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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 …

The Impact Of Detention On Juvenile Recidivism In Montana: Is The Impact Of Detention Influenced By Other Factors?, Daniel N. Acton

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The purpose of this study is to identify the effect detention has on recidivism risk as well as to identify the degree to which the effect of detention on recidivism is influenced by other variables. The data for this analysis were collected by probation officers across Montana, using the Back on Track risk assessment instrument (N=840). Although detention was the topic of interest, this analysis also tested aspects of three popular criminological theories: social bond theory, self-control theory, and life-course persistent theory. Using logistic regression, the effects of detention and a variety of other risk factors are identified. Hypothesis one …

Is Downsizing Prisons Dangerous? The Effect Of California’S Realignment Act On Public Safety, Jody Sundt, Emily Salisbury, Mark G. Harmon

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications and Presentations

Research Summary: Recent declines in imprisonment raise a critical question: Can prison populations be reduced without endangering the public? This question is examined by testing the effect of California’s dramatic efforts to comply with court-mandated targets to reduce prison overcrowding using a pretest-posttest design. The results showed that California’s Realignment Act had no effect on violent or property crime rates in 2012, 2013, or 2014. When crime types were disaggregated, a moderately large, statistically significant association between Realignment and auto theft rates was observed in 2012. By 2014, however, this effect had decayed and auto theft rates returned to pre-Realignment …

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.

The Disobedient Prisoner: A Racial Comparison Of The Level Of Punishment Prescribed To Inmates For Rule Violations, Sarah King

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With the various studies that point to racial disparities at different levels of the United States' criminal justice system, it is necessary to uncover all places within the system where racial disparities might exist. Understanding that Black inmates are disproportionately represented within the prison system led to the hypothesis that Black inmates receive harsher punishments than White inmates when they violate a rule while in prison. A cross-sectional study, "Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities, 2004," which was available through ICPSR, was used in order to test the hypothesis. The data were collected from October 2003 through …

Tactical Police Officers, Romantic Attachment And Job-Related Stress: A Mixed-Methods Study, Natalie Fagan

Theses and Dissertations--Sociology

Stressors stemming from tactical policing such as social isolation and increased work responsibilities often spill over into the home and affect personal relationships. Using attachment theory as the guiding framework, this mixed methods study aimed to obtain a better understanding of the factors involved in maintaining long-term relationships between tactical officers and their romantic partners. Phase I consisted of surveys administered to tactical officers in Kentucky and measured romantic partner attachment, organizational and operational police stressors. Research questions examined how operational and organizational stress correlated with attachment while controlling for demographics. Analysis indicated that holding a rank above an officer …

Hunting For 'Paper Gangsters': An Institutional Analysis Of Intelligence-Led Policing In A Canadian Context, Crystal Weston

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Contemporary police departments are facing immense pressure to preserve public safety while also remaining fiscally accountable. As a response to economic pressures, police services are turning to intelligence led policing (ILP). ILP promises ‘smarter’ and more efficient policing with the use of advanced technologies and data analysis for decision-making. The present study examines ILP implementation in one urban Canadian police department. Through in-depth interviews with fifteen patrol and middle-management members, fifty-five hours of observation, and an analysis of organizational documents, I examine how ILP reform has been understood and enacted by patrol officers on the ground. From this analysis, I …

Risk-Based Pretrial Release Recommendation And Supervision Guidelines, Mona J.E. Danner, Marie Vannostrand, Lisa M. Spruce

Sociology & Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

[Introduction] Pretrial services agencies in Virginia are actively engaged in identifying, testing, and implementing pretrial services legal and evidence-based practices (LEBP) that are consistent with the legal and constitutional rights afforded to accused persons awaiting trial, and that research has proven to be effective in reducing unnecessary detention while assuring court appearance and the safety of the community during the pretrial stage. The virginia pretrial risk assessment instrument (VPRAI), known nationally as the "Virginia Model," was the first research-based statewide pretrial risk assessment in the country. The VPRAI examines eight risk factors that are weighted to create a risk score, …

Attitudes Of Returning Citizens In Government-Managed Post-Release Programming, Zachary D'Jon Weaver

