Digital Commons Network^™

A Content Analysis Of Media Accounts Of Death Penalty And Life Without Parole Cases, Lisa R. Kirk

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The study analyzed a convenience sample of published accounts of death penalty cases and life without parole cases. The objective of the study was to explore factors that influence the selection of cases for coverage in books, think tank reports (e.g., Heritage Foundation), and periodicals and factors related to coverage of homicides resulting in a death penalty sentence or a life without parole sentence (often termed “America’s other death penalty”).

Since this study was exploratory, hypotheses were not offered. However, prior research on the death penalty and on life without parole offered several clues. For example, since black offender/white victim …

Law Enforcement Officers’ Perceptions In Regard To Sex Offenders, Sorn, And Residency Restrictions Laws, Maria Aparcero-Suero

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to extend current knowledge regarding law enforcement’s perceptions of sex offenders. Law enforcement’s views of sex offenders and the fairness and efficacy of sex offender laws were examined through the utilization of a 60 closed-ended question survey. The survey included questions about sex offender myths, sex offender laws, police officers’ experience in working with sex offenders, specialized training, and demographics. The sample consisted of 74 sworn police officers from a Southeastern state. The results showed that, despite having a mostly empirical based view of sex offenders, sworn police officers were likely to support sex …

Exploring The Social Trend Of Household Computer Ownership In Affecting The United States 1990'S Crime Drop, Alison Kimberley Bogar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

During the 1990’s the world witnessed a crime drop throughout all categories of crime. Many researchers have sought to seek an explanation for this drop; however, there has been a lack of concrete findings to fully explain this phenomenon. The purpose of this study is to explore a further reasoning as to why this drop occurred, specifically throughout the United States. An unexplored factor to explain this phenomenon is the increase of household computer ownership during the 1990’s. During this decade, household computers and the internet became prevalent throughout the nation. This study utilized secondary data from the Uniform Crime …

Environmental Factors And School Disorder: The Role Of Urbanicty, Brandon S. Coffey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to explore the differential impact of various environmental and organizational factors on levels of school misconduct. Although we have a general understanding of this relationship, little effort has been made to determine whether the effects are influenced by urbanicity. The current study utilizes data from the 2007-2008 School Survey on Crime and Safety to address this gap in the literature by utilizing a series of negative binomial regression models that seek to determine differences between predictive factors in urban and rural settings. Results indicate that disorganization has a similar effect within urban and rural …

Do Juvenile Offenders Hold To The Child Saving Mentality? The Results From A Survey Of Juvenile Offenders Placed On Court Mandated Juvenile Probation, Katelynn R. Adams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The juvenile justice system was established as a result of an unprecedented movement pioneered by the child savers. Child savers strived to protect America's children from physical and moral harm. Since the juvenile justice system's inception, research has focused extensively on the effectiveness of the juvenile system. Numerous studies have observed the perceptions of the general public, juvenile probation officers, and juvenile correctional staff regarding the juvenile justice system. The current study examined actual participants in the juvenile justice system to assess their opinions of the system that was designed to serve, protect, and rehabilitate them into active members of …

Is Prison Why I’M Sick? Examining Health Conditions Among Minority Males Within Correctional Facilities, Mary Hannah Hughes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Given the current United States prison population of 1.5 million persons, many states have begun to examine how to effectively reduce correctional expenditures, considering in 2011 healthcare related prison costs increased to approximately eight billion (The Pew Charitable Trusts, 2014). Recent research attributes much of this increase to the prevalence of disease and aging within the prison population (Williams et al., 2012; Dumont et al., 2012; Gallagher, 2001; Ahalt et al., 2013). Alternatively, little attention has been devoted to measuring the disparity in health among minority male inmates or the effects of identifying more cost effective health initiatives that address …

Responses Of Education Preparation Program Instructors Toward Mental Health Legislation, Alison Bradford

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 2013, Texas State legislature passed Senate Bill 460 which implemented a law that requires the inclusion of knowledge relating to students’ mental health status in teacher preparation curriculum. This requirement is explained in Texas Education Code (TEC) §21.044(b). The purpose of this study is to examine the degree of awareness of the new requirement and the attitudes toward mental health among Education Preparation Program (EPP) instructors. In addition, faculty were asked about their implementation plans for the new requirement.

