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An African American Male Perspective On Medication, Schizophrenia, And Crime, Artishia R. Dasher

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Mental health disparities in African American males contribute disproportionate rates of incarceration treatment access. There is a significant need to revise current mental health practices to address treatment barriers. The purpose of this study was to understand whether medication management could reduce criminality in violent African American males diagnosed with schizophrenia. A phenomenological examination of psychiatric perceptions and psychological treatment coupled with race was performed, utilizing the critical race and rational choice theory. Two research questions were developed to understand effective medication management and what barriers are present that cause noncompliance resulting in criminal activity. A hermeneutic phenomenological approach was …

The Effects Of Popular Culture On Public Attitudes Toward Female Parolees, Annette Smith Durrette

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The depiction of offenders in drama shows may play a significant role in how society views them. The purpose of using Gerbner's cultivation theory in this study is the belief that the frequency of watching, and the content of television shows can influence public perception. Previous research has used cultivation theory to investigate television shows, but no effort was made to differentiate between genres. There is an important gap in the current literature because few studies have examined how particular television shows influence society's views of female parolees. This study intends to address that weakness by limiting the study to …

The Lived Experiences Of Male Victims Of Intimate Partner Violence, Arielle Chieko Woodyard

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

This qualitative study explored the lived experiences of male victims of intimate partner violence (IPV). Few studies exist about the experiences of men who are victims of female-perpetrated IPV and there are not many studies about these men's experiences in seeking and receiving psychological help. Maslow's hierarchy of needs and Peck's gender role strain paradigm guided this study to understand victimology and perceptions of gender roles. Research questions attempted to understand the lived experiences of male IPV victims of female-perpetrated IPV, accessing supportive and psychological services, and their experiences of these services. Seven male individuals were recruited through flyers in …

Relationship Between Juvenile Offenders' Psychosocial Maturity And Experienced Parenting Style, Denesha Alexander

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Juvenile delinquency continues to be a social ill with parents often being liable for their child's reprehensible behavior. In this nonexperimental, correlational study, the relationship between experienced parenting style and psychosocial maturity was examined in a sample of juvenile offenders receiving intensive in-home services. The General Theory of crime by Gottfredson and Hirshi provided the framework for the study along with parenting style typologies by Baumrind. Data were collected from a convenience sample of 60 11th grade juvenile offenders and their parent/caretakers using questionnaires. Multiple regression analysis was used to examine the data. The Psychosocial Maturity Index was used to …

Training Satisfaction Of Behavioral Health Providers Treating Older Adult Substance Use, Claudia Lpc Crosse-Wynn

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Substance use disorders among the baby boomer generation are steadily increasing, but knowledge and training satisfaction regarding older adult substance use disorders among behavioral health providers (BHPs) has not been explored. Using the Kirkpatrick evaluation model, this quantitative study involved an examination of the knowledge and training satisfaction of four behavioral provider groups: addiction counselors, licensed professional counselors, marriage and family therapists/social workers, and psychologists. Each participant (N = 154) completed a demographic questionnaire, satisfaction questionnaire, and the Alcohol and Older Adult Questionnaire to measure knowledge level on older adult substance use disorders. The results showed that licensed professional counselors …

Waiting Times And Dwi, Court-Mandated Treatment Completion, Cailyn Florence Green

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Drivers under the influence of alcohol cause nearly one third of all fatal motor vehicle accidents. Ambulatory outpatient alcohol abuse treatment has been clinically shown to increase abstinence, which could decrease the chance of subsequent DWI offences. A barrier to successful completion is extended waiting periods prior to treatment engagement. The theory of patient waiting supports the longer a patient waits to begin treatment the lower the likelihood of successful completion. By exploring the impact of waiting times on DWI court mandated clients, referral courts and treatment facilities can work together to create a successful completion strategy for offenders. The …

Juvenile Detention Center Effects On Futures Of At-Risk Youth, Jennifer Lynn Zitterkopf

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Juvenile Detention Center Effects on Futures of At-Risk Youth

by

Jennifer L. Turner

MS, Walden University, 2014

BS, University of Maryland University College, 2011

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Forensic Psychology

Walden University

August 2019

Many juvenile offenders return to the justice system after serving their incarceration sentences. Detaining youth has a negative impact on their mental health, education, employment, and ability to secede from a criminogenic life course. Identifying detention center effects on youths' futures can provide further insight on why the current approach does not successfully deter youth from …

Race As A Predictor Of Recidivism Risk: An Epidemiological Analysis, Femi Folorunsho

