Criminology Commons^™

Measuring Collaboration: An Assessment Of The Containment Model Effort Used To Manage Sex Offenders In The Community, Teresa L. Van Nostrand

School of Public Service Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to provide an examination and analysis of the collaboration among sex offender professionals working with convicted sex offenders on supervision in the community. This study will examine collaboration as it is functions as the foundation of the containment model approach (English, Pullen & Jones, 1996) to supervising sex offenders in the community. The containment model guides the supervision of sex offenders in the community who are on probation with the Virginia Department of Corrections, Community Corrections. The collaboration between the Probation Officer, Treatment Provider, and the Polygraph Examiner provides a net around sex offenders …

Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument Long-Term Outcomes And Scale Stability, Elise Christina Simonds Bisbee

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument-2 (MAYSI-2; Grisso & Barnum, 2006) was developed in 1998 to offer an efficient measure for identifying adolescents within the juvenile justice system in need of further psychiatric evaluation, treatment, or specialized care. Since the instrument's publication, several studies have evaluated the psychometric properties and clinical utility of the MAYSI-2. The current study adds to the literature examining the reliability and validity of this measure. Specifically, the current study sought to evaluate the long-term characteristics and predictive utility of the MAYSI-2 scale scores. This study utilized a sample of 8,929 boys (n = 6.780) and …

Relationship Predictors Of Unwanted Pursuit, Farrahdya Tassy

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The present study investigated relationship variables related to unwanted pursuit post dissolution of a romantic relationship. Online surveys were administered to 277 undergraduate and graduate students from a large southeastern university. Participants completed questionnaires that assessed levels of idealization, satisfaction, perceptions of alternatives to the relationship, investment size, commitment, and unwanted pursuit. These variables are often essential in romantic involvements, and contribute greatly to the continuation of a relationship. Additional measures of attachment, self-esteem, neuroticism, and jealousy were included to control for their potential effect on pursuit. The sample consisted of individuals who engaged in the pursuit of a former …

Evaluation Of Adult Lucas County Treatment Alternatives To Street Crime, Inc. (Tasc): Outcomes Related To Program Completion, Melissa W. Burek, Christine M. Englebrecht

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

The central purpose of this research was to evaluate the Lucas County, Ohio Treatment Alternatives to Street Crime (TASC) program for adult clients. The principal investigator was Associate Professor of Criminal Justice Melissa W. Burek, Ph.D. from Bowling Green State University (BGSU) in conjunction with Stacey Rychener, Ph.D., Director of the Center for Evaluation Services and associates at BGSU. Co-author of the report that follows was Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice Christine Englebrecht, Ph.D., also of BGSU. Data collection for the project began in January 2009 and completed in late March of same year.

We had three general objectives for …

A Quantitative Analysis Of Crime Rates In American Colleges And Universities With And Without Residential College Systems., Mavis Winona Fleenor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the residential college system to determine if there was any association between campus crime and the residential house system. The specific problem of this study was to determine the effectiveness of the residential college system in mitigating campus violence. The intent of this study was to analyze the statistical relationship between crime reports from colleges and universities where on-campus housing was structured into residential colleges or house systems and crime reports from comparable colleges and universities without the residential design. Data collection consisted of a Web-based nationwide survey conducted annually by …

The Conceptualization Of Genocide In The International Media: A Case Study Of Darfur, Kayla Costello

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Cross-national crime studies are often plagued with conceptualization issues. In specific, some countries may define certain acts of violence as crimes, whereas others may perceive these acts as justifiable or culturally prescribed. This difference in conceptualization is especially the case with the crime of genocide, which the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948 defines “as any of a number of acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” Despite this legal definition, countries, organizations, institutions or individuals may label a crisis as …

Land Use And Crime Patterns In Coquitlam Detachment, Kathryn Wuschke, Patricia Brantingham, Jordan Ginther

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications and Presentations

Poster presented to the Institute for Canadian Urban Research Studies in 2009. Examines land use and crime patterns in Coquitlam and Port Coquitlam. Data shows that commercial and civic, institutional, and recreational land uses display the highest rates of all crime types under investigation in both Coquitlam and Port Coquitlam.

