Sociology Commons^™

Police Chiefs' Perceptions Of Supervisors' Membership In Subordinate Officers' Unions, Mark P. Derosia

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Police supervisors who enjoy membership in their subordinates' police union may contribute to organizational discord by failing to enforce organizational policy among their subordinates. The purpose of this multiple case study was to examine the perceptions of 9 municipal chiefs from a west coast state in the United States regarding how supervisors' membership in their subordinates' police union affects policy enforcement and how supervisor enforcement of policy may impact police officer discipline. The conceptual framework was based on dual-commitment conflict theory. Data were collected using semi structured interviews and e-mail questionnaires. Data were member checked and cross-interpreted through coded analysis. …

Survey Of U.S. Undergraduate Self-Reported Opioid Diversion And Heroin Use, Motives, Sources, And Collective Efficacy As Mediating Factors, Mark Francis Plaushin

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Epic morbidity and mortality, and intractability make prescription opioid diversion a wicked problem. Meanwhile, college undergraduates are vulnerable to opioid misuse and its consequences. The purpose of this quantitative study was to assess U.S. undergraduate students' opioid misuse and the relationship between mediating factors. The study's theoretical framework rested on Wakeland's et al. opioid system model and Shaw and McKay's social disorganization theory. This study bridged the gap, measuring collective efficacy and testing its relationship to undergraduate decisions to regulate misuse. Thus, research questions focused on gauging the problem's scope and assessing relationships between factors that drive or potentially regulate …

Relationship Between Race, Gender, And Elder Abuse Awareness, James Earl Burrell

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Lack of elder abuse awareness and underreporting is an increasing problem in the United States in that only 1 in 14 cases of elder abuse is reported. The failure to report incidents of elder abuse and suspected elder abuse allows further abuse of elders and for elder abusers to go unpunished. The purpose of this quantitative nonexperimental study was to understand the relationship between race, gender, and elder abuse awareness and fill the gap in elder abuse literature. Research questions tested mean differences between race and gender, respectively, and elder abuse awareness. The theoretical frameworks for this study were the …

Perceptions, Lived-Experiences, And Environmental Factors Impacting The Crime-Reporting Practices Of Private College Students, Kelly Lynn Arney

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The purpose of this study was assessing the perceptions of student's on how the campus climate impacts their likelihood of reporting crime. Victimization studies have been conducted at large universities and community colleges; however, there remains a lack of research regarding private colleges. This study was designed to examine the reasoning behind students' crime-reporting behaviors and the influencers that impact their decisions. Cohen and Felson's routine activity theory along with the collective-efficacy theory were used as frameworks to analyze the crimes that occur to college students as well as to explore the reasons for not reporting some crimes to law …

Psychological Characteristics Of Sex Offenders, Patrick Mcmunn

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Current therapeutic treatment methods are ineffective in identifying at-risk sex offenders and reducing recidivism of known offenders, likely due to inadequate identification of specific traits of sex offenders. Previous research and prominent theories in the area of sex offender treatment, in terms of the biological foundation of substance abuse, behaviors of sex offenders, and the presence of aggression, helped to guide this research. Data about sex offenders were collected, as reported by mental health professionals who treat them and focused on three characteristics: maladaptive interpersonal behaviors, impulsivity, and antisocial behaviors, on which the research questions were formed to detect commonality. …

Juror Gender And Confession Evidence: An Exploratory Study Of Effects On Empathy And Trial Outcomes For Juvenile Defendants, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Jennifer N. Weintraub

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Objectives: We explored how relations among juror gender, confession evidence, and empathy impacted verdicts for a juvenile defendant accused of a serious crime. Methods: Jury-eligible women and men (N = 128) participated in a mock trial involving a girl defendant who had either maintained her innocence, confessed voluntarily, or confessed under coercion. Participants reviewed case materials, received juror instructions, and reported their verdict and empathy for the girl defendant. A manipulation check ensured participants attended to details surrounding the confession and participants were grouped by whether they perceived the confession as voluntary or coerced. A logistic regression analysis examined main …

Capital And Punishment: Resource Scarcity Increases Endorsement Of The Death Penalty, Keelah E. G. Williams, Ashley M. Votruba, Steven L. Neuberg, Michael J. Saks

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Faced with punishing severe offenders, why do some prefer imprisonment whereas others impose death? Previous research exploring death penalty attitudes has primarily focused on individual and cultural factors. Adopting a functional perspective, we propose that environmental features may also shape our punishment strategies. Individuals are attuned to the availability of resources within their environments. Due to heightened concerns with the costliness of repeated offending, we hypothesize that individuals tend toward elimination-focused punishments during times of perceived scarcity. Using global and United States data sets (studies 1 and 2), we find that indicators of resource scarcity predict the presence of capital …

