Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons^™

Women's Quest To Occupy Executive Positions In Corporate America, Erica Charles-Lynch

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Women comprise 50.8% of the United States population and 47% of the workforce, and over the past few decades, many women have been promoted to midmanagement positions in Fortune 500 and other major corporations, but few run companies at the executive levels. The research problem addressed the underrepresentation of women in top leadership positions in the executive suite. The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of women in upper level management in large corporations on rising to the C-suite. A basic qualitative naturalistic inquiry was used employing interviews in collecting and analyzing the data. The targeted population …

Law Enforcement Fitness Policies In Relation To Job Injuries And Absenteeism, Marlana Lynn Hancock

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

After employment, job-related fitness requirements vary for law enforcement agencies within North Carolina. Police academies mandate specific job-related fitness requirements for recruits as a condition of graduation. Once employed, little is known about why some law enforcement agencies in North Carolina have physical fitness policies and others do not, particularly when injury rates and healthcare costs continue to rise. To better understand this inconsistency, the current study used a mixed methods approach to examine 6 midsized law enforcement agencies in North Carolina with varying fitness policies. The policy of each agency, along with OSHA work-related injuries and absenteeism reports, were …

Police And Citizens' Perceptions Of Community Policing In Richmond, Virginia, Denita R. Square-Smith

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Community policing is an initiative that requires public cooperation and participation to be successful. Little is known, however, about police and citizens' perceptions of community policing and its impact on Richmond, Virginia neighborhoods. Using policy feedback theory as a lens, the purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore and gain a better understanding of RPD's and Richmond citizens' perceptions of community-oriented policing strategies in Richmond neighborhoods. Research questions focused on how officers and citizens perceive the impact of community policing strategies and the specific strategies they viewed as most successful in building public trust. Data were collected from a …

Law Enforcement Officer Knowledge Of Mental Illness, Nashira Funn

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Media and activist groups have recently exposed the problem of negative interactions between law enforcement officers and civilians. Many of these civilians have a mental illness. Various researchers attribute these negative interactions to insufficient officer knowledge of mental illness due to a lack of training, education, and personal experiences. Very little research addresses how insufficient knowledge of mental illness may influence interactions. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore and analyze self reported law enforcement knowledge using Malcolm Knowles' conceptualization of adult learning theory and andragogy as the theoretical framework. This framework bases self-directed learning/training on a needs …

Mass Shootings As Issue Management Exigencies And Focusing Events For Public Policy Debates, Melvin Gupton

Wayne State University Dissertations

This content analysis of multiple mass shooting cases examines a crisis genre that is not as frequently studied as other crises such as natural disasters or organizational exigencies. Though just as rich with stakeholders’ communicative exchanges and neatly traversing the three crisis stages, mass shootings have yet to be fully elaborated. To further the examination of these crises, this dissertation identifies those actors who hold the principal stakes in the aftermath of a mass shooting incident, and explores what these stakeholders are saying. By applying focusing events and issue management theories, it uncovers the prominent public policy issues reported in …

Structure And Service Delivery Approach Of The Children’S Bureau’S Resource Centers And Implementation Centers, Tammy Richards, Michelle Graef, Kathy Deserly, Peter Watson, Mark Ells

Center on Children, Families, and the Law: Faculty Publications

The Children’s Bureau (CB) provides a system of training and technical assistance (T/TA) to build the capacity of state and tribal child welfare systems, with the goal of improving outcomes for children and families. During the time period of 2008-2014, this infrastructure included ten National Child Welfare Resource Centers (NRCs), five Child Welfare Implementation Centers (ICs), and a Training and Technical Assistance Coordination Center (TTACC). Individual ICs and NRCs differed in structure and content expertise, yet they served the same jurisdictions and at times provided services concurrently. To increase cohesion and consistency, the NRCs, ICs, TTACC, and CB worked together …

Deconstructing “Deviance” And “Disorder” As Systems Of Domination: Chicago Public Schools As A Case Study Of The Effects Of Zero Tolerance Discipline Policies On Educational Outcomes In Us Schools, Maya Kaul

Pomona Senior Theses

The rise of “zero tolerance” discipline practices in US primary and secondary schools has become increasingly well documented by the media and empirical studies. Despite the extensive scholarship that has emerged from these conversations, many of these analyses are limited in their scope and do not connect the phenomena of zero tolerance in schools to the diverse, shifting forces at play within American politics and policy today. As such, the goal of this work is to synthesize ideas about zero tolerance across disciplines by integrating historical thought, philosophical frameworks of punishment, shifting policy goals within the US education system, the …

