Digital Commons Network^™

Migrant Children And Legislation: Integrating Knowledge About Trauma Into Policy, Yolennys E. Albornoz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study seeks to integrate some knowledge about trauma into migration policies in the U.S. regarding children. Migration is not a novel concept; it is a dynamic phenomenon that experiences continuous changes and constantly increases in numbers. Globally, the United States has been the primary destination for foreign migrants for a long time, and most of them are Latinos who cross the U.S. and Mexico border. Here, I explore how children face trauma in their home country, which forces them to migrate. Also, while they migrate and after they have migrated, exposing the three stages of trauma for migrant children. …

Inequality And Violence: The Case Of Brazil, Kimberly Forsyth

Dissertations and Theses

As a dominant economic powerhouse in Latin America, Brazil paradoxically exhibits profound socioeconomic divides and egregious rates of violence. This study seeks to illuminate the extent of the intricate relationship between Brazil's inherent inequalities and its propensity for violence by employing a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies. The study focuses on the years from 2002 to 2021, a period characterized by pivotal social, economic, and political transformations. Utilizing the United Nations definition of homicide as a primary measure of violence, I collected data from Brazilian health repositories for all 27 federative unit's annual reported number of homicides. The research …

The T Visa Process And The Identification Of Victims Of Human Trafficking, Mandalena Prelashi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) is a contemporary effort to combat human trafficking. In 2000, the Congress enacted the T Nonimmigrant Status (or T visa) in the effort to protect victims of trafficking and to enhance law enforcement’s ability to investigate and prevent these crimes in the U.S. This thesis explores from a legal and social point of view the obstacles, hurdles, and challenges that victims of human trafficking face, when applying for a T visa. I find that (1) victims assess their exploitation as wrong and immoral but not amounting to human trafficking, thus they are …

Elements Of Social Disorganization And Environmental Criminology: A Spatial Analysis Of Homicides In Villa Nueva, Guatemala, David J. Topel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study seeks to integrate the main spatial theories of crime, social disorganization, and routine activities theories while investigating the spatial dimension of homicides in Villa Nueva, Guatemala. Empirical relationships at a small unit of analysis, the natural cadaster blocks as defined by the municipality offer a more appropriate unit of analysis for the context of the city. While there is a robust body of work in developed nations synthetizing social disorganization and routine activities theories, the exploration of criminological theory integration and the use of the smallest unit of analysis still needs the addition of empirical research in Latin …

Alternative Food Production In Cauca, Colombia: The Value Of Agroecological Food Systems For Local Small Producers And Consumers, Andrea Negret

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis intends to offer an integral view of the reality of food production and distribution in the Cauca Department in Colombia, observing the different practices that have caused deep social and environmental struggles including systemic violence, displacement and environmental degradation. The first two chapters will offer a global and national context of food production to better understand the many challenges that rural populations endure in rural Cauca. Chapters four and five will explore some resistance strategies and movements that rural communities in Cauca and other Colombian regions have developed to fight against corporate agro-industrial dominance so they can protect …

Narcommunication: The Messaging, Marketing, And Murder Of Organized Crime, Philip L. Johnson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Criminal actors are widely assumed to maintain a low profile, exerting power through corruption, coercion, and clandestine networks. Scholarship that addresses public action on the part of criminal actors focuses almost exclusively on acts of violence. However, an ample empirical record demonstrates that criminal actors also communicate publicly to broad audiences. To better understand this practice, this project focuses on the phenomenon of narco-messaging in Mexico. The project asks: what do criminal actors say when they speak publicly, and why do they say it?

The core data for this project comes from an original collection of 6,178 narco-messages that appeared …

From Rulay To Rules: Perceptions Of Prison Life And Reforms In The Dominican Republic’S Traditional And New Prisons, Jennifer Peirce

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project explores the implementation of reforms to the prison system in the Dominican Republic, with an emphasis on how incarcerated people perceive their conditions and daily life in confinement. In 2003, the Dominican Republic established a New Prison Management Model, focused on international human rights standards and rehabilitation. This model now manages over half of the prison facilities and a third of the incarcerated population, while the previous, “traditional” model continues to operate in tandem. The “new” and reformed facilities (Centers for Correction and Rehabilitation) feature new buildings, programs, and correctional officer staff with multi-disciplinary training. In contrast, the …

A Day At The Races In Black And White: How An 1898 Horse Race Led To A Whipping, A Lawsuit, And A 1901 Arrest, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

After losing an 1898 horse race in the Bronx, New York, African-American jockey Alonzo ‘Lonnie’ Clayton, who had won the Kentucky Derby in 1892 at the age of fifteen, heard an insult from the crowd along the rail and struck a white spectator from Brooklyn across the face with his riding whip. The blow resulted in a two hundred dollar fine by the track stewards, but ultimately led to a civil trial, a financial judgment against Clayton that he ignored, and then an arrest and incarceration for non-payment of the judgment, which some writers mistakenly still claim was for race-fixing. …