Homicides Clearances An Analysis Of Arrest Versus Exceptional Outcomes, John P. Jarvis, Wendy C. Regoeczi

Sociology & Criminology Faculty Publications

A number of studies in the homicide clearance literature combine arrest and exceptional clearances into a single category. This study addresses the question of whether these divergent homicide case outcomes are influenced differently by various aspects of the case. Using National Incident-Based Reporting System data on homicides from 1996 to 2002, the authors analyze logistic regression models of cases cleared by arrest and exceptionally cleared. Our results show that although certain factors have similar influences on both arrest and exceptional clearances, victim gender, offender race, weapon use, victim/offender relationship, and circumstances have differing impacts on case outcomes. The …

Lower Crime Rates And Prisoner Recidivism, Stephanie Stravinskas

Honors College Theses

The transition from prison life back into society is not simple. The number of ex-prisoners that recidivate is alarming. Ex- offenders must find a residence, purchase life’s necessities and locate a job. In addition, many prisoners have not been rehabilitated, developed skills, or obtained an education while in prison. Focusing funds on rehabilitation programs instead of the construction of new prisons may be a more effective long-term strategy to reduce criminal activity. Strategies to reduce recidivism are discussed along with an analysis of what their implementation might entail.

Examining The Impact Of Drug Court Participation For Moderate And High Risk Offenders, Kara Kobus

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of drug court participation among moderate and high risk offenders. While studies have found that intensive programs, such as drug courts, are more effective when focusing their services on high risk offenders, few studies have examined the relationship between offender risk and drug court effectiveness. Using the Level of Service Inventory-Revised (LSI-R) as a measure of offender risk, the study employed a quasi-experimental design to compare outcomes of drug court participants (n=228) and a matched sample of probationers (n=252). The analyses showed that drug court participants had lower rates of …

Decentralizing Police Detectives: Increasing Efficiency Of Property Crime Investigations, Jon M. Zeh

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Beginning in November, 2007, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department implemented organizational changes to the Financial/Property Crimes Bureau by decentralizing all property crime detectives. Although no previous research was found on the decentralization of police detectives specifically, there is existing research on similar concepts that suggest at least two benefits of decentralizing police detectives: improved communication with patrol officers and increased efficiency of investigations. With these benefits in mind, the current study examines the following hypotheses: hypothesis 1: decentralizing property crime detectives will lead to improved quality of communication between property crime detectives and patrol officers; hypothesis 2: decentralizing property …

An Assessment Of Proposed Sex Offender Mobility And Residency Restrictions In Nevada, Samantha Dawn Beecher

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This research explores the impact of sex offender exclusion zones and residency restrictions proposed by Nevada Senate Bill 471. This law would prohibit sex offenders from being within 500 feet of places where children congregate and living within 1,000 feet of these places. Analyses conducted using Geographic Information Systems demonstrate the degree to which offender mobility, housing, employment, and access to social services may be restricted should the law be adopted and enforced. Data are also used to assess the potential impact of the law on victimization patterns. Policy implications, data limitations, and suggestions for future research are discussed.

An Evaluation Of Group Differences In Mentoring Programs' Perceived Outcomes, Jennifer Sue Anderson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Mentoring programs, like Big Brothers/Big Sisters (BBBS), focus on targeting at-risk youth in a preventative effort to increase pro-social behaviors as well as improving one's confidence, competence, and caring. These factors are important as they are indicative of the types of attachment bonds that insulate juveniles from delinquent behavior. Using data from a BBBS located in the Southeast part of the United States, the current study examined whether different groups of juveniles in mentoring programs are considered to be equally successful in promoting feelings of confidence, competence, and caring. Employing a series of one-way ANOVAs, no significant relationships were found …

Status And Slaughter: The Psycho-Social Factors That Influence Public Mass Murder, Stephen G. Van Geem

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Even though public mass shootings are relatively rare, they represent an atypical form of violence that is both sudden and yields an unprecedented amount of carnage; for these reasons, an inordinate amount of scholarship has been produced in order to isolate both the causes and effects of these rampages. As there is no clear cut and universal cause, over the past forty years numerous factors have been offered to account for these types of shootings, including bullying, peer relations, family problems, cultural conflict, demographic change, mental illness, gun culture, copycatting, and the media. While there appears to be an element …

We Don't Shoot Our Wounded..., Robyn Holder

Aboriginal Policy Research Consortium International (APRCi)

No abstract provided.

