW returning citizen students considering these restrictions. The dissertation attempts to answer the following research questions: How did applicants who disclosed a criminal background at the time of application experience the MSW application process? Did the …

Family Impact Seminar 2018: The Kids Are Not All Right: Policy Options To Address Youth Trauma In Massachusetts, Denise Hines, Laurie Ross Ph.D, Marianne Sarkis Ph.D

Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise

Family Impact Seminars are a series of annual seminars, briefing reports, and discussion sessions that provide up-to-date, solution-oriented research on current issues for state legislators and their aides. The seminars provide objective, nonpartisan research on current issues and do not lobby for particular policies. Seminar participants discuss policy options and identify common ground where it exists.

The Kids are NOT All Right: Policy Options to Address Youth Trauma in Massachusetts is the ninth Massachusetts Family Impact Seminar. Today’s seminar is designed to emphasize a family perspective in policymaking on issues related to early intervention in childhood trauma, sex trafficking and …

The Deweyan Approach To Learning Victim Advocacy: Seeing Beyond Stigmas And Facilitating Second Chances, Ashley Peake Wellman, Sherri Dioguardi

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

Fundamentally, criminal justice practitioners are public safety promoters, yet safety can be compromised if a divide exists between them and the communities they serve. The best way to train future criminal justice practitioners may be found in the progressive education proposed by John Dewey in the early 20th-century. Dewey’s experiential approach, specifically service-learning, has gained traction as an effective teaching tool for broadening perspectives, deepening understanding of diverse populations, and fostering higher order reasoning, all of which are critical characteristics for criminal justice professionals as well as for all American citizens. Undergraduate students participated in service-learning during a semester-long honors …

Female Law Enforcement Officer's Experiences Of Workplace Harassment, Vanessa Brodeur

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Prior research shows that female police officers experience more incidents of harassment than male police officers, and these experiences of harassment have been shown to have negative effects on their mental and physical health, retention, and job satisfaction. The current study examined the experiences of harassment of 20 female police officers from agencies around Southern California. A survey interview was used, and it was found that none of the women had experienced quid pro quo harassment, but every woman recalled experiencing environmental harassment at some point throughout their career. Hostility towards women was more commonly experienced than harassment which was …

Exploring Places Of Street Drug Dealing In A Downtown Area In Brazil: An Analysis Of The Reliability Of Google Street View In International Criminological Research, Elenice De Souza Oliveira, Ko-Hsin Hsu

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This study assesses the reliability of Google Street View (GSV) in auditing environmental features that help create hotbeds of drug dealing in Belo Horizonte, one of Brazil’s largest cities. Based on concepts of “crime generators” and “crime enablers,” a set of 40 items were selected using arrest data related to drug activities for the period between 2007 and 2011. These items served to develop a GSV data collection instrument used to observe features of 135 street segments that were identified as drug dealing hot spots in downtown Belo Horizonte. The study employs an intra-class correlation (ICC) statistics as a measure …

From 'Wonderful Americans' To The Ahca: Contrasting Trump's Nomination Acceptance Address And His Administration's Actions On Glbtq Health, Leland G. Spencer, Molly Malany Sayre

Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work Faculty Publications

Donald Trump's 2016 Nomination Acceptance Address at the Republican National Convention explicitly mentioned GLBTQ people as Trump promised to “protect our LGBTQ citizens” and called GLBTQ people “wonderful Americans.” However, since Trump's inauguration, he has appointed anti-GLBTQ leaders, proposed cuts to HIV research, and offered his support for a ban on transgender recruits to the military. This article begins with a close reading of Trump's speech, showing how Trump expresses ostensible support for GLBTQ Americans, only to capitalize on the deaths of queer and trans people of color at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando mere weeks before the convention by …