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Nearly 700,000 prisoners return to communities annually, and approximately two-thirds are rearrested within 3 years of release. The cyclic pattern of recidivism presents risks to both returning offenders and the communities that accept them. Reentry research tends to include the voice and experiences of juveniles, community members, and service providers, and narrowly focuses on the socioeconomic conditions of adult ex-offender populations pre- and post-release. Few researchers have explored the attitudes of those returning citizens or the perceived impact on treatment success, as related to employment-based, post-release reintegration programs. This study investigated the attitudes of 32 participants of Project Empowerment, the …

At The Intersection Of Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals, The Migration Trust Network And Labor, Mario Javier Chavez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study unpacks the intersection of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Migration Trust Network and Labor. I use 9 in-depth qualitative interviews to address how such policies are affecting the labor acquisition and labor outcomes of DACA recipients. The Migrant trust network remained important for DACA recipients, although in a more indirect and macro-level way than described in Flores-Yeffal (2013). In particular, DACA recipients relied on the collective efficacy embedded within the community to facilitate their job search. Additional, migrant trust networks function differently according to the DACA recipients' level of education, but to fully benefit from the advantages …

Sex Offender Management Policies And Their Unintended Cosequences: A National Survey Of The Perceptions Of Professionals, Corey Call

Theses and Dissertations

The mid-1990s brought sex offenders to the forefront of policy issues due to several highly publicized cases of abduction, sexual assault, and murder involving children. Following these cases, a number of sex offender management policies were passed to quell public concern over the safety of children due to sex offenders. Most notably, these new sex offender management policies mandated the creation of publicly available registries of sex offenders and enacted residence restrictions that forbid sex offenders from residing within certain distances from areas where children commonly congregate.

Although current sex offender management policies have been revealed to be largely ineffective …

Health-Related Strains And Subsequent Delinquency And Marijuana Use, Lisa Kort-Butler

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

General strain theory provides one framework for explaining the relationship between physical health and delinquency, pointing to mechanisms such as negative emotions, social bonds, and stress proliferation. Data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health were used to examine these hypothetical mediators. Controlling for demographic factors, prior illicit behavior, and other strains, results from a series of regressions indicated that health-related strain (HRS) was positively associated with subsequent delinquency and marijuana use. Stressors at school were the primary mediators of these effects. Absences from school and social life due to health problems exerted an independent effect. The results lend …

Citizen Volunteers In Prison: Bringing The Outside In, Taking The Inside Out, Lisa Kort-Butler, Sarah E. Malone

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The United States correctional system relies heavily on citizen volunteers, but there is little contemporary research on prison volunteers, which is further limited by sample and geographic region. The purpose of this project was to explore the role of citizen volunteers, including investigating why they volunteer and what their experiences with inmates and prison staff are like. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with citizen volunteers in the penal system of a Midwestern state. Volunteers had altruistic or faith-based motivations, viewing themselves as ‘seed planters’ but not saviors, and placing priority on building relationships. They described how volunteering transformed their views on …

Exploring Interactions Between Police And People With Mental Illness, Krystle L. Shore Ms.

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Contact between people with mental illness (PMI) and police is on the rise. The current study analyzed a six-month period of official police data (N = 400 occurrences) to provide a description of the PMI that came into contact with police and the typical characteristics and outcomes of these encounters. Results indicated that these interactions were initiated by family members and are taking place at home. Police are most commonly resolving the situations formally with apprehensions under the Mental health Act (55%), however only half of the time these apprehensions result in the PMI being admitted into hospital care, …

Prison Abolition And Grounded Justice, Allegra M. Mcleod

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article introduces to legal scholarship the first sustained discussion of prison abolition and what I will call a “prison abolitionist ethic.” Prisons and punitive policing produce tremendous brutality, violence, racial stratification, ideological rigidity, despair, and waste. Meanwhile, incarceration and prison-backed policing neither redress nor repair the very sorts of harms they are supposed to address—interpersonal violence, addiction, mental illness, and sexual abuse, among others. Yet despite persistent and increasing recognition of the deep problems that attend U.S. incarceration and prison-backed policing, criminal law scholarship has largely failed to consider how the goals of criminal law—principally deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and …

Predictors Of Recidivism For Offenders With Mental Illness And Substance Use Disorders, Linda Buckmon