A survey was developed to address these research questions. Thirty-five public and private universities in Texas were targeted, which resulted …

Beyond The Legalization Of Marijuana: Economics Of Marijuana As A Drug And Herbal Supplement, Ryan T. Freer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Normative studies misunderstand a crucial aspect of cannabis legalization: they have not critically analyzed how the pharmaceutical industry might react when synthetic cannabinoid compounds could be incorporated into new products. I argue that when marijuana is federally legal, there will be two independent market developments in: i) the cannabis market, which includes botanic cannabis and herbal supplements sold in retail nutrition stores; and ii) the FDA-approved ethical drug market. How does the drug industry's monopolistic pricing structure lend itself to strategic pricing for these new synthetic cannabinoids? How much competition can we expect between dispensaries and nutrition shops selling herbal …

Working The Front Lines Of Intimate Partner Violence: Responders' Perceptions Of Interrole Collaboration, Lisa N. Magruder

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Intimate partner violence is an epidemic that requires collaboration among responding professionals. As such, community coordinated responses, which unite responders from multiple IPV-serving agencies, have been suggested as a best practice. Despite their use over the past several decades, there is a lack of concrete evidence for their success. Moreover, problems noted among responders decades ago, such as differing philosophical beliefs around IPV, are still noted in more recent literature. Using an instrument-development variant of a fixed, exploratory, sequential mixed-methods design, this dissertation aimed to gain a better understanding of the collaboration experiences of IPV responders.

The qualitative sequence involved …

The Effects Of Microaggressions On Probationers' Psychological Well-Being, Whitney Fujii-Doe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Studies examining microaggressions and individuals in the correctional system are limited. Previous studies have found experiences of perceived microaggressions have a negative impact on an individuals psychological well-being (Nadal, Griffin, Wong, Hamit, and Rasmus, 2014). The current study looked at the effects of microggressions on probationers' psychological well-being. The current study aimed to examine among probationers: hypothesis 1A, the level of microaggressions is significantly negatively associated with self-esteem; 1B, self-esteem will negatively be associated with probationers' psychological well-being; 2A, the experience of microaggressions would significantly predict levels of psychological distress; and hypothesis 2B, self-esteem would be negatively predicted probationers' psychological …

Looking Through A Trauma Lens: A Caregiver's Perspective Of Child Welfare Involvement, Erin Ruth Boyce

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The majority of maltreatment perpetrated against children is at the hand of their primary caregiver, most often their mother. The reasons why caregivers maltreat their children are still being investigated. However, the caregiver's history of trauma, in particular cumulative trauma that leads to trauma symptomology is emerging as an explanation for maltreatment. Popular theory describes the coercive and oppressive nature of child welfare system policy and practices, as a source of re-traumatization for caregivers with a trauma history (Harris & Fallot, 2001). Currently, the field of child welfare practice is largely guided by the use of trauma-informed practices, which are …

Calibrating A System Dynamic Model Within An Integrative Framework To Test Foreign Policy Choices, Carlos Kavetsky

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Political science uses international relations (IR) theory to explain state-actor political behavior. Research suggests that this theoretical framework can inform a predictive model incorporating features of systems dynamics (SD) and agent based (AB) modeling. The Foreign Policy Model (ForPol) herein applies Alexander Y. Lubyansky's (2014) SD model for macro-political behavior to represent behaviors between real systems and mental models. While verifying and validating the resulting SD/AB/IR holistic model requires an extensive comprehensive research agenda, the present work will take a closer examination at input parameter calibration and conducting typical runs of the SD portion of the model as a first …

Culture Counts: Examining The Effectiveness Of A Culturally Focused Empowerment Program For At-Risk Black Girls, Candice Nicole Aston

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Traditionally, many of the problems experienced by Black girls were overshadowed by the ongoing crises facing Black Males. Although important, the focus on Blackness and masculinity often implicitly leaves young Black girls on the sidelines and fails to recognize their unique obstacles. Fortunately, there has been a new surge of social concern revolving around the plight of Black girls in the school system. New estimates report that Black girls are facing an educational crisis in regards to disproportionate discipline practices and academics (Morris, 2012). To date, there has been very limited research in regards to school-based interventions that have been …

Development And Properties Of Kernel-Based Methods For The Interpretation And Presentation Of Forensic Evidence, Douglas Armstrong

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The inference of the source of forensic evidence is related to model selection. Many forms of evidence can only be represented by complex, high-dimensional random vectors and cannot be assigned a likelihood structure. A common approach to circumvent this is to measure the similarity between pairs of objects composing the evidence. Such methods are ad-hoc and unstable approaches to the judicial inference process. While these methods address the dimensionality issue they also engender dependencies between scores when 2 scores have 1 object in common that are not taken into account in these models. The model developed in this research captures …

Rewiring The Anger: Learning New Responses In The Therapeutic Community, Emma Marie Burleson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Extensive research has been conducted in correctional settings on the effects that therapeutic programs that utilize cognitive-behavioral therapies have on recidivism rates and cognitive-behavioral changes among inmates. Research on anger management programs in correctional settings has shown that there are measurable effects on the anger levels of participants based on quantitative pre-testing and post-testing. The present study sought to build on this research in a unique way by conducting qualitative research to examine the personal perceptions of inmates that have graduated from a therapeutic program in a maximum security prison. The study focused on participants’ perceived changes in how they …

