Digital Commons Network^™

Evaluating The Effect Of Cctv On Crime Occurrence And Case Clearances In Fayetteville, North Carolina: A Microsynthetic Control Quasi-Experiment, Amanda L. Thomas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Closed circuit television (CCTV) surveillance cameras have become widely accepted as a traditional crime prevention measure used by law enforcement agencies across the globe. The proliferation of CCTV technology as a crime reduction mechanism has led to a corresponding growth in the evidence base of its effect on crime. While CCTV is generally associated with a moderate reduction in crime, these evaluations have suffered from certain limitations. First, rigorous quasi-experimental designs using advanced matching techniques have not been used enough in CCTV research and second, these evaluations remain largely one-dimensional, as additional outcome measures and other camera-specific features have gone …

Understanding Victim-Offender Overlap Among Youth In Custody In The United States And Taiwan, Tzu-Ying Lo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The issue of the victim-offender overlap was identified more than 60 years ago (Wolfgang, 1958), but it was not until the last decade that research interest in the victim-offender overlap began to flourish. Although the victim-offender overlap is arguably established by a substantial body of research, a closer look at the existing literature will find scant attention paid to the incarcerated population. Recent studies (Daquin & Daigle, 2020; Kuo et al., 2021; Toman, 2017) have begun to discover the victim-offender overlap in adult prisons, but the victim-offender overlap in juvenile facilities remains underexplored. To fill the research gap, this dissertation …

Beyond Punishment: A Critical And Interpretive Phenomenology Of Accountability, Cameron Rasmussen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

State responses to interpersonal violence in the US have long been focused on punishment and prison. While opposition to punitive responses to interpersonal violence has been marginal, there are small but growing efforts to challenge the primacy of punishment and incarceration. In its place, different non-punitive approaches to justice have been practiced and promoted including restorative justice and transformative justice, which see accountability, not punishment, as a primary goal. Accountability has been theorized and researched largely from the perspective of survivors of harm, and there is limited research on the experiences of people who have caused harm and engaged in …

A Blackgirl Artivisionary Mosaic: Art-Based Participatory Refusals To School Punishment, Tyese A. Brown

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The study participants were co-research partners and engaged in a Project Based Learning six-week summer project in an urban northeastern metropolis community-based non-profit where they received stipends for participation. This dissertation explored how Blackgirls (aged 14 -21) express their experiences with disparate school punishment through community-based participatory artmaking. We called the photos, poems, collages, sculptures, storyboards, digital art, visual art, songs, spoken word, and videos Artivisions (art I vision). In the Jam Sessions, a subset of the partners we called curators discussed the pieces, shared their experiences, and offered insight into Blackgirls’ responses, coping skills, and decision-making regarding school punishment. …

Quality Management And Oversight Of Texas Forensic Science Service Providers, Sarah P. Chu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Forensic science oversight in the U.S. largely relies upon voluntary third-party forensic laboratory accreditation programs. Without a national system of regulation and given the highly fragmented local systems of control, few forensic science service providers (FSSPs) are subject to regulatory oversight beyond their third-party accreditors. Texas is unique in its establishment of a robust statewide oversight system and a strong governmental culture of transparency, permitting this study of forensic quality management. This study consisted of two parts. The first part of this dissertation characterized and analyzed quality incident reports (QIRs) published by the Texas Department of Public Safety Crime Laboratory …

The Relationship Between “Black Lives Matter” Movement Protests And Police Arrests In New York City, Chicago, And Los Angeles: An Empirical Analysis, Lukas Louwagie

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The summer of 2020 marked a boiling point of protest and frustration at long-criticized police behavior in the United States. The events that summer revealed the “Black Lives Matter” (BLM) movement as something that could not be ignored and was capable of drawing national support and attention across many dividing lines (Mitchell 2020). Today, it seems evident that the BLM movement has had a substantial impact on modern political discourse—yet its impact on police behavior and reform, the primary target of the movement, is murky. Police departments across the nation are pushing back against calls to defund and reform their …