Crime Reduction Strategies Of Florida Sheriff's Offices Related To Residential Burglaries, Jack Armstrong

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In Florida, the law enforcement response to burglaries is estimated to cost $1.3 billion, yet little is understood about whether specific types of enforcement and investigation strategies have an impact on reducing the incidence of burglary. Using Cohen and Felson's concept of guardianship as part of routine activities theory as the foundation, the purpose of this quantitative cross-sectional study was to examine whether any or all crime reduction strategies (community policing, intelligence led policing, Compare Statistics policing, traditional policing, hot spot policing, and evidence based policing) when combined with urbanity, household income, the sworn officers per 1000 population are statistically …

Predictors Of Job Satisfaction Among County Jail Correctional Officers, Richara Simmons

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Job satisfaction among jail correctional officers is important because it ensures the continuity of officers who can promote and maintain a safe environment inside the jail for all staff and inmates. Most job satisfaction studies on correctional officers, however, are focused on prison officers and not county jail officers. The purpose of this correlational study was to test and extend Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene theory by exploring job satisfaction and motivation among jail correctional officers in Miami-Dade Florida. Survey data were collected from 149 correctional officers using Specter's (1994) Job Satisfaction Survey. Data were analyzed through correlational and multiple regression analyses. Findings …

Policing The Mentally Ill In Coronado, Ca, Jennifer Susan Ayres

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The growing number of individuals suffering from mental illnesses and their inability to access intervention methods has adverse effects on the criminal justice system. These impairments increase the likelihood that police officers will have negative attitudes about persons with mental illnesses. This study sought to understand whether police officers' empathy, education, experience outside of work as well as on the job, and officers' training in the field of mental health all related to police officers' attitudes relating to persons with mental illness. The purpose of this study was to expand the body of knowledge and determine how factors such as …

A Policy Evaluation: Comparing Levels Of Police Injuries Associated With The Use Of Less-Lethal Instruments In Law Enforcement - Conducted Energy Devices Vs. Other Less-Lethal Instruments, Lydia Denise Adkins

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Police officers continue to sustain injuries during close proximity encounters with non-compliant and combative suspects. The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to examine whether the use of less-lethal instruments, such as conducted energy devices, oleoresin capsicum, impact batons, and hands/feet defensive tactic reduced police officer injury during confrontations with uncooperative suspects at a medium-sized police department in a southern state. Fichtelberg's democratic policing was used as the theoretical framework for this study. Data were acquired from Suspect Resistant Reports (n = 409) written by police officers over a 10-year period (1/05 - 12/14). The dependent variable was police officer …

Keeping The Children: Nonviolent Women Offenders In Two Michigan Residential Programs, Denise Smith Allen

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Seventy-five percent of women offenders confined to prison, jails, or residential treatment programs are custodial parents of minor children at the time of their separation. Little is known, though, about how prosocial networks are used to address the effects of separation from children. Using Bui and Morash's conceptualization of the theory of gendered pathways, the purpose of this phenomenological study was to better understand, from the perspective of incarcerated women, the experience of using prosocial networks to cope with the effects of separation. Data were collected through interviews with 10 mothers from 2 residential treatment programs in Michigan. Interview data …

African American Male Police Officers' Perceptions Of Being Racially Profiled By Fellow Police Officers, Michael Armstrong Campbell

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

African American police officers, as other African Americans, report being subjected to racial profiling by police officers, and that these encounters have, in some cases, resulted in excessive and unjustified use of force. These types of occurrences have resulted in a divide between African American and Caucasian police officers. The purpose of this phenomenological research study was to explore the experiences and perceptions of African American male police officers in the State of New Jersey who feel they have been discriminated against by fellow law enforcement officers. Weber's social relationship theory served as the theoretical framework for this study. Data …

Realigning Community Policing In A Homeland Security Era, Alfred Stanford Titus, Jr.

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The priority shift from community policing to homeland security in local police departments in the United States has threatened the relationships and successes established by community policing, though little empirical research explored the relationship between funding and implementation of homeland security versus community policing objectives among local law enforcement agencies. Using Karl Popper's conceptualization of the liberal democracy as the framework, the purpose of this descriptive study was to examine how trends in funding and implementation of both community policing and homeland security objectives changed among American law enforcement agencies between 1993 and 2013. Data were acquired from the Law …

Effective Social Media Use By Law Enforcement Agencies: A Case Study Approach To Quantifying And Improving Efficacy And Developing Agency Best Practices, David T. Snively