Approximate Statistical Solutions To The Forensic Identification Of Source Problem, Danica M. Ommen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Currently in forensic science, the statistical methods for solving the identification of source problems are inherently subjective and generally ad-hoc. The formal Bayesian decision framework provides the most statistically rigorous foundation for these problems to date. However, computing a solution under this framework, which relies on a Bayes Factor, tends to be computationally intensive and highly sensitive to the subjective choice of prior distributions for the parameters. Therefore, this dissertation aims to develop statistical solutions to the forensic identification of source problems which are less subjective, but which retain the statistical rigor of the Bayesian solution. First, this dissertation focuses …

Sex-Related Alcohol Expectancies And Perceptions Of Sexual Assault: Recognition Response Latency And Blame Attribution, Walter Thomas Rueff

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Alcohol use has often been linked with sexual violence. Pumphrey-Gordon and Gross (2007) note that “among the numerous factors that have been associated with the occurrence of sexual assault, the use of alcohol is the most reliable” (p. 476). Novel autonomy places undergraduates at a nexus alcohol use and sexual experiences, as well as the potential negative consequences of both. This confluence of factors contributes to proportionally higher rates of risky sexual behaviors and sexual assaults among undergraduates. Alcohol expectancies, beliefs about the outcomes and consequence of drinking alcohol, have been shown to influence drinking behaviors, which have, in turn, …

The Relationship Of Principal Gender And Teacher Perceptions Of School Climate On Suspension And Expulsion Rates Of High School Students, Roderick Lydell Payne

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this explanatory quantitative study was to determine if relationships exist between principal gender, teachers’ perceptions of the school climate, and the suspension rates of high school students in a large consolidated district in the mid-South. The research analyzed a single academic year, 2015–16, within the subject district. The study sample consisted of 20 high schools with similar characteristics. Ten of the high schools have a female principal and 10 of the high schools have a male principal. The independent variables of the study were principal gender and teachers’ perceptions of the school climate; dependent variables were the …

Citizen Security And Democratization In Latin America: Implications Of Law Enforcement Reforms And Demilitarization, Fernanda Andrea Gutierrez Merino

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Latin American region has transitioned to democracy in the last forty-thirty years and along with many policy reforms, citizen security has not been left behind. As these changes evolve, the relationship between internal security and the development of a stable democracy has acquired a great importance in terms of the factors that contribute to a free world. The purpose of this research is to look at how security policy and policing in Argentina, Chile, el Salvador, and Mexico have contributed to the democratization process in regards to how the recent reforms in law enforcement in the region have created favorable …

Cultural Care And Inviting Practices: Building Relationships In An Urban Elementary School. Teacher Perspectives In Forming Positive Teacher-Student Relationships Based On Care And Equity, Eva J. Allen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation in practice investigates teacher perceptions of the influence of cultural care and invitational education (IE) on the formation of a positive teacher-student relationship with students of color in an urban elementary school. Cultural care is a theory of practice that utilizes a social-emotional approach for school improvement and to promote positive student outcomes. It is defined as a verbal or nonverbal gesture that displays a genuine interest in another person’s social, emotional, mental, and physical well-being; simultaneously recognizing and acknowledging race and culture as a vital part of a person’s identity. Cultural care must include respecting, valuing, and …

Youth Bear Witness To Mentoring Of The Black Church For College Readiness, Mary Louise Buckley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation in practice examines the college readiness of five African American high school male students in urban schools in Pittsburgh, PA based on their participation in a middle school mentoring program sponsored by an urban Black church. Situated within Michael Dantley’s critical spirituality theory and critical race theory, the author analyzed youths’ counter-narrative experiences of being mentored for college readiness in the Black church. The students had informal conversations with the researcher using a grounded theory approach to the semi-structured interview format. Students found mentors to be relatable advocates to their lived experiences in schools. In addition, the mentoring …

Improvement And Development Of Analytical Forensic Methods: Arson Investigation And Drug Detection In Fingerprints And Hair, Sarah Anne Glenn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Forensic science is the cornerstone of criminal investigations. Due to the overexposure of forensic science in the media, the true nature of forensic science is often overlooked. Forensic science is a rigorous exacting science that applies methods developed in the wider scientific community to the analysis of evidence collected from crime scenes. As far back as the 6th century people were using forensics to solve crimes. Since then the science behind forensic science has increased exponentially with new methods being researched and developed. This research aims to address two of the larger subsections of forensic science, arson and drug detection. …