Publishing Inequality In Lgbtqia+ Research In Psychology: A Content Analysis, Mackenzie L. Fingerhut

Student Theses

Despite the American Psychiatric Association’s removal of homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1973 and ego-dystonic homosexuality in 1987, nonheteronormative sexual orientations remain stigmatized and underrepresented in scientific literature. To estimate the prevalence of LGBTQIA+ topics in popular psychological research, the author queried more than 20,000 articles from 1987 to 2022 in the two most cited journals in each of four major domains (cognitive, clinical, developmental and social). In addition, the author randomly queried 20% of all empirical articles published from 1987 to 2021 in the top eight empirical journals to understand how often sexuality …

Transgender And Gender Nonconforming Individuals And Intimate Partner Violence Resources In Lgbtq+ Organizations, Claire Herr

Student Theses

A meta-analysis reporting on the prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization of transgender populations found transgender people were two to three times more likely to experience IPV than cisgender people (Peitzmeier et al., 2020). The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) (2012) found transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) people, particularly transgender women and transgender Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC), were more likely to be threatened and harassed by their abusive partners than cisgender people. TGNC people may be at a high risk of IPV due to the lack of services designed for TGNC victims of IPV. Once …

All Onboard! An Exploration Of Perceived Organizational Support In Onboarding Best Practices Of Academic Librarians, Patrick J. Raftery Jr, Jeffrey Delgado

Urban Library Journal

This study builds upon previous research of academic librarian onboarding. Current literature has explored how academia differs from other professional occupations, what and how academic librarians wanted/gained from onboarding, and established best practices for ACRL libraries using an organizational socialization model. However, the organizational socialization model used failed to address the role of perceived organizational support (POS). This study attempts to elevate the previous research by investigating the role of POS and organizational socialization in onboarding academic librarians using the City University of New York (CUNY) as its sample population. The researchers requested participants to complete a questionnaire designed to …

Hair And Drugs: The Impact Of Dry Shampoo And Gel On Cocaine-Contaminated Hair, Marialejandra Faure Betancourt

Student Theses

Hair is a biological sample used in forensic toxicology to identify and quantify drug exposure. However, when interpreting analytical results, hair can be challenging due to the presence of external contamination. Previous studies have shown that cosmetic treatments remove drugs within the hair shaft decreasing their concentration. Nevertheless, not enough information is available to explain this phenomenon. This study focused to determine whether cosmetic products such as dry shampoo and gel influence the concentration of externally deposited cocaine (COC) and benzoylecgonine (BE) in different hair types/colors. Hair samples from fifteen COC-free volunteers of various hair colors/types were collected and divided …

Investigation Into The Utility Of The Submaxillary Gland Androgen-Regulated Protein 3b (Smr3b) As A Normalizing Factor In Oral Fluid, Alejandro Ocampo

Student Theses

Oral fluid is a biological sample of increasing interest in clinical and forensic toxicology. This matrix is easy to obtain, it shows a low biohazard risk, and it reflects recent drug exposure. However, the interpretation of its quantitative values is limited, due to the high inter- and intraindividual variability. The investigation of normalization factors in this biological matrix may improve the interpretation value of oral fluid. This study investigated the potential of two signature peptides from the submaxillary gland androgen-regulated protein 3B (SMR3B) as normalization factors in oral fluid. SMR3B was digested in trypsin and the signature peptides SMR3B-1 and …

Method Development And Validation Of Controlled Substances On A Gas Chromatography - Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrophotometer, Regina E. Filus

Student Theses

The goal of this project was to perform a validation and a method development for an Agilent 7890 Gas Chromatograph connected to a Thermo iS50 Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrophotometer in order to put the instrument into functional and operational use. Both instruments are connected via an interface allowing for simultaneous analysis of a sample. A custom-made in-house library was created in order to search and compare to future unknown case samples. Reference materials were run and reviewed in order to determine which method and concentrations would provide the best infrared scans, and the sample repeatability runs were used to develop …