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Prisoner recidivism is a problem of great social importance, as recidivism represents a failure of the rehabilitative goal of incarceration. The problem addressed in this study was the lack of accurate estimates of race as a predictor of recidivism risk in the United States, after taking demographics and criminal variables into account. Applying the life-course theory of recidivism, the purpose of this archival, epidemiological study was to calculate whether recidivism risk varied based on race, across different seriousness levels of commitment offense and number of prior arrests, among a sample of male federal prisoners released from custody. A Cox proportional …

The Influence Of Social Support On Recidivism Of Formerly Incarcerated Individuals, Alison Dockery

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Individuals who are released from incarceration face many challenges with reintegration into the community, and it is important that they find stable environments to foster positive social integration. Family involved treatment programs have been shown to be successful in many areas for reentry. However, these programs lack information regarding the relationship between the individual's criminal history, risk of recidivism, and social support. This quantitative study was designed to evaluate the impact of social support on recidivism among participants. Secondary data were used from a 3-year period from a reentry program located in a large northeastern city and the Division of …

Race As A Predictor Of Recidivism Risk: An Epidemiological Analysis, Femi Folorunsho

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Prisoner recidivism is a problem of great social importance, as recidivism represents a failure of the rehabilitative goal of incarceration. The problem addressed in this study was the lack of accurate estimates of race as a predictor of recidivism risk in the United States, after taking demographics and criminal variables into account. Applying the life-course theory of recidivism, the purpose of this archival, epidemiological study was to calculate whether recidivism risk varied based on race, across different seriousness levels of commitment offense and number of prior arrests, among a sample of male federal prisoners released from custody. A Cox proportional …

Positive Experiences Among Dui Offenders In Court-Mandated Substance Abuse Treatment, Katarzyna Blanka Pilewicz

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol and other drugs puts communities' and individuals' safety at tremendous risk. The excessive use of alcohol, illicit drugs, and/or some prescribed medications causes cognitive impairment and the physical incapability of operating a vehicle. The court system penalizes drunken driving behaviors by placing DUI offenders in a variety of mandated interventions to minimize the risk of reoffense. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore DUI offenders' positive experiences and perceptions derived from DUI programs and how they impacted well-being and commitment to positive change using Seligman's well-being theory as a conceptual framework. …

Perceptions Of Fatherhood Programs From The Experiences Of Uninvolved Fathers, Rahsaan Roland Turpin

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Past researchers have reported that father absence and low engagement affects 24 million children in the United States. African American fathers make up the largest group with low involvement. Fatherhood programs support men in their roles, yet little is known about why this group still exhibits low engagement. Using the family systems theory as a foundation, the purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of African American fathers who participated in fatherhood programs and their engagement after these programs. This study used purposeful sampling and semi-structured interviews to collect information from 9 African American men aged …

Juror Gender And Confession Evidence: An Exploratory Study Of Effects On Empathy And Trial Outcomes For Juvenile Defendants, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Jennifer N. Weintraub

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Objectives: We explored how relations among juror gender, confession evidence, and empathy impacted verdicts for a juvenile defendant accused of a serious crime. Methods: Jury-eligible women and men (N = 128) participated in a mock trial involving a girl defendant who had either maintained her innocence, confessed voluntarily, or confessed under coercion. Participants reviewed case materials, received juror instructions, and reported their verdict and empathy for the girl defendant. A manipulation check ensured participants attended to details surrounding the confession and participants were grouped by whether they perceived the confession as voluntary or coerced. A logistic regression analysis examined main …

Capital And Punishment: Resource Scarcity Increases Endorsement Of The Death Penalty, Keelah E. G. Williams, Ashley M. Votruba, Steven L. Neuberg, Michael J. Saks

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Faced with punishing severe offenders, why do some prefer imprisonment whereas others impose death? Previous research exploring death penalty attitudes has primarily focused on individual and cultural factors. Adopting a functional perspective, we propose that environmental features may also shape our punishment strategies. Individuals are attuned to the availability of resources within their environments. Due to heightened concerns with the costliness of repeated offending, we hypothesize that individuals tend toward elimination-focused punishments during times of perceived scarcity. Using global and United States data sets (studies 1 and 2), we find that indicators of resource scarcity predict the presence of capital …

Demographic, Legal, And Clinical Predictors Of Long-Term Trial Competency Restoration, Jonathan F. Shook

Theses and Dissertations

Trial competency is the foremost context in which forensic evaluators interact with criminal courts in the United States, and court-ordered restoration to competency (RTC) substantially contributes to hospitalization via the criminal justice system. Predictors of restoration to competency (RTC) have been extensively studied to date, yet few studies have been conducted with RTC patients in a long-term setting. The present study aimed to examine predictors of successful restoration for defendants who underwent RTC from a long-term inpatient facility in Texas from 2012 to 2017. Patients (N = 261) were compared across retrospective demographic, clinical, and criminogenic factors via binary logistic …

