Criminology Commons^™

Investing In Maryland Safety: Engaging Public Resources And Community Partnerships To Prevent Crime And Violence, Jeffrey A. Butts, Rebecca Balletto, Patricia A. Cobar

Publications and Research

The Research and Evaluation Center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice conducted a review of two innovative initiatives developed by the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services: The Thrive Academy (TTA) and the Safer Stronger Together (SST) intervention strategy. The study involved document analysis, online resource review, and interviews with agency staff and leadership. These efforts aimed to understand the design, implementation, and alignment of TTA and SST within Maryland’s broader public safety and crime prevention strategy. Key themes included program effectiveness, operational progress, and community-level impact, providing valuable insights into the Department’s evolving approach to juvenile justice and public …

Religious Bodies Crime Control Strategies In Lagos Slums, Nigeria, Lateef Adeyemo

The Journal of Social Encounters

In Lagos' slum areas, where crime and social instability are rampant, religious bodies are uniquely positioned to influence positive change. This study adopted a qualitative, cross-sectional approach, guided by social disorganisation and stakeholder theories, to examine their impact. Purposive sampling was used to select 61 participants for in-depth interviews and key informant interviews. Findings indicate that religious bodies primarily engage youth through sermons and occasional events but lack structured crime control mechanisms. Key challenges include community resistance, limited police collaboration, resource constraints, and threats from violent youth. Furthermore, doctrinal concerns and fear of backlash hinder interfaith collaboration, with some …

Offenders’ Perspectives On Acquisitive Crime Targets And Stolen Goods Disposal Methods, Joseph Clare, Liam Quinn, Natalie Gately, Suzanne Rock

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This paper examines offenders’ perspectives about acquisitive crime targets and stolen goods markets in Australia that have not been comprehensively reviewed since 2005. Over the last 18 years there have been significant changes in the rates of property crime, reductions in cash usage, and rapid movements to online markets as a disposal outlet, that motivate this updated analysis. In late 2022, n = 107 detainees in a Western Australian police watchhouse were interviewed about their property offending frequency, offence preferences, target selection, disposal methods, and estimated financial return for targeted goods. Results demonstrated (a) meaningful shifts towards shoplifting and away …

Reimagining Community Safety: Perceptions Of Policy And Practice In Five Cities, Patricia A. Cobar, Kathleen A. Tomberg, Fidel L. Osorio, Jeffrey A. Butts

Publications and Research

The John Jay College Research and Evaluation Center (REC) and the Urban Institute partnered with the National League of Cities to support five U.S. cities in reimagining public safety through the Municipalities Reimagining Community Safety (MRCS) initiative, funded by Wells Fargo. As the research lead, JohnJay REC conducted a three-wave survey to assess local stakeholder perceptions of public safety strategies, focusing on efficacy and equity. Findings provided insight into city-level approaches to crime prevention and community well-being, informing evaluations of MRCS’s impact across diverse urban contexts.

The Post-Brexit Security Field On The Island Of Ireland: The Role Of Civil Society In Everyday Security Workshop Summary Report From Event At The Carrickdale Hotel On 28 June 2023, Allely Albert, Matt Bowden, Chloe Carragher, Amanda Kramer

Reports

This report documents the discussions of participants during a workshop at the Carrickdale Hotel, County Louth, that was held on June 28th 2023. The purpose of the workshop was to introduce the BORDEX project, learn about safety and security in local communities, and to learn about the organisations involved in producing and maintaining security, often in an informal way. In addition, the purpose of the event was to develop new connections and provide networking opportunities.

The BORDEX team provided an overview of the project and there were a number of break-out sessions to discuss particular topics. The first session addressed …

Do Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design Strategies Deter Taggers? Voices From The Street, Arthur Vasquez, Nina Barbieri, John J. Rodriguez

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) postulates that jurisdictions can deter crime and antisocial behavior via effective use and proper design of the physical environment. When a jurisdiction implements a CPTED strategy, it makes involvement in criminal behavior more difficult, thereby increasing the chance of being caught. Using interviews with 35 active juvenile street taggers from a large metropolitan area in Texas, this research explores whether implementing CPTED strategies deter offenders from engaging in criminal activity. Results suggest physical barriers, natural surveillance, access, and signage serve as deterrents during the target selection process."