The Antagonistic Anatomy Of Anti-Shippers: A Thematic Analysis, Adrian A. Stone

Student Theses

Within the transformative fandom community is an ideologically-affiliated group known as anti-shippers, whose rhetoric contends that fictional interests are an indication of those held in reality. Anti-shippers focus solely on fictional material perceived to be sexual in nature and make frequent references to pedophilia. This rhetoric is used to justify harassment against individuals who do not share in their beliefs. As this population primarily operates on social media, this study was designed to conduct an exploratory investigation into themes gleaned from posts authored by anti-shippers on Twitter. Utilizing latent content analysis, a total of 187 posts from 222 unique users …

An Application Of The Coercive Control Framework To Cults, Sarah E. Feliciano

Student Theses

The present study utilized the coercive control framework to systematically assess coercion in cults. Former cult members (N=52) of various groups (e.g., psychological & self-help related) were interviewed via telephone for 1.5 to 3 hours. The sample was 67.31% female, 67.31% Caucasian, and 63.46% American; age ranged from 24-68 years old. An existing codebook was used by multiple coders with high intercoder reliability (89.66%). Coercive control tactics were present in all 52 narratives. Manipulation, intimidation, and microregulation were the tactics most frequently utilized. Sexual coercion/abuse, deprivation, and degradation were used least. Data also provided coercive subtactics specific to cults but …

Be: The Summer Issue, Be: A Journal Of Black Experimental And Interdisciplinary Work

Publications and Research

This season’s issue pays tribute to the #BlackLivesMatter summit at LaGuardia Community College (led by Kyle Hollar-Gregory, Esq., Jason Hendrickson, Rachel Romain, Allia Abdullah-Matta, Andre Ford, Sultan Jenkins, Ryan Mann-Hamilton, Wendy Nicholson, Charis Victory, Shaunee Wallace, Donniece Davis, and Jeffery Batts) and writer and activist Alexis Pauline Gumbs, a “Queer Black Troublemaker and Black Feminist Love Evangelist.” We’re thinking about how to support each other, sustain commitment, and create change, while living with joy and complexity.

— The Editors: Ahmad Wright, Tara Christina, and Rochelle Spencer (LaGuardia Community College, English Department)

The Effect Of Resource Quality And Species Interactions On Dermestes Maculatus, Sarah Aliahmad

Student Theses

Forensic entomology is the use and application of insect information in legal matters, particularly in death investigations as insects utilize decomposing remains as a food source to complete their life cycle. Dermestes maculatus (DeGeer), larder beetles belonging to the family Dermestidae, are of considerable forensic importance since their larvae are typically found on human corpses during the later stages of decomposition – the advanced and dry/skeletal stages. Dermestes maculatus can be useful in estimating the post-mortem interval (PMI) of a cadaver with advanced decomposition. The purpose of this study was to investigate the colonization (egg-laying) behavior of D. maculatus; …

Incels, Violence, And Masculinity: How Masculinity And Membership To Online Communities Shape Perceptions Of Violence, Meghan Scarlott

Student Theses

As online involuntary celibate (incel) forms have grown, they have become dominated by violent and misogynistic rhetoric. There have also been instances of offline violence being motivated by incel ideology and anti-feminist beliefs. Past research has established a link between inceldom and violent rhetoric through analysis of incel forum posts and activity. However, comparisons between non-incels and incels regarding masculinity and violence have rarely been conducted. We used a survey design to compare incels and non-incels on three factors: support for violence, inceldom characteristics, and internalized masculinity. Consistent with prior research, incels held more negative views of women and feminism …

Disparities In Violent Fatal Injury Among Racial And Ethnic Minorities, 2009–2019: A Portfolio Analysis Of United States—National Institutes Of Health, Maria-Isabel Roldós, Tilda Farhat, Marcia M. Gómez