Contemporary Human Displacement: A Comparative Analysis Of Syria, Yemen, Honduras, And Venezuela, Rav Carlotti

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

What is causing the surge in human displacement around the world? Large-scale displacement in Syria, Yemen, Honduras, and Venezuela has generated unprecedented humanitarian crises in Latin America and the Middle East as millions of displaced people end up as refugees or immigrants. Humanitarian organizations like the UNHCR and host countries have had their resources overextended by these ongoing crises, and there is no end in sight. This thesis shows that contemporary human displacement is rooted in the increasing inability of governments to manage their societies amid great political demands and socio-economics strains. These causes are difficult to tackle because they …

It's Messy, Polina Tereshina

Theses and Dissertations

My work is a way of thinking through things. Each painting, or object is usually a boiled down vision of something I’m learning, observing or remembering, as I make it. Everything becomes a compression of several ideas with a unique mood and temperature.

The Evolution Of Mara Salvatrucha 13 And Barrio 18: Violence, Extortion, And Drug Trafficking In The Northern Triangle Of Central America, Pamela Ruiz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Mara Salvatrucha 13 (mara) and Barrio 18 (pandilla) gangs have become a major concern for the governments of the Northern Triangle of Central America (Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras) and the United States. In recent years, government officials have attributed violence and the exodus of Central Americans to the developing capacities of gangs. The Mara Salvatrucha 13(MS-13) and Barrio 18 have been identified to strategically implement violence and extortion rackets which have led to transformations in their organizational structures and increased participation in drug trafficking. Furthermore, officials insinuate that gangs have developed capacities to confront security forces that enter …

A New And Unsettling Force: Information Technology, Popular Education And The Movement To End Poverty, Christopher Caruso

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Through contemporary ethnography, this dissertation explores the self-organization of those at the bottom of the wealth and income scale within the working class in the United States between 1983 and 2018. In the context of neoliberalism and technological revolution, innovations in information technology have accelerated the polarization between wealth and poverty, fundamentally impacted social relations, but also enabled creative strategies for movement building and revolutionary organizing.

Exploring the organizing models as well as political and moral rhetoric of those who have been left out, locked up, and made poor over the past thirty-five years in the United States, it demonstrates …

Social Banishment And The Us “Criminal Alien”: Norms Of Violence And Repression In The Deportation Regime, David C. Brotherton

Publications and Research

I interpret data from an ongoing participant observation study of deportation hearings in the North-East United States using two analytical themes: (i) the emergence of the deportation regime and its mechanisms of structural violence, and (ii) the norms of violence in the spaces of the deportation regime. By deportation regime I am referring to the institutional systems and practices created under the emergence of an exceptional security state and the discrete and not so discrete apparatuses and rituals employed to discipline the minds and bodies of documented and undocumented immigrant labor and the collateral consequences that result. Whereas structural violence …

The Phenomenon Of Match-Fixing In Soccer: A Plague Without A Cure?, Nikolaos Petropoulos

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Introduction: Today, match-fixing is considered as one of the most significant threats to the integrity of soccer. Everyone seems to talk about it. However, the phenomenon itself has received relatively limited academic interest despite the media coverage that match-fixing scandals have enjoyed, mainly over the last 10-15 years. This study will seek to explore the match-fixing landscape and provide a detailed account of how extensive the phenomenon is and who are the main stakeholders.To achieve this goal, we will rely heavily on a series of INTERPOL bi-weekly reports on match-fixing cases that cover the period from 1^st of …

Zero Textbook Cost Syllabus For Plsc 2260 (Introduction To Comparative Government), Anh Tran

Open Educational Resources

Why do states wield violence against its citizens? Does the expansion of state power always threaten individual freedom? When do ordinary people create social change peacefully, and when do they go to war? Is democratization an inevitable force in our world? Is there a trade-off between economic growth and economic equality? These are the types of puzzles we will be exploring through various theoretical and methodological lenses. We will compare variations in political behaviors, processes, and structures at work in different countries around the world. Each week, we focus on a different topic in comparative politics, then dig deeper into …

Undergraduate Bulletin 2017-2018, John Jay College Of Criminal Justice

College Bulletins

Covers academic year 2017-2018

Drug Trafficking And The Presidential Family In Venezuela: The Narco Nephews, Daniela Castro

Capstones

An explosive combination of political turmoil, a deep economic crisis and critical security situation has Venezuela on the verge of collapse. Despite the alarming situation in the country, not everyone is doing so bad, especially those close to the ruling power. Ferraris, access to private aircrafts and bodyguards are only some of the privileges that only few can get access to in this impoverished South American nation.