The Rise Of American Extremism: An Exploratory Analysis Of American Religious And Political Extremism From Presidents Jimmy Carter To Barack Obama: 1977-2016, Alwyn J. Melton

Department of Conflict Resolution Studies Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this quantitative case study was to address the problem of domestic terrorism facing the United States. This concern led to a comprehensive examination of historical documents that focused on the temporal evolution of the problem beginning with the Carter administration and continuing through the Obama administration. The conceptual foundation centered on resolving the research question and validating three hypotheses directed at qualifying the escalation of domestic incidents of terrorism. This led to developing a behavioral model to assist law enforcement agencies in combating the issue of domestic terrorism. Bivariate and clustering statistical analysis validated the data while …

Community Notification Policies, J.J. Prescott

Book Chapters

Community notification policies seek to prevent crime, raise awareness, or otherwise educate the public about criminal activity by requiring or permitting the police or other community actors to disseminate information to the public. Policies can focus on potential victims, potential offenders, the community at large, or some combination of these three. Victim-oriented policies seek to reduce the likelihood of victimization by encouraging precautionary behavior on the part of at-risk individuals. Offender-oriented policies publicize information (e.g., the severity of penalties or the likelihood of arrest) with the aim of deterring potential offenders from engaging in harmful activities. Community-oriented policies provide the …

The Stability Paradox Of Special Immigrant Juvenile Status Backlogs: Unstable Policy Implementation For A Stability-Aimed Visa, Lanna Seline Sanchez

Pomona Senior Theses

As of May 2016, the U.S. State Department officially declared a priority date for all green cards for applicants from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras that capped the number of visas granted to individuals from these three countries to just 10,000 per year. This inherently created a two to three-year backlog for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status applicants from these countries as well, meaning that SIJS petitioners will remain undocumented for periods of up to six years until their petition is adjudicated by USCIS and their priority date arrives. I research whether the increasingly difficult path to obtaining permanent residency through …

Exploring Locus Of Control In Offender Cognition And Recidivism Paradigms, Anistasha Lightning, Danielle Polage

All Master's Theses

Working with four Washington State county jails to administer surveys to currently incarcerated inmates, we investigated locus of control and beliefs in the likelihood of continued legal involvement as possible antecedents to criminal recidivism. The surveys examined whether there was any connection between legal involvement frequency and the externalization of locus of control. We investigated external locus of control with specific respect to involvement with the law, the prospect of future incarceration, and feelings concerning the overall cause of original and/or sustained legal involvement utilizing the Revised Causal Dimension Scale (McAuley, Duncan, & Russell, 1992). We identified statistically significant interactions …

Exploring The Factors Responsible For Occupational Stress Among Police Officers In Nigeria, Ahmed Lateef

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Over 90 percent of police officers in Nigeria are confronted with psychological illness and injuries as a result of occupational stress, which is compounded by a lack of attention to police officer welfare by government, insufficient annual leave, and poor salaries that contribute to poor performance. Using Karasek's demands on decision and control model as the foundation, the purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the impact of occupational stress on police officers in a metropolitan police agency in Nigeria. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 15 senior police officers who had at least 20 years experience in …

Social Cohesion Among Individuals Participating In Re-Entry Groups, Todd Reiser

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

When prisoners are released from incarceration they enter a social landscape that holds unique challenges. One of the ways humans living within social systems understand their place and role is through the mechanism of religion. This study investigates how group religious practice establishes a shared worldview among those recently released from prison; a worldview that promotes the creation of positive social cohesion which contribute to life improvements, social mobility, and social status changes. "Social networks may include friendship circles in local congregations, scripture study groups and relationships with religious leaders who serve as role models for individuals" (Kerley et al …

Gun Control: The Gun Violence Epidemic In The U.S., Anna Koduru

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

While holding almost half of all civilian-owned guns around the globe and yet only 4.4 percent of the world’s population, the United States of America is heavily centered around gun rights due to the 2nd amendment in the U.S. Constitution. But gun violence is on the rise as deaths due to gun violence are at its highest rate in nearly 40 years. Americans are divided amongst themselves when it comes to how we must approach this issue. In order to reduce gun violence in the U.S., both Republican and Democrat leaders must come together and make bipartisan moves to implement …