Probation Officer Productivity: Using The Effort-Reward Imbalance Model, Brandon Presley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to determine the extent to which workplace efforts and rewards are associated with probation officer stress, overcommitment, health, and productivity. This research uses the effort-reward imbalance model, which is an indicator of job stress, on a group of criminal justice probation officers. The probation officers completed questionnaires regarding their perceptions of health, perceived reward, perceived effort, perceptions of overcommitment, and perceived productivity. Afterward, the responses were collected, and analyses were conducted using correlation and multiple regression to determine the extent to which perceptions of effort, reward, and overcommitment effect probation officer productivity and health. …

Sexual Violence Victimization And Prescription Drug Misuse: An Analysis Using General Strain Theory, Corey Pomykacz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Sexual violence among college women is a widespread and severe public health issue in the United States. When compared to women in the general public, collegiate women are at an increased risk of sexual violence. Sexual violence can result in damaging and long-term consequences for the victim. Consequences of sexual violence include physical injuries, psychological distress, social withdrawal, poor grades and participation in health risk behaviors. While a connection between sexual violence victimization and negative outcomes is well established, most of the research in this area is atheoretical. To address this gap in the literature this study relied on Robert …

Jail Mental Health Innovations: Factors Influencing Mental Health Services Innovations For Jails, Orville Clayton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The U.S. is recognized for uniquely high incarceration rates. Over recent decades, there has been a concurrent dramatic increase of jail detainees with mental disorders. Provision of adequate mental health services for jail inmates is constitutionally mandated, and has legal, ethical, quality of care, and fiscal implications for jails, families, communities, and detainees. Significant variation exists in the provision of mental health services across jails, and increased understanding of the factors that influence the adoption of such services may help guide jails to implement beneficial services, and ensure that such services reflect, reflect quality standards. This study used a mixed …

Occupational Profiles Of At-Risk Youth: A Multi-Case Study, Abigail Catalano

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Occupational therapy’s work with at-risk and adjudicated youth is a practice area currently possessing a limited base of evidence. One significant need in this body of literature is for examination of evidence-based evaluation practices. This project describes implementation and results of an evaluation protocol, Primary Occupations for Work and Employment Readiness (POWER), designed to elicit comprehensive occupational profiles from participants. POWER consists of five assessment tools, supplemented by clinical observations and program data. The assessments included are the Occupational Self-Assessment (OSA), Model of Human Occupation Screening Tool (MOHOST), Double OT (DOT), Kawa River Model, and Role Checklist Version 3 (RCV3). …

Identification Of Stimulant Misuse And Malingering Of Symptoms Of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Sujith Ramachandran

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It was estimated in 2013 that 54.3 million individuals reported overall lifetime prevalence of prescription drug abuse, and 16.7 million individuals reported misusing or abusing prescription drugs in the past year. This study focuses on the abuse of psychostimulants, popularly used for treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). It is estimated that 10 to 30% of college students might be abusing stimulants, mostly for academic purposes. The incidence of stimulant related ER visits has nearly doubled in the last decade. It is also estimated that 10 to 50% of ADHD evaluations in a University setting might be exaggerated or …

The Rest Of The Story: Exploring The Overall Functioning And Maturational Experiences Of Former Foster Youth In Middle Adulthood, Jessica Lynn Yang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Middle adulthood as a developmental stage is often neglected in developmental research, yet it is vitally important to the cohesiveness of the life span as this is a time when integrating the experiences of the earlier developmental periods such as emerging adulthood, setting the stage for healthy aging. Emerging adulthood is but one unique stage in the life course, and situating this phase within a holistic developmental context is essential. Doing so illuminates the ways in which the past influences current functioning and the ways in which one's present developmental state sets the stage for later development. To date, no …

Intrinsic Factors Affecting Decomposition Changes In Archaeological Head Hair From Kellis 2 Cemetery, Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt, Kathleen Cole

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Post-mortem hair root degradation, and associated characteristics such as post-mortem root banding, brush-like ends, and hard keratin points, has remained a little understood phenomenon in the forensics discipline since its discovery in the 1800's. At present, the underlying causes of these characteristics are still unknown. In addition, there is no standardization for preparing samples for forensic or archaeological analysis. In this study, 1200 hairs from a total of 51 individuals (males, n = 22; females, n = 29) ranging in age from 16 to 60+ and interred at the Kellis 2 cemetery in the Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt are examined microscopically …

Impacts Of Workplace Violence: The Role Of Inequality, Lindsey Singer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 2011 the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) reported that of people who are employed and aged 16 and older, 24% of nonfatal violent incidents happened at work. To understand the magnitude of the problem, from 2005 to 2009, 572,000 nonfatal workplace crimes occurred against people aged 16 or older. Annually, the rate of workplace violence was about 5 victimizations per 1,000 employed persons aged 16 and older (Harrell 2011). The impact of crime on victims is a topic that deserves attention because it extends our understanding beyond descriptive rates of violence. Workplace victimization, like most other types of victimizations …