Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Effect Of Empathy On Death Penalty Support In Relation To The Racial Divide And Gender Gap, Brian Godcharles

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study aimed to examine previous empirical literature indicating that death penalty support contains a divide among Blacks and Whites and a gap among males and females. Previous literature has indicated that there has been a persistent racial divide and gender gap in death penalty support that has spanned over 60 years of research. Attempts to attenuate these divides have failed to fully explain why Whites are more likely than Blacks to support the death penalty and men are more likely than women to support the death penalty. This study proposes the use of empathy to control for these divides …

Reel Or Reality? The Portrayal Of Prostitution In Major Motion Pictures, Raleigh Blasdell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examined media portrayals of street-level prostitution. The objectives of this research were twofold. The first was to examine the nature of the film industry’s portrayal of females engaging in street-level prostitution in the United States in the following areas: 1) entry into sex work; 2) the economic need behind the women’s involvement; 3) experiences of childhood victimization; 4) presence and role of pimps; 5) drug/alcohol abuse; 6) victimization; and 7) mental/physical health. The second objective was to determine if this media coverage is analogous to extant research on these aspects of prostitution culture.

The Unified Film Population Identification …

Rape, Race, And Capital Punishment In North Carolina: A Qualitative Approach To Examining An Enduring Cultural Legacy, Douglas Wholl

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite positive steps toward the suppression of racial discrimination in the United States capital punishment process, the enduring effects of a cultural legacy of Black oppression (e.g., slavery; segregation; lynching) and historic and systemic racial discrimination in the criminal justice system have persisted to the present day. The purpose of the current study is to explore whether this enduring cultural legacy still exists by examining whether juries in rape-involved capital murder trials in North Carolina are more likely to recommend a sentence of death when the defendant is a Black male and the victim is a White female (compared to …

An Evaluation Of The Utah First District Mental Health Court: Gauging The Efficacy Of Diverting Offenders Suffering With Serious Mental Illness, Stephen Guy Vangeem

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The decision to establish a mental health court in Utah's First District was largely a political one prompted by the growing popularity of problem-solving courts throughout the country. Because this motivation was policy-driven and not needs-driven, the court was established without an ongoing data collection schedule. As a result, barring anecdotal evidence from program participants, the current impact of the court on two key goals-- reducing recidivism and increasing community-based treatment contact--is entirely unknown. The current study aims to provide a summative program evaluation of the first sixty-eight months of specialty court operation by (1) estimating basic demographic and clinical …

Psychopathy And Perception Of Vulnerability, Barbara Joyce Dinkins

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Prior research has shown that psychopathic traits correlate with ability to make more accurate assessments of vulnerability based on nonverbal cues (Wheeler, Book, & Costello, 2009; Book, Costello, & Camilleri, 2013). The current study aims to provide further support for this finding, examine effect of criminal experience, and determine if the finding generalizes to females and non-Caucasians. An online survey was conducted, where each participant was shown several videos of people walking alone down a hallway. After each video, they were asked to rate the vulnerability of the depicted person. Higher levels of psychopathic traits (measured by the Elemental Psychopathy …

Organized Crime In Insurance Fraud: An Empirical Analysis Of Staged Automobile Accident Rings, Chris Longino

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The growing trend of insurance fraud continues to cost US consumers billions of dollars a year through increased premiums. In 2015, the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud estimated the cost of insurance fraud as being at least $80 billion dollars a year. Even though an increasing number of criminals are drawn to the low risk, high reward of insurance fraud, little criminological literature has explored this topic and the public remains relatively unaware of the extent of the problem.

One alarming aspect of insurance fraud is the involvement of organized criminal groups. These organized criminal enterprises are formed for the sole …

Tampa Electric Company's Big Bend Utility Plant In Hillsborough County, Florida: A Case Study, Lynne M. Hodalski-Champagne

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This is an in-depth analysis of coal fire burning power plants, their effects on human health and the environment. It also employed case study data from Tampa Electric Company’s Big Bend facility to examine environmental infractions at that facility. Tampa Electric Company’s Big Bend Utility Plant, violated the Clean Air Act, which led to a lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice on behalf of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection in 1997. This case study details the lawsuit, and subsequent settlement as well as Tampa Electric Company’s record of compliance since 2000. …

Elite Deviance, Organized Crime, And Homicide: A Cross-National Quantitative Analysis, Carol L.S. Trent

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Both elite deviance, committed by the upper echelons of society, and organized crime threaten development and the rights and security of people across and within nations; however empirical research on these topics is limited, especially in the field of criminology. This study addresses this gap in the literature by testing hypotheses derived from Simon’s symbiotic theory of elite deviance, which posits that direct and indirect relationships exist between elite deviance, organized crime, and conventional crimes exist (2008). The intervening effects of national culture and political economic ideology are also considered.

To test the research hypotheses, this study uses homicide rates, …

Exploring The Interactive Effects Of Social Learning Theory And Psychopathy On Serious Juvenile Delinquency, Brandy Barenna Henderson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Social learning theory continues to be one of the most enduring theories of crime. Psychological criminology, on the other hand, tends to explain crime in terms of behavioral propensities. This research is specifically focused on the generality of social learning theory as it varies across a measure of criminal propensity- in this case, psychopathy. Prior studies have tested various theories with the use of measures of propensity, but the theory is rarely social learning, and the measure of propensity has never been psychopathy. The current study examines three components of social learning theory (definitions, differential association, and differential reinforcement) to …

Evaluating The Social Control Of Banking Crimes: An Examination Of Anti-Money Laundering Deficiencies And Industry Success, Erin M. Mulligan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Money laundering is a serious crime with potentially wide ranging consequences that have numerous implications for criminological research. However, criminology rarely explores this crime, nor its potential impact on other more central crimes of interest (e.g. drug trafficking or organized crime). The present study adds to a limited body of literature examining money laundering from a criminological perspective, evaluating aspects of its regulation and social control within the banking industry. Several aspects of regulatory oversight and company dynamics such as fine/settlement size, company size, and the likelihood of non-AML/OFAC violations to predict future AML/OFAC violations were evaluated. These analyses largely …

The Role Of Social Support In The Disclosure And Recovery Process Of Rape Victims, Jessica Nicole Mitchell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Women disproportionately account for a majority of all completed and attempted rape victimizations each year in the U.S. relative to men. Female college students, in particular, have been noted as a group with the highest risk for rape. Rape among women not only has a substantial public health impact, but has been linked to a number of individual mental health and substance use problems. Despite the fact that service utilization (formal help-seeking with a counselor, mental health professional, rape crisis center, and police reporting) has been shown to deter negative sequelae of rape, few victims of rape receive assistance from …