Publications and Research

The excess mortality burden due to violent fatal injuries is an urgent public health issue for adolescents and young adults, especially those from racial and ethnic minority populations. We examined the research portfolio of the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) related to violent fatal injuries between 2009 and 2019 to focus on adolescents and young adults from NIH-designated populations experiencing health disparities and to identify trends and research gaps. We analyzed funded projects by populations covered, geographic location of the study population, type of research (etiology, intervention, methodology), type of determinants, and publications generated. In 10 years, NIH …

Experienced And Anticipated Stigma Among People With Mental Illness When Interacting With Healthcare Workers, Shaindel Feuer

Student Theses

Research has found that most people have negative attitudes towards those with mental illnesses,

and the resulting stigma and discrimination can be dangerous. Unfortunately, mental health stigma and discrimination are also seen in healthcare providers, with potentially fatal consequences, given that people with mental illnesses have shorter lifespans and are more likely to become ill than members of the general population. This study explored anticipatory and experienced mental health stigma from the patient’s perspective in a sample of 275 people with self-reported mental illness recruited from the online panel Prolific. Between 30.3% (Everyday Discrimination Scale) and 44.1% (Stigma Scale) of …

The Health Impacts Of The Trump Administration Among California Immigrants, Claudia M. Calhoon

Dissertations and Theses

Immigration policy was a marquee issue in the US presidential administration of Donald Trump. Trump’s administration employed both policy and rhetoric related to immigrants to mobilize voters, alter immigration policies and practices, and sustain a narrative of a nation under attack by immigrants. Administration officials were able to undertake these approaches because of existing immigration law, but they did so in more explicitly punitive ways than in recent administrations. The goal of this dissertation is to explore the health impacts of the administration’s practices and their effects. Paper 1 analyzes the immigration rhetoric and policies of US president Donald Trump …

Quantifying The Moderating Effect Of Servant Leadership Between Occupational Stress And Employee In-Role And Extra-Role Performance, Rizwana Rasheed, Aamir Rashid, Noor Aina Amirah, Asyraf Afthanorhan

Publications and Research

The study examined the effects of occupational stress on employees’ performance and extra-role performance (OCB), moderated by the servant leadership of the supervisor. Many studies have indicated that servant leadership significantly impacts employee work-related behavior. Therefore, we aimed to examine the role of occupational; stress in the context of Pakistan's public and private sectors. A multi-source cross-sectional field survey was conducted, including a diverse sample (N = 286 paired responses). The study applied SPSS (22.0) to complete the analysis, revealing that stress drastically affects employees' performance and (OCB). Main and moderated regression analysis indicated that the inverse relationship between stress …

Attorneys’ Questions About Time In Criminal Cases Of Alleged Child Sexual Abuse, Mckenna N. Cameron

Student Theses

In cases of alleged child sexual abuse, information about the timing of events is often needed to establish a timeline, determine specific charges, or establish witness credibility (Lyon et al., 2017). However, past developmental laboratory research has demonstrated that children struggle to provide accurate and reliable testimony about time, and there is currently a lack of field research examining how attorneys actually question child witnesses about time in court (Friedman, 1991; Wandrey et al., 2012). The current study analyzed 73 trial transcripts from cases of alleged child maltreatment containing a child witness between the ages of 5 to 17 years …

Factors Associated With The Life Satisfaction Of Gay And Bisexual Men And Their Variation By Race, Robert G. Considine

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Although the literature is replete with evidence showing that gay and bisexual men experience higher rates of negative outcomes than their heterosexual counterparts, the literature exploring the well-being of this population is limited. Life satisfaction is a key aspect of well-being. There has been little research on the factors influencing life satisfaction for gay and bisexual men. Additionally, how these factors may vary by race for this population remains understudied. This gap in our knowledge impedes the ability of social workers to support gay and bisexual men in increasing life satisfaction. In addition, knowledge of how these factors vary by …

Policing The Borders Of An Empire: A Political History Of Tagging (1960–2008), Maria Heyaca