How African American Men From Challenging Backgrounds Beat The Odds And Graduated From College, Valisha Terry

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

While Bettis and Sternod (2009) asserted the notion of boys being in crisis as not a new phenomenon but a historically cyclical one, present research contends that African American men are one of the most at-risk groups in the United States. School and criminal-justice systems show similar results. African American men continue to lag in terms of graduation rates and college enrollment, while being overrepresented in victim violence and the criminal justice system. They also lead the nation in homicides as both victims and perpetrators. Despite these obstacles, many at-risk African American men graduate from college and excel in life. …

The Relationship Between Witnessing Domestic Violence And Criminal Recidivism Among Juvenile Sex Offenders, Shamyra Marie Shaw

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

This correlational archival dissertation focuses on the relationship between exposure to domestic violence and criminal recidivism among juvenile sexual offenders. The study examined archival criminal arrest records and self-reported data gathered from a sample of 67 male juvenile sexual offenders in a residential treatment facility. Given the somewhat limited explanations for and research into the causes of juvenile sexual re-offending and the importance of identifying its determinants, this topic may be viewed as having substantial importance to future research and criminal justice policy. Findings did not support the primary hypothesis that prior exposure to domestic violence would be positively correlated …

Parental Availability As A Predictor Of Academic Success Among Students Of A Private Residential School, Lesley Kubisiak Logan

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

A private residential school in the northeast United States provides a cost-free coeducation to qualifying pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade students. One of the most important application factors is need, which is measured by a scale for parental availability. For a parent to be considered unavailable, any or all of the following areas could be present: limited physical capacity to effectively parent the child, limited mental capacity to effectively parent the child, active abuse of drugs or alcohol or ongoing substance abuse history, inadequate supervision, chronic neglect, incarceration, death, no contact or sporadic contact (e.g., not on a regular basis or …

The Experiences Of Witnesses To Prison Sexual Violence: A Case Study, Edyth Zada Hendricks

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Prison sexual violence is prevalent and impacts the witnesses to it. Previous literature has fully discussed the victims of prison sexual violence; however there remains an important gap in the current literature regarding the experiences of witnesses. The purpose of the present qualitative case study was to explore the lived experiences of witnesses to prison sexual violence. The theoretical foundation of this study was the self-categorization theory linked to the prison code of silence. Four ex-inmates answered semi structured interview questions. Transcripts were coded and themes developed. Five themes that emerged were exposure (to prison sexual violence), ineffective guards, avoidance …

A Review Of The Use Of Positive Reinforcement In Drug Courts, Katherine Bascom

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

There is a need to provide effective treatment for drug-abusing offenders, as evidenced by the explicitly supported relationship between drug use and crime (Anglin & Perrochet, 1998; Tonry & Wilson, 1990; McBride & McCoy, 1993). Drug policy in the United States has viewed drug abuse as a public safety concern or a public health concern (Marlowe, 2002). In 1989, the Miami Drug Court in Dade County, Florida developed a drug court system that is currently used nationwide. The model embodies a very strong behavioral orientation with clear expectations, as well as graduated sanctions and rewards for successive infractions and accomplishments. …

Where There's A Will, There's A Way: Implementing Motivational Strategies To Combat Decision Fatigue, David Huang

CMC Senior Theses

Recent research suggests we have a limited supply of willpower, termed the “ego”, which becomes depleted by undergoing cognitively demanding tasks. Any acts of volition, including decision-making, self-control, and taking responsibility, reduce this supply of “ego” (Baumeister, 1998), which impedes our ability to further perform these tasks. Decision fatigue, a specific form of ego depletion, is prevalent everywhere from judicial court cases (Danzinger, Levav, & Avnaim-Pesso, 2010) to our daily lives. There is now significant mainstream media exposure and literature on decision fatigue and the activities to which it applies. However, it remains contested how to best handle its negative …

The Effects And Experiences Of Stigma In The Minneapolis Strip Club Industry, Machensey Shelgren

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Utilizing participatory action research with dancers in the Minneapolis strip club industry, the present study examined current dancers’ experiences with stigma, its effects on their quality of life, and stigma management techniques. The present multi-methods study involved an initial survey and follow-up interviews with approximately 60 current dancers within Minneapolis strip clubs. Participants reported experiencing stigma in personal relationships and in the workplace, discrimination by landlords and future employers. Through thematic analysis, seven key themes were identified: dancer identity, assumptions made, loss of social support, profession weaponized against them, housing discrimination, lack of employment mobility, and identity concealment as stigma …