An Examination Of The Combined Impact Of Exposure To Intimate Partner Violence And Child Abuse Or Neglect On Juvenile Delinquency, Tracie R. Johnson

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to examine the relationship between children's exposure to intimate partner violence and child abuse or neglect on juvenile delinquency. Much of the research on this topic suggests that a disturbed home life can have a significant impact on delinquency among children. This study explores patterns of delinquency among a large group of children in the Seattle Washington area (n=877). Gender differences in violent and nonviolent delinquency are examined as well as the impact of witnessing intimate partner violence in the home is tested. Analyses reveal that gender, race, and exposure to intimate partner violence …

The Importance Of Responsivity Factors In Predicting Reductions In Antisocial Attitudes And Cognitive Distortions Among Adult Male Offenders, Dana Jones Hubbard, Jennifer Pealer

Sociology & Criminology Faculty Publications

The research has demonstrated that cognitive-behavioral treatment programs for offenders work to reduce recidivism. One reason these programs have been found to be effective is that they target one of the “number one” predictors of crime, antisocial attitudes and values. Unfortunately, these programs may not “work” for all offenders. The literature suggests that personal characteristics of offenders, although not directly related to recidivism, may in fact interfere or hinder the ability for the program to “work.” This is referred to in the literature as the “responsivity principle.” This study seeks to understand the role that personal or responsivity characteristics of …

Race, Class Or Neighborhood Context: Which Matters More In Measuring Satisfaction With Police?, Yuning Wu, Ivan Y. Sun, Ruth A. Triplett

Sociology & Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

The primary purpose of this study is to assess the relative effects of race and class, at both individual and neighborhood levels, on public satisfaction with police. Using hierarchical linear modeling on 1,963 individuals nested within 66 neighborhoods, this study analyzes how individual-level variables, including race, class, age, gender, victimization and contact with police, and neighborhood-level factors, including racial composition, concentrated disadvantage, residential mobility and violent crime rate, influence residents' satisfaction with police. The results from the individual-level analysis indicate that both race and class are equally important predictors. African Americans and lower-class people tend to be less satisfied with …

Snapshot: Massachusetts Statistics On Frequency Of Bullying And Cyberbullying (2008-09), Elizabeth Englander

MARC Publications

No abstract provided.

A Cross-Cultural, Comparative Analysis Of The Domestic Violence Policies Of Nicaragua And Russia, Jo-Ann Della Giustina

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

This is a cross-cultural comparative analysis of the domestic violence policies of Nicaragua and Russia. While these two countries have striking differences, they both had socialist revolutions that established workers and farmers governments. The Soviet Union was the main economic and political support for Nicaragua following the 1979 Frente Sandinista Para Liberacion Nacional (FSLN--Sandinista Front for National Liberation) revolution.

This article examines the domestic violence policies of post-Soviet Russia and Nicaragua. While both countries have serious domestic violence problems, only Nicaragua is taking an aggressive stance to eradicate the problem. The Russian government barely even acknowledges that there is a …

Examining Theoretical Predicators Of Substance Use Among A Sample Of Incarcerated Youth, David May, Kelly Cooper, Irina R. Soderstrom, G. Roger Jarjoura

Safety, Security and Emergency Management Faculty and Staff Scholarship

A wide variety of theoretical perspectives have been found to have an association with substance abuse. Most of these studies use data from samples of public school students and thus capture only part of the youth population. Using data from approximately 800 delinquents incarcerated in a Midwestern state, we examine the association between attitudes about drug and alcohol use and use of drugs and four theoretical perspectives: nonsocial reinforcement theory, social learning theory, social control theory, and strain theory. Our findings suggest that nonsocial reinforcement is the best predictor of both preference for and use of illegal substances among this …

Battered Women, Children And The End Of Abusive Relationships, Angela M. Moe

Sociology Faculty Publications

Much work has focused on the interpersonal dynamics of violent relationships, but less is known about the specific turning points that prompt women at least to try to end them. Using a feminist standpoint method and phenomenological-based analysis of in-depth interviews with mothers in a domestic violence shelter, this article focuses on the role of children in women’s decisions to leave abusive partners. It discusses arriving at the decision, the logistics involved in leaving and planning for the future, and it presents policy and advocacy-based recommendations that are aimed at addressing the social welfare of women and children.

The Effects Of Negative Childhood Experiences On The Severity Of Mental And Substance Abuse Disorders And Recidivism, Christie Lynn Gabriel

Theses Digitization Project

Overcrowded prisons are a growing problem in the United States. Currently, California prisons are over capacity 85%. Substance abuse increases the likelihood of criminality, for half of state prisoners admitted to being under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of their offense(s). A large portion of these individuals, once incarcerated, is also diagnosed with a mental illness. By researching dually diagnosed inmates who were participating in a 90-day in-custody treatment program, this study focuses on how negative family and school experiences become major contributors to adult mental and substance abuse disorders and criminality.