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Of the nearly 6 million people monitored by the prison and immigration enforcement complex in the US, a little over 4 million, or 70%, are under community supervision. If we narrow in on the nearly 350,000 people being monitored by the immigration system, the figure goes up to 93%. Yet, most studies on criminalization conducted in the US, prioritize confined individuals, neglecting community supervision. In this dissertation, I present the first theoretically driven, historical and sociological analysis that comprehensively targets fundamental questions about the political history of electronic monitoring in the US -- a practice also known as tagging. I …

Ethnic Tensions In The Western Balkans And The Experience Of Ethnic Minorities, Nadina Resulani

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Western Balkan has experienced a past of ethnic turmoil. From the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo to ethnic tensions in Serbia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia. Understanding that ethnicity itself continues to be a salient factor in Western Balkan, the question remains how Western Balkan states were able to remove themselves from the front light of ethnic tensions considering today these countries are known as being tourist destinations, cultural and academic meccas, and democratic candidates in line to join the European Union. In reviewing and comparing the geopolitical and social environment of three Western Balkan states: Montenegro, …

Examining The Role Of Evidence-Based Suspicion In Racial Disparities In Wrongful Convictions, Jacqueline Katzman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There are clear racial disparities in the rates of wrongful convictions, with Black exonerees disproportionately represented among the population of those exonerated, in DNA and non-DNA exonerations alike (National Registry of Exonerations, 2022; Innocence Project, 2022). This racial disparity also exists for those exonerees who were wrongfully convicted, at least in part, because an eyewitness mistakenly identified them. For decades, when eyewitness scholars explored racial bias, they focused on the cross-race effect or own-race bias among eyewitnesses, a bias positing that witness performance suffers when a witness is asked to make an identification of a cross-race face (Lee & Penrod, …

The Lived Experience Of Using Opiates Among Young Adults, Catherine Mbewe

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this research study is to explore the lived experience of using opiates, as described by young adults aged 18 to 25 years. Over the last 2 decades, opioid use disorders (OUDs) and opiate overdose deaths have increased dramatically in the United States. What used to be a problem primarily contained to minority groups in poor inner-city areas is now increasingly common in all races, genders, ages, and classes. There has also been an alarming increase in opiate use—including fentanyl, both legal and illegal—among young adults. While much of the literature has been focused on the opiate use …

Fighting The Invisibility Of Domestic Violence, Yesenny Fernandez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Analyzing the invisibility of domestic violence in New York City as 32% of women in the city experience intimate partner physical violence. In this project, domestic violence refers to all different kinds of violence that occur in a home between all the members who live there regardless of whether they are intimate partners or not. The data focuses on all the daily calls received by the New York Police Department (NYPD) and NYC Mayor’s Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence (ENDGBV) regarding domestic violence related incidents such as physical, psychological, emotional, and sexual violence, or murder. Even though many …

Witnessing Academic Dishonesty And Student’S Satisfaction With Learning, Motivation For Studying And Evaluation Of Faculty, Dawoon Lee

Student Theses

Academic dishonesty has been a long-term problem in secondary and higher education. Previous studies reported that an average of two-thirds of students reported that they have engaged in academic dishonesty in high school or college. This study explored witnessing academic dishonesty and its influence on students' experiences in the learning environment. The hypothesis is that witnessing academic dishonesty will negatively impact the student’s satisfaction with learning, motivation for studying, and evaluation of faculty. In conducting the study, participants (N = 250) completed an online survey assessing their satisfaction with learning, motivation for studying, and evaluation of faculty. Participants also reported …

Dna Shedding Propensity And Individual Characteristics, Genesis Echavarria

Student Theses

This study attempted to correlate individual biological characteristics to the amount of DNA recovered from a person’s hands (representative of shedding propensity). We used adhesive D-Squame tape to collect DNA from the fingers of more than 100 volunteers with and without controlled activity after handwashing. Two no-activity samples were taken after 30 min from the non-dominant hand and two samples from the dominant hand were collected after 60 min of controlled activity. Involuntary touches during the 60-min activity period were counted. All samples were extracted for DNA, quantitated, and genotyped to detect mixtures. Skin measurements for hydration, sebum, and melanin …