Master of Public Administration Practicums

In the wake of protests against law enforcement for an array of reasons, law enforcement officers and agencies have a responsibility to recognize and utilize the available mediums of communication with which they may best develop a connection to the communities they serve. Furthermore, law enforcement agencies must be informed that established, traditional methods of news dissemination – such as press conferences and printed articles – are now both ineffective and under-utilized, replaced in large part by social media live-time reports. For that reason, law enforcement agency executives must address both the responsibility to provide appropriately timed updates to critical …

The Academic Effects Of Chronic Exposure To Neighborhood Violence, Amy Ellen Schwartz, Agustina Laurito, Johanna Lacoe, Patrick Sharkey, Ingrid Gould Ellen

Center for Policy Research

We estimate the causal effect of repeated exposure to violent crime on test scores in New York City. We use two distinct empirical strategies; value-added models linking student performance on standardized exams to violent crimes on a student’s residential block, and a regression discontinuity approach that identifies the acute effect of an additional crime exposure within a one-week window. Exposure to violent crime reduces academic performance. Value added models suggest the average effect is very small; approximately -0.01 standard deviations in English Language Arts (ELA) and mathematics. RD models suggest a larger effect, particularly among children previously exposed. The marginal …

Welcome To Dignity, Donna M. Hughes

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Annual Campus Security And Fire Safety Report 2016

University of Nebraska Board of Regents: Policies, Acts, and Other Materials

Safety and security information for the University of Nebraska, including crime & fire statistics for the 2015 calendar year. This information was submitted to the U.S. Department of Education according to law.

Annual Campus Security and Fire Safety Report and Clery Act Overview Law Enforcement on Campus Daily Crime Log/Fire Log Important Information Regarding Reporting Reporting Potential Threats Reporting Incidents of Bias Reporting a Crime Disciplinary Action for Sexual Misconduct Preventing and Addressing Sexual Assault, Domestic/Dating Violence and Stalking Sex Offender Registry Information Drugs and Alcohol Drug and Alcohol Programs Missing Student Policy and Procedure Crime Prevention and Campus Safety …

Selling National Security: Journalism, Political Actors, And The Marketing Of Counterterrorism Policy, Nicole M. Napolitano

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The social construction of terrorism in the public sphere naturally limits and directs logical policy options. In the United States, media are a primary vehicle for the construction of social problems and accompanying policy solutions, as much of public discourse takes place in media narratives. News media play a major part in political communication, both between government and governed as well as among different segments of government.

Social construction in media is shaped by journalistic values and preferences, occurs within an active and influential policy process, and is shaped by powerful policy actors. Government-based policy actors, or governmental policy entrepreneurs, …

How The City Of Indianapolis Came To Have African American Policemen And Firemen 80 Years Before The Modern Civil Rights Movement., Leon E. Bates

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explores a series of events that occurred in the spring of 1876. The relationship between the Indianapolis city government, the Marion County Courts, the Indianapolis Police Department, and the African American community came together to usher in changes never before envisioned. The Indianapolis Police Department (IPD) was formed in 1855, then disbanded 12 months later in a political dispute. From 1857-to-1876, the IPD was all white. These changes took place as the Reconstruction era was coming to a close. The first Ku Klux Klan was at its apex, terrorizing black communities, and Jim Crow was coming into its …

Where Is The Survivor’S Voice? An Examination Of The Individual And Structural Challenges To The Reintegration Of Immigrant Human Trafficking Survivors, Michelle Cristina Angelo Dantas Rocha

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The United States is one of the top destination countries for human trafficking, and Florida has the third highest number of reported cases of human trafficking. Despite the severity of this issue, Florida anti-trafficking legislation, reintegration programs, and awareness campaigns tend to contribute to the invisibility of the victims and undermine their recovery and reintegration into society, especially when the victims are immigrants. This project uses a multi-method approach including content analysis of anti-human trafficking campaigns to argue that portrayals of a “perfect victim” only amplify stigmatization and discrimination against immigrant victims. Through in-depth interviews and ethnographic observation highlighting the …

A Prison Of Education: The School-To-Prison Pipeline In Low-Income Schools, Adam Le

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

This paper examines the relationship between prisons and education in American culture, comparing public schools in California cities to wealthier private schools. The essay critiques the American dream’s notions of social stratification and success of the individual in racialized areas. The first section compares funding disparities between education and prison and argues that while funding is an integral part of the inner-city’s problem, the curriculum itself is ineffective. The second section takes a closer look at differences in the curricula and educational settings of an inner-city school and a private school. It offers ethnic studies in secondary education as a …

Utilizing The Signaling Theory In Order To Enhance Minority Recruitment In Law Enforcement, Donald B. Terheide

Open Access Dissertations

Minority recruitment has been an emphasis for law enforcement agencies for decades. These agencies have attempted to recruit minority officers through different venues, including college visits, career fairs, advertising, high school visits, community organizations, and other avenues in an attempt to have their department more representative of the community. However, there has been a limited amount of research on the potential applicants’ perspective concerning how these recruiting efforts have persuaded them, and the messages conveyed to the applicants.