Do Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design Strategies Deter Taggers? Voices From The Street, Arthur Vasquez, Nina Barbieri, John J. Rodriguez

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) postulates that jurisdictions can deter crime and antisocial behavior via effective use and proper design of the physical environment. When a jurisdiction implements a CPTED strategy, it makes involvement in criminal behavior more difficult, thereby increasing the chance of being caught. Using interviews with 35 active juvenile street taggers from a large metropolitan area in Texas, this research explores whether implementing CPTED strategies deter offenders from engaging in criminal activity. Results suggest physical barriers, natural surveillance, access, and signage serve as deterrents during the target selection process."

Examining The Effect Of Perceived Responsibility On Online Bystander Intervention, Target Hardening, And Inaction, Leah C. Butler, Amanda Graham, Bonnie S. Fisher, Billy Henson, Bradford W. Reyns

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Failure to take responsibility for intervening has been identified as a primary barrier to bystander intervention. Building on these findings, we examine how perceptions of responsibility affect responses to witnessing victimization in the online realm—a topic that has received limited attention. Using a maximum-likelihood selection model, we analyze data from the Pew American Trends Panel (N = 3709) to estimate the effects of respondents’ perceptions of the role different groups should play in addressing online harassment on their likelihood to engage in intervention, target hardening, or inaction in response to witnessing online harassment, conditioned upon their likelihood of having …

Effects Of Eye Imagery On Criminal Justice And Forensic Students Cheating In Online Testing, Kortni Larue

Theses

Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) is a well-established subsection of environmental criminology in which aspects of the environment are altered in order to prevent crimes before they happen. This is primarily accomplished in two ways: physical and psychological. CPTED strategies often utilize both in order to prevent crime, but there is a lack of primarily psychologically based research in circulation. This includes the manipulation of the biopsychological response to gaze detection in order to increase prosocial behavior. Additionally, there is a lack of studies indicating if CPTED strategies are effective in a classroom setting and even less concerning online …

Public Perceptions Of Crime Trends : Measurement, Perceived Causes, And Behavioral Consequences, Luzi Shi

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In the U.S. the public is persistent in believing in worsening crime trends, despite the fact that the crime rate has been falling since the early 1990s. This dissertation is a comprehensive examination of the measurement, perceived causes, and behavioral consequences of crime trend perceptions. It is composed of three interrelated studies. The first step to understanding crime trend perceptions is to have accurate measurement. In the first study, I identify the limitations of existing measurement of crime trend perceptions and argue that it is important to measure perceptions of short-term and long-term crime trends separately. Using three samples, I …

Private Security And Cctv Surveillance: A Systematic Review Of Function And Performance, Brandon C. Welsh, Eric L. Piza, Amanda L. Thomas, David P. Farrington

Publications and Research

Private security personnel play an important but largely overlooked role in the operation of CCTV surveillance to prevent crime in public and private areas. This role can take a number of forms, including active monitoring of cameras. Drawing upon a global database of CCTV evaluations (N=165), this article examines the function and performance of private security personnel as related to the effectiveness of CCTV. Findings indicate that CCTV schemes operated by private security personnel generated larger crime prevention effects than those operated by police or those using a mix of police and security personnel. Policy and research implications are discussed.

Cctv Surveillance For Crime Prevention. A 40-Year Systematic Review With Meta-Analysis, Eric L. Piza, Brandon C. Welsh, David P. Farrington, Amanda L. Thomas

Publications and Research

Research Summary: We report on the findings of an updated systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of closed-circuit television (CCTV) surveillance cameras on crime. The findings show that CCTV is associated with a significant and modest decrease in crime. The largest and most consistent effects of CCTV were observed in car parks. The results of the analysis also demonstrated evidence of significant crime reductions within other settings, particularly residential areas. CCTV schemes incorporating activemonitoring generated larger effect sizes than did passive systems. Schemes deploying multiple interventions alongside CCTV generated larger effect sizes than did schemes deploying single or no …

The Crime Prevention Effect Of Cctv In Public Places: A Propensity Score Analysis, Eric L. Piza

Publications and Research

This study measures the effect of CCTV in Newark, NJ across three separate crime categories: auto theft, theft from auto, and violent crime. CCTV viewsheds, denoting camera line-of-sight, were units of analysis. Viewsheds for treatment units were created by digitizing live CCTV footage within a geographic information system (GIS). Control viewsheds were created with GIS tools and aerial imagery from Google maps. Treatment cases were matched with control cases via propensity score matching (PSM) to ensure statistical equivalency between groups. Effect was measured via odds ratios and average treatment on the treated statistics. Findings offer modest support for CCTV as …

Nsu Ph.D. In Criminal Justice 2018, Nova Southeastern University

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice College Archive

No abstract provided.