The Effect Media Has On Juror Bias, Tia Fasano

Honors College Theses

The purpose of the study was to illustrate the problems associated with juror bias and how the media contributes to it. The way the media portrays individuals, the language they use, and the pictures seen as affecting potential jurors when they determine verdicts of the people they hear about on the news. The study further investigates whether or not these jurors are influenced enough by the media to cause a bias detrimental to the defendant. The design of the study used multiple peer-reviewed sources, documentaries, and semi-structured interviews. Through these, information was gathered and analyzed. I found through the interviews …

The Correctional Officer-Inmate Relationship: Evaluating Job Functionality To Enhance Rehabilitation, Maya Stern

Faculty Curated Undergraduate Works

The relationship between correctional officers (COs) and the prison populations they survey is vastly understudied in the field of criminal justice. Currently, reports on correctional officers focus on the officers' indispensable role in the prison system as well as their subjectivity to high turnover rates. Studies assessing this relationship would be of great use to prison administrations and the criminal justice system as a whole, because creating effective relationships between COs and inmates may correlate with incidences of job stress and turnover. Utilizing a shift in research would also promote rehabilitative attitudes as the correctional officer and inmate relationship is …

Factors Affecting Juvenile Drug Use In Medellín, Colombia, Kendall Miller

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Evidence shows that peer pressure is a strong indicator of juvenile substance use. Oetting and Beauvais (1986) determined that the Peer Cluster Theory was a common phenomenon in which adolescents tend to share the same opinions on substance use as their friends do, namely that juveniles who had friends that abused substances were likely to abuse substances themselves. The present study sought to determine if this phenomenon was true for adolescents in Medellín, Columbia. Data was collected on participants’ demographics, their opinions of their community, their relationship to their families and friends, how they spend their time each week, and …

Perceived Appropriateness Of Sexual Misconduct In Hookup Culture: Roles Of Power And Motives, Milan Alexandra Tvardek

Master's Theses

This study used hypothetical depictions of hookup scenarios to assess the perceptions of 388 participants for whether specific interactions between third-party characters involved sexual misconduct and the perceived appropriateness and wrongfulness of those behaviors. The current research examined the role of three independent between-subject variables in perceptions of sexual misconduct perpetration: a) Sex Motive (Low, High); b) Chronic Power (Low, High); and c) Acute Power (Low, High, Control). Results showed that individuals high in sex driven motivation, compared to those who less often hookup for sex driven reasons, perceived some perpetrators to be more wrongful but also expected these perpetrators …

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 …

Mentors And Their Impact On The Transition Of Foster Care Youth To Independent Living, Josephine Marie Kunkle

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Abstract

The Foster Care Mentoring Act of 2011 directed the Secretary of Health and Human Services to award grants to U.S. states to create programs within public and private community entities to support mentoring foster children. Some states have allocated funding to support agencies that mentor foster care youth who have been emancipated (aged out) from the child foster care system who are without family support and are attempting to become self-sufficient. To date, there is a lack of research on mentors who help foster care graduates preparing to exit the foster care system. The purpose of this qualitative study …

Girl Time: An Enrichment Program Fostering Social And Emotional Well-Being Among Kindergarten Girls, Irene A. Opuka

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

Early identification and intervention are essential in meeting the unique needs of all children and families (Bagdi & Vacca, 2005). In addition to studying the growth of separate emotions and their importance for mature development, researchers have discovered that early-childhood years are a key time for developing capacity to control and regulate emotions (Nuttall, Romero, & Kalesnik, 1999). Schools are designed to promote emotional well-being, and GIRL TIME could be viewed as part of a responsive and collaborative approach to a child-centered service continuum that includes promotion, prevention, and intervention. Effective social-emotional-behavioral interventions have been found to change the balance …

Examining The Intersection Of Gender And Age In Victim Blaming, Jerin Lee

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Victim blaming refers to an attributional tendency in which some level of responsibility for a negative outcome is placed on victims (Maes, 1994). Many victims of crimes face stigmatization in the form of blame from friends, acquaintances, the criminal justice system, media, strangers, and even perpetrators of the crimes themselves (e.g., Cross, Parker, & Sansom, 2019; Gordon & Riger, 1991). Victim characteristics, type of crime, and observer characteristics all influence victim blaming tendencies. However, no studies to date have tested whether these factors in combination elicit differential reactions to victims of crimes. The present research tested how the intersection of …