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Mental illness and substance use disorders have been determined to be leading predictors for recidivism among criminal offenders in the United States who are released to community supervision. Women make up an increasing in percentage of this criminal justice population; however, few studies have explored the role that gender plays in determining men and women's recidivism. Offender's education, employment, and peer association have also been reported to be predictors increasing the likelihood of recidivism among criminal offenders. This study was designed to determine if gender, mental illness, substance use disorder, employment, education, and peer association predicted recidivism. Differential association theory …

Parole And Probation Officers' Perceptions Of Management Effectiveness In Baltimore County, Maryland, Valencia Tamir Johnson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Management practices in the rehabilitation and criminal justice system are primarily concerned with how employees sense, collect, organize, and process information regarding the criminal offender. The purpose of this quantitative study was to measure parole and probation officers' perceptions regarding management support and effectiveness in the workplace, with particular emphasis on communication, collaboration, and conflict resolution. Herzberg's 2-factor theory of motivation served as the theoretical framework for the study, supporting the concept of participatory management as a central factor in job satisfaction. A researcher-designed, Likert-type questionnaire was administered to a randomly selected sample of 31 parole and probation officers in …

Critical Factors In Police Use-Of-Force Decisions, Orville Nickel

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

This study investigated law enforcement officers' perceptions of the legal, normative, and practical considerations that are implicit in their decisions when faced with using physical force. Law enforcement officers observe and protect fundamental human rights. A significant problem, however, is that physical force is sometimes misused, impacting public confidence in police services. The study was framed by Durkheim's conflict theory and Beirie's concepts of police corporate culture and social control. It used a grounded theory method and predeveloped case scenarios presented to 2 male focus groups of 7 and 6 participants respectively, and 2 female focus groups of 5 and …

Public Safety Impact Of Electronic Monitoring Of Texas High-Risk Offenders, Paul Utu Aliu

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The use of electronic monitoring (EM) as a tool to supervise high-risk offenders has increased in the field of criminal justice in the state of Texas. Although EM is now widely used to supervise high-risk offenders to prevent them from committing further crimes, it is unclear whether EM has achieved the purpose of reducing reoffenses during parole supervision. Hirschi's social bond theory, which was later developed into social control theory, was used as the framework for this general qualitative study to explore retired parole officers' perceptions concerning whether EM is successful in preventing high-risk offenders from committing additional crimes. Interview …

A Survey Of Probation Officers' Opinions: Risk Assessments, Kenika Kiante' Canty

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The U. S. criminal justice system has used risk assessment tools in an effort to reduce recidivism and risk assessment tools are now commonplace. Correctional organizations, however, have struggled with officers' resistance to these tools in spite of the evidence for their utility. There is limited research that explores the impact of resistance to organizational change within the context of correctional agencies. To address that gap, this correlational study used organizational change theory to examine officers' resistance to the use of risk assessment tools based on officers' opinions of the risk assessment tool being used in North Carolina. Data were …

An Offender's Perspective Of Correctional Education Programs In A Southeastern State, Boderick Bennett

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Many offenders are incarcerated in U.S prisons with the intent of rehabilitation; however, a majority of these offenders will be released with limited options for employment. Recidivism has been linked to unemployment. The purpose of this multiple case study was to examine the lived experiences of 20 offenders involved in correctional education programs while incarcerated to explore their correctional education experience within the context of postincarceration employment. The theoretical foundation of this study was based on Bandura's self-efficacy theory. Narrative data were elicited pertaining to offenders' perceptions of past education experience, correctional education experience, and their perceived impact of the …

Predictors Of Community Supervision Failures Among Female Offenders, Fayola Wolfe

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

This study explored the predictors of community supervision failures amongst female offenders in the United States criminal justice system. Female offenders have, in comparison with male offenders, particular challenges for community reintegration. This study used the relational theory and Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory to investigate the effects of childhood trauma on adult female offenders' behaviors, including substance use disorder and mental health issues. Secondary archival data were obtained from the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency's AUTO Screener and Supervision and Management Automated Record Tracking System; this data pool included information on 1,085 female offenders who had served at …

Public-Police Relations: Officers' Interpretations Of Citizen Contacts, Donal Alfred Hardin

