Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons^™

Exploring Military Service As An Alternative Sanction: Evidence From Inmates' Perspectives, Travis Wade Milburn

Online Theses and Dissertations

A large body of research exists that examines the punitiveness of prison compared to a wide variety of alternative sanctions. Generally, this research finds that there are numerous demographic and contextual differences in the way that people experience the punitiveness of prison. In this paper, I expand that research by using data from over 900 inmates to examine whether they view military service as more punitive than incarceration.

The research suggests females, Blacks, and those who have not had prior military service are more likely to desire imprisonment as opposed to military service. However, Whites and veterans appear to embrace …

Constructing Evil: U.S. Media Discourse And The Iranian State Murder Of Neda Agha-Soltan, Justin Turner

Online Theses and Dissertations

On June 20, 2009, one image became not only a symbol of unbridled state violence, but a rallying cry for a movement contesting the disputed election of hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The particular image in question was of Neda Agha-Soltan, a 26 year old woman whose murder was recorded by cellphone camera during a political protest and subsequently posted to social media networks showing a graphic fist-hand account of the savagery of a state crime. Media discourse presented the idea that Neda's murder was committed by the Iranian government unafraid to implore repressive measures to control its population. The …

Forgotten Victims: A Qualitative Study Of Familial And Intimate Partner Abuse Of Male-To-Female Transgender Individuals In Central Kentucky, Allison Brooke Willingham

Online Theses and Dissertations

Previous research on intimate partner and familial abuse has focused on easily identifiable social institutions, such as "homosexual couple" or "mother/daughter." However, transgender individuals do not always fit into the binary social definitions ascribed to family relationships. Little research has provided insight into cycles of familial and intimate partner verbal or physical abuse in the lives of transgender individuals. The efforts that have been made have shocking results and demonstrate a need for further and more in-depth research. The primary purpose of this research is to gain a rich understanding of the social dynamics affecting the lives of transgender individuals …

Preliminary Report On Race And Washington’S Criminal Justice System, Robert S. Chang

Faculty Articles

For this Report, the Research Working Group reviewed evidence on disproportionality in Washington’s criminal justice system and considered whether crime commission rates accounted for this disproportionality. They found that crime commission rates by race and ethnicity are largely unknown and perhaps unknowable, but that some researchers simply take arrest rates as good proxies for underlying commission rates for all crimes. They found that use of arrest rates likely overstates black crime commission rates for several reasons. But even if arrest rates are used as a proxy for underlying crime commission rates, the extent of racial disproportionality is not explained by …

The Effects Of Defendant And Juror Language Use On Sentencing Recommendations, Victoria Christine Estrada

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Spanish-language testimony is an extra-legal variable not widely studied in the legal psychology field. More emphasis has been placed on the translation of the testimony as well as accent attitudes. The current study extended research conducted by Stephan and Stephan (1986) to investigate the impact of Spanish-speaking defendants and mock-juror's language use and proficiency on sentencing recommendations. Two hundred and seventy-seven participants from the University of Texas at El Paso read a case vignette of a first-degree aggravated assault and asked were asked to provide sentence recommendations for the defendant. The defendant's testimony was presented in English or Spanish with …

A Deadly Way Of Doing Business: A Case Study Of Corporate Crime In The Coal Mining Industry, Charles Nickolas Stickeler

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

To this point, research on corporate crime has been, for the most part, overlooked by mainstream criminology. In particular, corporate violations of safety regulations in the coal mining industry have yet to be studied within the field of criminology. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the crimes of a coal mining corporation, a corporation whose business decisions led to the worst coal mining disaster in forty years, along with the deaths of twenty-nine men. This thesis will utilize a case study format in order to illustrate the crimes committed by this corporation. Previous literature covering the history of …

The Influence Of Phenotypic Variation On Criminal Judgement, Jacque-Corey Cormier

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of phenotypic variation on criminal judgment. This study had two phases. In the first phase, participants rated multiple headshot photographs on the degree to which African American men possess pronounced Afrocentric features (fuller lips, broader nose, curlier hair, darker skin, etc.). The race of the participants predicted 34.2% of the variance in average skin color ratings above all other variables. White participants rated the Black faces as darker than any other participants rated the same faces. Researchers used the faces rated least, average, and most prototypical of Blacks as the …

How (Not) To Implement Cost As A Sentencing Factor, Ryan W. Scott

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Book Review, Samuel W. Buell

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Al-Shabaab's American Recruits: A Comparative Analysis Of Two Radicalization Pathways, Matthew Wade Richardson

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

From 2005 to 2011, at least 41 Americans joined, or attempted to join, al-Shabaab, Somalia's preeminent terrorist organization. This thesis examines the radicalization process for al-Shabaab's American recruits by dividing the sample into two groups: non-Somali and Somali. The author employs causal flow diagramming as a means of visualizing each group's unique radicalization pathway. While most of the non-Somali recruits were motivated by political grievances and Salafism, most of the Somali recruits were motivated by identity conflict and nationalism. Considering al-Shabaab is both a religious and an ethno-nationalist terrorist organization, these results make sense. Radicalization within diaspora communities is a …

Exploring Change In Local Criminal Justice Systems: An Examination Of The Implementation Of The Justice Reinvestment At The Local Level Model In Three U.S. Counties, Suzanne Rebecca Neusteter

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Tough on crime policies in the U.S. began to emerge in the 1970s and steeply escalated through the 1980s and 1990s, prompting massive growth of correctional populations and criminal justice costs. Although many of these policy and legislative reforms were enacted at the federal and state levels, they have trickled down and greatly affected localities across the country. The recent economic downturn has exerted additional pressures on local governments. These factors have prompted the development of a number of planned change strategies designed to curb the escalating growth and related costs in criminal justice systems. One such approach, Justice Reinvestment …

Risky Businesses: A Micro-Level Spatiotemporal Analysis Of Crime, Place, & Business Establishment Type, Christopher R. Herrmann

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Continuing advances in the fields of environmental criminology and geographical information sciences are facilitating place-based research. One of the current trends in environmental criminology is the focus on micro-level `places' including street segments, property lots, and specific kinds of buildings and facilities in understanding crime patterns and the opportunity structure that permits crime. Despite important findings on the concentration of crime in urban areas, there continues to be substantial gaps in our knowledge about micro-level spatiotemporal patterns of crime. These gaps in micro-level environmental criminology research have primarily been a result of the lack of access to data, availability of …