Developing And Sustaining Political Citizenship For Poor And Marginalized People: The Evelyn T. Butts Story, Kenneth Cooper Alexander

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This study tells the deep, rich story of Evelyn T. Butts, a grassroots civil rights champion in Norfolk, Virginia, whose bridge leadership style can teach and inspire new generations about political, community, and social change. Butts used neighbor-to-neighbor skills to keep her community connected with the national civil rights movement, which had heavily relied on grassroots leaders—especially women—for much of its success in overthrowing America’s Jim Crow system of segregation and suppression. She is best-known for her 1963 lawsuit that resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1966 decision to ban poll taxes for state and local elections, a democratizing event …

Media Effects And Criminal Profiling: How Fiction Influences Perception And Profile Accuracy, Asha Bolton

Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this dissertation was to investigate whether media and fictional information that is observed daily can influence perception to build a criminal psychological profile. Staggering between a distinguished art and science, the term profiling has been known by several different names – including criminal profiling, psychological profiling, offender profiling and more. Bandura (2009) believed that exposure to television and other media feeds into a socially constructed reality, where the audience is inevitably influenced by the beliefs and cognitions of observed media. The researcher believed that exposure to media can either influence criminal profiling and investigations with increasing accuracy …

Effects Of Mental Health Programs On School Violence, Lillian R. Gray

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Bullying, defined as any unwanted aggressive behavior(s) by another youth or group of youths who are not siblings or current dating partners that involves an observed or perceived power imbalance and is repeated multiple times or is highly likely to be repeated, is becoming an epidemic in our schools, with rates of victimization rising (Donegan, 2012). This thesis examines mental health programs already established within schools, as well as schools where students do not have access to mental health resources and compares the amount of violence that is perpetrated within these schools. Next, this study explores the relationship between bullying …

Violent Offenders And Assaults On Staff Members, Lisa Gentry Long

Theses and Dissertations

Violent Offenders and Assaults on Staff Members. Dissertation, Nova Southeastern University, Fischler College of Education, School of Criminal Justice Department. Descriptors: Violence, violent offenders, violent inmates, corrections, prisons, assaults, correction officers, staff members.

Prison facilities are an integral part of the criminal justice system. Prisons are meant to provide punishment, deterrence and rehabilitation for inmates that are serving time. Prisons across the country are understaffed due to many reasons. It is important for staff members to be trained on how to keep themselves and inmates safe when they are behind the walls of these facilities. Staff members are in positions …

Valuation Of Ex-Offender Motivation For Participation In A Restorative Justice Praxis, Kenneth Lang

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Restorative justice (RJ) is an emerging concept of justice in the American penal system that seeks equality for all stakeholders involved. While RJ is vastly under researched--especially concerning RJ and violent offenses--current studies have only focused on determining victims' motivations for participating in RJ. Determining and evaluating offender motivations for participating in RJ remains unexplored. The purpose of this study was to explore the possible motivations of criminal offenders and their willingness to participate in RJ. The social construction framework and the narrative policy framework were employed to understand the social context. A mixed-method approach was used that began with …

Jail Administrators' Compliance With The Prison Rape Elimination Act, Leone M. Lee

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Correctional institutions across the United States continue to experience prisoner sexual assault despite the enactment of the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA). The purpose of this correlational study was to examine the association between jail administrators' difficulty complying with the PREA and their transformational leadership styles. The theories of punctuated equilibrium theory and general strain theory formed the theoretical framework of the study. The data were collected through an Internet-based survey from 22 local and regional jail administrators from the East Coast. Data analysis using Pearson's correlation coefficient was performed on leadership scores to test the hypotheses. There …

The Use Of Compassionate Release Policies For Elderly Offenders, Lindsey Martin

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

This research examined the use of compassionate release policy in response to the fastest-increasing segment of the prison population- elderly offenders. Though this policy is an approach to this problem, there was little available research regarding which correctional organizations in the United States adopt compassionate release and how it is used. The purpose of this nonexperimental comparative quantitative study was to examine the use of the policy in neighboring and distant state correctional systems relative to those organizations that used the policy more frequently to determine if the leader-laggard theory of policy diffusion was an effective policy-implementation framework. The research …

Marijuana Legalization And Traffic Fatalities Involving Cannabinoids, Mark Lewn Hake

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Washington State and Colorado were the first states to legalize recreational marijuana. According to the Washington Traffic Safety Commission, the number of drivers who tested positive for marijuana in traffic fatalities increased 48% from 2013 to 2014, and marijuana legalization may have influenced this increase. Since marijuana legalization is new to the United States, the effects of this change in policy are untested in the literature. The purpose of this quantitative study using a regression point displacement design was to examine the relationship between traffic fatalities involving cannabinoids in Washington State before and after marijuana legalization. Rational choice theory and …