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Perceptual differences in how citizens and police view police-initiated contacts can result in individual and communal tension, mistrust, and social strife, which complicate the relationships needed in order to thrive and promote safe environments. To examine how police officers interpret these contacts, this case study sought to explore the nature of citizen-police relations from the perspective of police officers in a city in the northwest part of the United States. Social contract and procedural justice theories were used to examine the circumstances that officers cited for taking enforcement actions, including operational definitions of police fairness and legitimacy from the Queensland …

Investigating The Applicability Of Macro-Level Criminology Theory To Terrorism: A County-Level Analysis, Joshua D. Freilich, Amy Adamczyk, Steven M. Chernak, Katherine A. Boyd, William S. Parkin

Publications and Research

This exploratory study examines if causal mechanisms highlighted by criminology theories work in the same way to explain both ideologically motivated violence (i.e., terrorism) and regular (non-political) homicides. We study if macro-level hypotheses drawn from deprivation, backlash, and social disorganization frameworks are associated with the likelihood that a far-right extremist who committed an ideologically motivated homicide inside the contiguous US resides in a particular county. To aid in the assessment of whether criminology theories speak to both terrorism and regular violence we also apply these hypotheses to far-right homicide and regular homicide incident location and compare the results.

Risk Terrain Modeling For Spatial Risk Assessment., Joel M. Caplan, Leslie W. Kennedy, Jeremy D. Barnum, Eric L. Piza

Publications and Research

Spatial factors can influence the seriousness and longevity of crime problems. Risk terrain modeling (RTM) identifies the spatial risks that come from features of a landscape and models how they colocate to create unique behavior settings for crime. The RTM process begins by testing a variety of factors thought to be geographically related to crime incidents. Valid factors are selected and then weighted to produce a final model that basically paints a picture of places where crime is statistically most likely to occur. This article addresses crime as the outcome event, but RTM can be applied to a variety of …

From “Safe Spaces” To “Communicative Spaces”: Semiotic Labor, Authentic Civility And The Basic Communication Course, Hannah Karolak, Craig T. Maier

Journal of the Association for Communication Administration

Difficult conversations and controversial topics are common in the basic communication classroom, raising difficult challenges for course directors, instructors, and students. In response to this problem, many in higher education promote the development of “safe spaces.” Drawing from Eicher-Catt’s work on civility, this essay suggests shifting the focus from safe spaces to the development and maintenance of what Eicher-Catt calls communicative spaces. The notion of communicative spaces, when extended into the classroom, reorients our understanding of classroom civility and suggests practices for course directors, instructors, and students that affirm the dignity of students by attending not to their emotional needs …

The Impact Of Documentation Status On The Educational Attainment Experiences Of Undocumented Hispanic/Latino Students, Brittanie Alexandria Roberts

Dissertations and Theses

The issue of undocumented immigration has recently taken center-stage in the media and national politics in the United States. A large population of undocumented youth grows up with legal access to public education through high school, following the Supreme Court decision of Plyler vs. Doe, but faces legal and economic barriers to post-secondary education. Following high school, undocumented Hispanic/Latino youth legal protections end, greatly limiting chances for upward mobility through traditional post-secondary education pipelines. In some cases, knowledge of future barriers to post-secondary education leads to a decline in educational motivation.

The current political atmosphere makes this study a bit …

Racial Justice Study: An Examination Of Ticket Citations In The City Of Mankato, Minnesota, Meagan Hammers, C. J. Hays, Hannah Laniado

Public Sociology Publications and Projects

This study examines if there is racial disparity in policing in the city of Mankato, Minnesota by examining all traffic ticket citations given for a six-month period in 2014. The authors created a data set and examined statistical relationships between the observed race of those receiving tickets and the types of tickets received. This study discovered statistically significant findings of over policing of minorities; while minorities represent roughly ten percent the population in Mankato, they make up approximately 22% of the population cited. Further, minorities were about three times more likely than whites to receive a ticket for administrative offenses, …

Civil Unrest And Collective Violence In France: A Historical Comparative Analysis, Kenneth Arsenault

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Civil unrest as a precursor for collective violence to erupt is analyzed using historic events in France. The theoretical background for collective violence is outlined, along with a discussion of the origin of crowd behavior by Le Bon. By analyzing historic events in a single country, the variable of differing cultural contexts is eliminated. Four cases of events that led to collective violence ranging across time from the late 18th century to the late 20th century are analyzed in detail to determine the causal mechanisms that led the crowds to become violent. A comparison of the cases leads to a …