Efrain Antonio Campo Flores, 30, and Franqui Francisco Flores de Freitas, 31 -- the nephews of the Venezuelan Presidential couple -- were found guilty of conspiring to import hundreds of kilograms of cocaine …

A Divided Community: The Ethics And Politics Of Activist Research, Christopher Anthony Loperena

Publications and Research

In this article, I draw upon over two years of fieldwork in a Garifuna community in Tela Bay, Honduras, to explore the ethical and political contradictions bound up with activist-oriented ethnographic research. The rise of tourism as a means of national development and a driver of local economic desires has fractured communal politics in Triunfo de la Cruz, particularly around questions pertaining to land tenure and territorial belonging. I analyze the challenges of doing politically engaged anthropology in such a context. My open collaboration with land rights activists and ongoing support for the struggle to defend Garifuna collective property rights …

"They Have Sold The Clouds": Queering Indigenous Politics In Colombia, Taylor O. Ramsey

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In a study of Colombian politics, I use a queer theoretical lens to explore the relationship between the state and two specific indigenous groups from Northern Colombia to better understand the state and power relations embedded in it. I look for queer temporalities, spaces, and nonnormative practices that arise out of how the law interrogates and interacts with indigenous people using a queer theoretical lens as a critical methodology. I argue that the Colombian state's interactions with indigenous groups create queer spaces/conceptual borders, particularly with regard to law and the state's ability to biopolitically regulate its citizens. It is within …

Afroreggae And Grupo Cultural Afro Reggae: A Study Of The Early Years, Sarah S. Ohmer

Publications and Research

The following study of AfroReggae and Grupo Cultural Afro Reggae (GCAR) calls attention to Brazilian presence and community organizing in the field of Hip Hop studies with a long memory framework: placing AfroReggae and GCAR in a long history of Africana resistance through music in Latin America. !990s GCAR group arises when reggae and Hip Hop music had become new global forms of solidarity among urban marginalized youths worldwide, making use of old and new strategies of social healing (Fernandes 2011). A close look at lyrics from the Hip Hop fusion band and the associated nonprofit organization shape the concepts …

A Tribute To Justice: Honoring Forty Years Of Struggle To Advance Judicial Process For Crimes Against Humanity In Chile, Baltasar Garzón Real, Geoffrey Bindman, Joan Garcés, Almudena Bernabéu

City University of New York Law Review

These remarks were delivered as part of A Tribute to Justice, an event commemorating the 40th anniversary of the military coup d’etat in Chile, presented by the Charles Horman Truth Foundation at the Third Church of Christ Scientist in New York City on September 9, 2013. Other speakers and honorees included Peter Weiss, Judge Juan Guzman Tapia, Jennifer Harbury, Reed Brody, Peter Kornbluh, and Prof. Cynthia Soohoo. The program was co-sponsored by CUNY School of Law, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Institute for Policy Studies, and the North American Congress on Latin America, with support from the Ford Foundation. …

Art As Dissent In The Midst Of Mexico's Drug War, Ana Lorena Marron Nozari

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

The Influence Of The European Union Membership Requirements On The Development Of Two Western Balkan Countries, Albania And Macedonia, Bedrie Matoshi

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Confronting Transnational Threats; Strong State Strategies Of Cooperation With Weak States And Effectiveness, Christopher Hammond

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Social Media And Democratic Revolution; The Impact Of New Forms Of Communication Democracy, Christina Ruby

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Bridging Modernities In Brazil: Progress And Violence In The Work Of Rosangela Renno, Francine Kath

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

The Growing Phenomenon Of Sex Trafficking; Legal, Socioeconomic And Cultural Remedies, Anny E. Rosario

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Undergraduate Bulletin 2012-2013, John Jay College Of Criminal Justice

College Bulletins

Covers the academic year 2012-2013

Brazil As A Regional And International Leader, Justin Ferber

Dissertations and Theses

Brazil's critical role in South American integration and political crisis management in Latin America, as well as its increasing power in international trade, finance, and security underscorethat Brazil influence over regional and international affairs.This thesis argues that Brazil has leveraged its economic strength and soft power—which it derives from its successful domestic social policies and distinguished diplomatic history of promoting international cooperation and peaceful conflict—to project regional and international leadership.

Social Disorganization And The Public Level Of Crime Control: A Spatial Analysis Of Ecological Predictors Of Homicide Rates In Bogota, Colombia, Gipsy Escobar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Research in the social disorganization tradition has found community disadvantage to be one of the strongest and most consistent macro-level predictors of homicides in urban areas in the United States (Pratt & Cullen 2005). This dissertation empirically tests the applicability of ecological theories of crime to the spatial distribution of homicides in Bogota, Colombia, while proposing alternative measures of social disorganization that are analogous to those used in the American literature but that are more reflective of both social realities and data availability in Colombia. The study used data from several sources including official homicide figures from the National Institute …