"Tough On Crime, Tough On The Causes Of Crime": Liberal Carceral Logics And The Reproduction Of Settler Colonial Violence In Winnipeg, Mb, Canada, Bronwyn Dobchuk-Land

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation illustrates how settler colonialism is reproduced in present-day Canada through the governance of crime, and how political struggles against policing, imprisonment, and colonialism are linked. It focuses on the politics of crime in the Province of Manitoba from 1999–2016, during which the left-of-center New Democratic Party (NDP) government engineered a significant expansion of the carceral state, overseeing unprecedented increases in policing and jail growth. In Manitoba, the vast majority of prisoners are Indigenous. This dissertation explores the logic through which the NDP integrated their support for policing and imprisonment into their “progressive” value system, packaging their carceral expansion …

The Uncatchable Crook: Pursuing Effective State Crime Control, Daniel J. Patten

The Hilltop Review

This article investigates an interesting conundrum of addressing crime when the state commits a crime itself, and most often is the primary apparatus of crime control. Even more difficult in pursuing state crime control, the state typically plays a major role in defining crime. Criminologists commonly suggest state sanctions to address crime, and states to sanctions other states for their crimes. However, such an approach struggles when faced with the punishment of a powerful state’s criminal actions such as the United States. After laying out the controversy at the heart of controlling state crimes, several criminological theories traditionally employed to …

Applying Situational Crime Prevention To Terrorism Against Airports And Aircrafts., Molly Mae Block

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation identifies the characteristics of terrorism against airports and aircrafts and the appropriate measures to prevent or reduce the damage of this crime. The situational crime prevention framework, incorporating routine activity theory, rational choice theory, and crime pattern theory, is used to identify techniques to reduce the opportunity for terrorism targeting airports and aircrafts. This study is a first attempt to determine which situational characteristics may be relevant in attacks specifically targeting airports or aircrafts. Data for this dissertation comes from the Global Terrorism Database and covers terrorist attacks targeting airports or aircrafts from 2002 to 2014. The sample …

Evaluation Of The Community Safety Initiative: Assignment Of Rapid Co-Ordinators, Matt Bowden

Reports

No abstract provided.

911 : Help Or Hindrance In Reducing Repeat Victimization, Kay Elizabeth Lang

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In my dissertation I examine two pieces of criminological knowledge in order to explore the point at which they converge. First, crime victims call the police for a variety of reasons, one of which is to stop future attacks; and second, research suggests that previous victimization is a significant predictor of future victimization. In my research I seek to expand current knowledge about repeat victimization using the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). I examine repeat victimization at the individual level, with crimes of violence, and at the household level, by examining residential burglary. But my project expands on existing knowledge …

Prison Abolition And Grounded Justice, Allegra M. Mcleod

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article introduces to legal scholarship the first sustained discussion of prison abolition and what I will call a “prison abolitionist ethic.” Prisons and punitive policing produce tremendous brutality, violence, racial stratification, ideological rigidity, despair, and waste. Meanwhile, incarceration and prison-backed policing neither redress nor repair the very sorts of harms they are supposed to address—interpersonal violence, addiction, mental illness, and sexual abuse, among others. Yet despite persistent and increasing recognition of the deep problems that attend U.S. incarceration and prison-backed policing, criminal law scholarship has largely failed to consider how the goals of criminal law—principally deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and …

The Effects Of Merging Proactive Cctv Monitoring With Directed Police Patrol: A Randomized Controlled Trial., Eric L. Piza, Joel M. Caplan, Leslie W. Kennedy, Andrew M. Gilchrist

Publications and Research

Objectives: This study was designed to test the effect of increased certainty of punishment on reported crime levels in CCTV target areas of Newark, NJ. The experimental strategy was designed for the purpose of overcoming specific surveillance barriers that minimize the effectiveness of CCTV, namely high camera-to-operator ratios and the differential response policy of police dispatch. An additional camera operator was deployed to monitor specific CCTV cameras, with two patrol cars dedicated to exclusively responding to incidents of concern detected on the experimental cameras.

Methods: A randomized controlled trial was implemented in the analysis. A randomized block design was used …

Predictive Policing: A Review Of The Literature, Portland State University. Criminology And Criminal Justice Senior Capstone

Criminology and Criminal Justice Senior Capstone Project

Improving knowledge of crime and crime causation is an important focus for many law enforcement agencies. Many believe such knowledge can be used to predict crime and criminal behavior. Predictive policing is one of a variety of strategies developed by law enforcement personnel and researchers. The practice of law enforcement is frequently reactive, in nature, where police officers respond to crimes after they have been committed. In an effort to prevent future crimes, however, those with an interest in prevention have also added the strategy of proactive policing, where information and advanced analyses are added to their repertoire of approaches. …

Examining The Role Of Life Satisfaction And Negative Emotionality In A Social Disorganization Framework, Jeremy Waller, Timothy C. Hart

Graduate Research Symposium (2010 - 2017)

At the core of the social disorganization perspective is the notion that neighborhood structural factors (i.e., socio-economic status, residential mobility, racial heterogeneity, family disruption, and urbanization) disrupt a community’s ability to self-regulate, which in turn leads to crime and delinquency.