Sunday Friends: The Working Alternative To Charity, James D. Lee, Yoko Baba, Claudio V. Sanchez, Rebecca Wang, Chelsey White

Faculty Publications

Sunday Friends is a non-profit organization in San José, California, that provides multiple activities for families who are in need of financial support. Given the particular location of the program, most families are Latino and bilingual. Participants and program volunteers form a community at an elementary school on a couple of scheduled Sundays each month. When family members participate in activities designed to educate, improve skills, and to give back to the larger community, they earn tickets that they can redeem for items that they need and want from the Sunday Friends store. Activities include healthy cooking projects, “Thank You …

Cartograms, Crime And Location Quotients, Martin A. Andresen, Kathryn Wuschke, J. Bryan Kinney, Patricia Brantingham, Paul J. Brantingham

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications and Presentations

Visualizing spatial information has a long history in the field of cartography. Though there are generally accepted forms of spatial data visualization to represent different types of spatial data, the interpretation of the resulting maps tends to be subjective at best and incorrect, at worst. Cartograms are an increasingly popular form of spatial data visualization, recently applied in political and epidemiological analyses in an attempt to better represent the spatial data under analysis. We use the cartogram procedure to map crime rates and location quotients. Using this visualization approach, we are able to show the usefulness of cartograms to represent …

Land Use Based Crime Rates: Exploring Patterns Of Land Use And Crime Rates In Coquitlam And Port Coquitlam, Kathryn Wuschke

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications and Presentations

While it is certainly valuable to understand the counts of specific crime types by location, in order to contextualize the relationships between these features, rates are needed. Table 1 further explores this relationship by calculating the rate of each crime by land use. While rates are often employed using population as a denominator, such a measure is not practical when exploring crime at the parcel level. In this case, rates have been calculated according to crimes per 100 lots, producing an understandable and comparable value across all categories of land use and crime.

Land Use & Crime: Coquitlam/Port Coquitlam: Exploring How Violent, Property, Mischief And Drug Offences Relate To Land Uses, Kathryn Wuschke

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications and Presentations

Coquitlam and Port Coquitlam are two suburban cities that are currently undergoing rapid physical changes. In order to accommodate growing urban populations both within these locations, and in the wider surrounding region, Coquitlam Centre area has been designated as a Regional City Centre. It is intended to act as a downtown core for the neighbouring municipalities, and as such, is experiencing rapid redevelopment, focusing on mixed land uses and dense residential/commercial mixes. In an effort to understand and model the shifts in crime types and densities that may be associated with this redevelopment, ICURS has begun exploration of the relationship …

Firearm Forensics Based On Ballistics Cartridge Case Image Segmentation Using Colour Invariants, Dongguang Li

Australian Security and Intelligence Conference

Ballistics firearm identification based on image processing is of paramount importance in criminal investigation. The efficiency of traditional ballistics imaging system is heavily dependent upon the expertise and experience of end-user. An intelligent ballistics imaging system is highly demanded to address this issues. The segmentation of cartridge case object from the original image is a key step to subsequent process. It is very difficult to segment cartridge case from the original image using traditional threshold based methods due to the shadows or unlimited environments to acquire image. In this paper, we proposed a novel approach based upon the colour invariant …

Modeling Peer Influence And Peer Selection As Processes, Bob Edward Vasquez

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Behavioral scientists are aware of the strong and persistent correlation between peer and individual behavior. Evidence suggests selection and socialization effects explain the correlation, but the processes, or the details of the ways in which these effects operate in an empirical model, remain relatively unexamined.

Pleading Guilty For Life : An Exploration Of Plea Bargaining In The Face Of Death, Susan Ehrhard

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation explores decision making and the process of plea bargaining in aggravated murder cases. The study focuses on the extent to which, if any, the death penalty acts as a bargaining tool, inducing guilty pleas to sentences that would otherwise not be accepted, were the death penalty upon conviction at trial not a possibility. The role of the death penalty in this process is an important consideration and one that raises significant implications concerning the human and financial costs of capital punishment. Interviews with prosecutors and defense attorneys in a state where the maximum punishment for murder is death …