Individuals Who Sell Drugs Placed In Treatment: The Perspective Of Their Counselors, Natasha Herbert

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Individuals who sell drugs are often mandated by legal forces to substance abuse treatment because of their criminal offenses and the belief they may have a drug problem. Previous researchers have noted this population may be disruptive in the treatment process, but it has not been explored in depth. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to learn the lived experiences of counselors who work with individuals who report a primary problem of selling drugs, not substance abuse, who are mandated to a substance abuse treatment program. Thirteen semi structured interviews were conducted with counselors who have worked with individuals …

Recent Parolees Participating In An Adult Basic Education And Work Skills Program, Charles Jenkins

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Abstract

The issue addressed in this study was the increasing number of prisoners in U.S. prisons and the related issue of recidivism after release. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the experiences of 8 formerly incarcerated adults. The conceptual foundation of this study was based on Bandura's self-efficacy theory and Vygotsky's concept of the zone of proximal development and transformational learning. The research question for this study inquired about how released prisoners perceive their educational experiences in the MTM program. Participants were selected among adults who were incarcerated for at least 12 months and living in the …

National Strategy Against Narcotics, Drug Control Policy, And Law Enforcement Experiences In Kosovo, Ferid Azemi

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

This research is focused on evaluation of National Strategy Against Narcotics (NSAN) enacted in 2012 in Kosovo. The purpose of this study was to understand the impact of NSAN through visualizing data and gaining deeper insight from experiences of antidrug experts. Convergent parallel mixed methods were used to answer the main research questions. The central research questions examined the impact of strategy implementation in juvenile drug arrest reduction, and its effectiveness on Kosovo criminal justice system. Markwood's comprehensive theory of substance abuse prevention (CTSAP) was used to assess and explore the NSAN. Deidentified juvenile arrest rates taken from Kosovo official …

Reintegration Process Of Previously Incarcerated African American Women Older Than 50 Years, Eva Carol Brent

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Successful reintegration of ex-offenders is difficult for most, evidenced by high recidivism rates. Ex-offenders face a broad range of obstacles once released from prison, including personal, social, and employment barriers. This study was an examination of the issues that contributed to a successful or unsuccessful reintegration as reported by ex-offenders. Participants included 10 ex-offenders who participated in interviews regarding the conditions that they believed were necessary for successful community reintegration. The conceptual framework for this study came from the ecological perspective, also known as the person-in-environment theory. Data collection involved one-on-one interviews with the participants. Data analysis was conducted through …

Women, Domestic Violence Service Providers, And Knowledge Of Technology-Related Abuse, Nadine White

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Many victims of domestic violence face continued exposure to abuse through technology because intimate partners may use technology as weapon against them. Some domestic violence service professionals lack necessary information or training to educate victims. The impact on victims has not been thoroughly examined. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to assess the impact on women when domestic violence service providers do not provide current information about technology-related abuse to promote safety when providing service to victims. The conceptual framework was the Duluth model of power and control and the feminist perspective on intimate partner violence. The primary …

The Ferguson Effect On Police Officers' Culture And Perceptions In Local Police Departments, Rarkimm K. Fields

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The Ferguson effect is a recent hypothesis that suggests police officers have been influenced by negative media coverage of police conduct. The problem this study addressed is how policing continues to deal with perception, civil liability, and accountability issues related to police misconduct when interacting with Latino and African-American communities. The research was conducted to examine influence the Ferguson effect may have had on the culture and perceptions of police officers in local police departments. With a phenomenological qualitative approach, the research data were collected from interviews with 7 police officers across 3 police departments. The theoretical background of Merton's …

Psychosocial Differences In Far Right, Far Left, Islamic, And Single Issue Lone Extremists, Tamara Marie Lamontagne

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Acts of lone extremism are on the rise, yet little is known about who commits these acts. Research in this area has failed to delineate by extremist subtype. This has led to the misconception these acts and actors present with such variance psychosocially that they cannot be predicted. The purpose of this research was to assess whether statistically significant relationships exist between lone extremist subtypes on the psychosocial variables of mental illness, substance use, and having radicalized friends or family members. The conceptual framework for this study was De La Corte's psychosocial principles of terrorism, which addressed the social and …

The Justice System Is Criminal, Raven Delfina Otero-Symphony

2020 Award Winners

No abstract provided.