Exogenous neighborhood characteristics believed to be causally linked to crime and delinquency are consistently derived from official Census data and endogenous community characteristics are typically measured from self-reported surveys.

The body of literature supporting the social disorganization explanation of criminogenic places is growing and supports the idea that neighborhood structural determinants of crime influence residents’ feelings of social capital and …

Decisions To Exert Social Control In A Neighborhood Context : Social Dilemmas And Solutions, Shaohua Yu

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Prior literature on urban crime study has long indicated that residents' participation in informal social control activities is crucial in achieving low crime rates in urban neighborhoods. The question of what factors determine individual residents' decisions on whether or not to support collective crime prevention efforts, however, has yet to be addressed. The present study approaches this issue by bridging it with another important area of research-the study of social dilemmas-that explain cooperative tendencies in human groups. By defining informal social control as a form of collectively desirable action, the study tested the hypothesis that the solutions to social dilemmas …

Police Community Partnerships: A Review Of The Literature, Portland State University. Criminology And Criminal Justice Senior Capstone

Criminology and Criminal Justice Senior Capstone Project

To better understand community/police collaborations, this study researched several different types of successful partnerships. Our objective was to learn why the partnerships were formed and who was involved. Our research also sought to determine the goals of the partnerships, and the methods used to achieve those goals. The study also highlights several practices used by police agencies successfully to solve community problems.

Prevention Of Human Trafficking: A Review Of The Literature, Portland State University. Criminology And Criminal Justice Senior Capstone

Criminology and Criminal Justice Senior Capstone Project

A review of the literature pertaining to human trafficking reveals that human trafficking is a difficult crime to detect and prevent. Human trafficking involves the trafficking of human beings for the purpose of commercial sexual activities as well as forced labor. These crimes are occurring worldwide. Research indicates organized crime, prostitution, massage parlors, and brothels are closely linked to the crime of human trafficking. Government corruption and transnational criminal organizations contribute significantly to this crime and financial profit is usually the primary motivation. The objective of this report is to examine the various elements of human trafficking including the recognized …

Crime Prevention, Minnesota State University, Mankato

Crime/Violence

Bibliography and photographs of a display of government documents from Minnesota State University, Mankato.

Unstoppable? : A Closer Look At Terrorism Displacement, Henda Yao Hsu

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Since T.A Repetto first introduced crime displacement in 1976, situational crime prevention researchers have long been challenged by the assumption that displacement is an unavoidable consequence of focused crime prevention measures. Despite evidence that criminals do not inevitably shift their offending behavior in response to crime prevention initiatives, recent efforts to extend situational prevention to terrorism have been met with criticisms of displacement. This study examines whether terrorists displace their attacks by changing their methods once the opportunities to carry out acts of terrorism are blocked. To accomplish this, the author examines, through the use of the newly synthesized Global …

Geographic Factors Of Residential Burglaries - A Case Study In Nashville, Tennessee, Jonathan A. Hall

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study examines geographic patterns and geographic factors of residential burglary at the Nashville, TN area for a twenty year period at five year interval starting in 1988. The purpose of this study is to identify what geographic factors have impacted on residential burglary rates, and if there were changes in the geographic patterns of residential burglary over the study period. Several criminological theories guide this study, with the most prominent being Social Disorganization Theory and Routine Activities Theory. Both of these theories focus on the relationships of place and crime. A number of spatial analysis methods are hence adopted …

Assessing The Impact Of Police-Order-Maintenance Teams On Crime: An Application Of The ‘Broken Windows’ Hypothesis, Steven A. Pace, William Sousa, Dan Mcgrath

Graduate Research Symposium (2010 - 2017)

High levels of violent crime and disorder characterize certain neighborhoods of northwest Las Vegas. In April 2009, collaboration between academics and police personnel announced the deployment of a police order-maintenance unit designed to reduce minor and major offenses in these areas. Drawing on the Broken Windows hypothesis, the unit combined a detailed crime analysis with extensive police efforts to address specific community problems. This paper discusses the implementation and impact of the police order-maintenance unit during its operation.