This dissertation has been written utilizing the Signaling Theory, and determining what signals are sent to minority applicants, and how they are …

Perceptions Of University Community Members Regarding Alcohol Restriction Policies, Katherine A. Meeker

Honors Theses

There has been a growing concern regarding sexual assaults on college and university campuses. The push to decrease sexual assaults has lead researchers and universities to examine alcohol abuse as a contributing factor. Many colleges and universities have developed new policies for alcohol restriction, but they have done so without taking into consideration the views of the campus community. In the absence of collaboration between the campus community and university administration, such policies will likely be ineffective. This study explores the beliefs, perceptions, and attitudes of the campus community regarding alcohol restriction policies at The University of Southern Mississippi.

#Therighttoremainsilent: Police Department Adoption And Deployment Of Social Media, 2010-~2015, Paul Geary

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Police have a complex myriad of ever-changing responsibilities and fluid expectations from the public, and traditional media has performed a largely ambivalent self-appointed oversight and agenda-setting function vis-à-vis police for decades. But in the last five years, the second wave of the first new mass communications medium since the 1940s, social media, has democratized both that oversight function as well as traditional media's agenda-setting ability. Meanwhile, police have been characterized as slow to adapt to change and to adopt new practices in response to a changing world. This work analyzed police agency social media adoption and explained the rate at …

Problem Analysis In Community Violence Assessments: Reavealing Early Childhood Trauma As A Driver Of Youth And Gang Violence, Laurie Ross Phd, Samantha Arsenault, Sergeant Miguel Lopez

Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise

Problem analysis conducted by a university-based research partner can provide communities with data-driven options to address the local drivers of serious youth and gang violence. Situated in Worcester, Massachusetts, this article describes how after early childhood trauma was identified as a potential driver of adolescent and young adult violence, problem analysis using local data confirmed that being the victim or witness of a traumatic incident before the age of 12 was significantly correlated with involvement in violence in adolescence or young adulthood. While there is a robust literature on the relationship between early childhood trauma and later delinquency, local decision-makers …

Rape And Sexual Violence: Questionable Inevitability And Moral Responsibility In Armed Conflict, Katherine W. Bogen

Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark (SURJ)

Wartime sexual violence is a critical human rights issue that usurps the autonomy of its victims as well as their physical and psychological safety. It occurs in both ethnic and non-ethnic wars, across geographic regions, against both men and women, and regardless of the “official” position of commanders, states, and armed groups on the use of rape as tactic of war. This problem is current, pervasive, and global in spite of the status of wartime sexual violence perpetration as a crime against humanity and the capacity of the international criminal court to indict offenders. Though some scholars have argued that …

Eyes In The Sky: Public Attitudes Towards Police Use Of Drone Technology, Miliaikeala S.J. Heen, Joel D. Lieberman, Terance D. Miethe

Graduate Research Symposium (2010 - 2017)

No abstract provided.

Abuse Us And Lose Us: Regional Effects Of Disarming Domestic Violence Offenders, Dory Mizrachi

Graduate Research Symposium (2010 - 2017)

Domestic violence is among one of the most underreported crimes in the United States. Yet, national and international estimates suggest that approximately one in three girls/women will experience domestic violence. Research also demonstrates that this form of gendered violence is commonplace in the lives of millions of women and that it has deleterious outcomes, such as intimate partner homicide. It was not until recent decades that several legislations have been enacted to combat this critical problem. The Lautenberg Amendment, also known as the Domestic Violence Gun Ban of 1996 provided an essential addition to the Gun Control Act of 1968. …

Power Of Perspective: The Effects Of Public Perceptions Of Police And Fear Of Crime On Attitudes Towards Aerial Drone Use, Olivia G. Tuttle, Miliaikeala S.J. Heen, Mari Sakiyama, Terance D. Miethe, Joel D. Lieberman

Graduate Research Symposium (2010 - 2017)

Historically, unmanned aerial systems (UAS; i.e., drones) have largely been used by the military and federal government. As UAS have become more affordable and easier to operate in recent years, state and local law enforcement agencies have become interested in adopting this technology to facilitate a wide range of police activities (e.g., search and rescue, surveillance, tactical operations, etc.). The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has begun to regulate the use of unmanned aerial systems, which will likely lead to the increased use of drone technology by law enforcement agencies across the country in upcoming years. However, previous research suggests that …