Criminology Commons^™

How Generalizable Are Findings From Police Surveys? A Review Of Multi-Agency Studies, Erin M. Kearns, Justin Nix

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Policing scholars frequently use surveys to understand officer attitudes and behavioral intentions. Yet, it is difficult to gain access to one – let alone multiple – agencies. Thus, officer surveys often reflect views in a single department, making it unclear how generalizable the findings are. For the present study, we conducted an exploratory review of articles published in 16 criminology and policing journals from 2000 to 2017. We identified 600 studies that involved surveying one or more samples of police officers. From this list, we set out to determine: (1) how often authors administered their surveys to more than one …

The Evolving Role Of Women In The Sinaloa Cartel: An Analysis Of The Relationship Between Drug Trafficking Organizations, Female Agency, And Economic Mobility, Catherine Page, Kennady Leigh Hertz

Honors Theses

Exploring the role of women in Mexican drug trafficking organizations is a topic that has gained significant traction in the past 30 years. Despite the increase of literature on the topic, few papers theorize as to why women participate. This product sought to explore the various reasons why women participate in Mexican drug trafficking organizations, either willingly, or against their wishes. We hypothesized that women join drug trafficking organizations for two primary reasons: a) they are coerced by male figures in their life, and b.) they participate willingly in an effort to gain economic mobility. To test our hypothesis, we …

The Genome, Genetic Genealogy Database (3g Database), Salma Obaid Alotaibi

Online Theses and Dissertations

This is a qualitative research paper that used the content analysis method. Thirty-one sources which include journal articles, credible websites, and books were used to discuss the importance of having national and global genetic databases. DNA phenotyping is the technology used in criminal justice to identify crime suspects through observable traits in their DNA. This can play a key role in convicting the right crime perpetrators and avoiding future court appeals. It also helps during disaster recovery, where the victims are identified based on their DNA samples. Law enforcement agencies frequently use DNA to identify victims and solve high-profile cases …

Giglio Feds: The Void Of Ethical Leadership Within Federal Law Enforcement, Christopher J. Boosey

Helm's School of Government Conference - 2021-2024

No abstract provided.

Crossfire In The Crosshairs: Why Prosecutions Are Necessary In The Interests Of The Republic, Christopher J. Boosey

Helm's School of Government Conference - 2021-2024

No abstract provided.

Experiences Of Youth In Confinement: Pathways Of Racial-Ethnic Disparities In Juvenile Corrections, Kimbla Newsom

Theses and Dissertations

Of the vast body of research focusing on the racial and ethnic disparities (RED) phenomenon in the juvenile justice system, much of the attention has been at critical points of system contact such as arrest and disposition, while overlooking what happens within critical stages such as confinement facilities. This dissertation investigates the ways in which youth experiences in juvenile confinement facilities differ across racial and ethnic groups. Findings reveal that race and ethnicity is a significant predictor of a youth experiencing more control-oriented interventions, longer lengths of stay in confinement, and fewer connections to reentry services. The dissertation concludes with …

A Mixed Methods Approach To Police Decertification, Lacey Roughton

Theses and Dissertations

The decertification of police officers is an important mechanism for law enforcement accountability for those who engage in misconduct, however, we have limited knowledge on the processes and outcomes of this form of police accountability. By using a convergent mixed methods design, the purpose of this study was to understand the process in which police decertification occurs and factors that influence decertification decisions in a Southern state. The data for this study included decertification case evidence packets, observational data from decertification hearings, and in-depth qualitative interviews with commissioners involved in police officer decertification case decisions. The findings from this study …

Not A Monolith: Influence Of Race And Religiosity On Muslim Perceptions Of Police, Arsala Aneeq Khan

Theses and Dissertations

Muslim perceptions of police are not often understood. In order to better understand these attitudes, this dissertation approached Muslim respondents with two main factors in mind: racial identity and religiosity, both identities that often set Muslims apart from other Americans. This dissertation asked respondents four questions about police respect, police importance, police use of force and police defunding. The data for this dissertation was collected by Yaqeen Institute of Islamic Research in summer 2020. In order to compute these questions, a series of structural equation models were run. Findings included Muslim respondents who were aware of discrimination in mosques and …

A Quantitative Analysis Of Gender Inequality On Efforts To Reduce Human Trafficking In Countries, Amelia Simmons

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

The phenomenon of human trafficking is a growing problem that affects millions worldwide. Literature on the subject suggests that inequality between men and women can be a crucial factor in determining national efforts to combat trafficking in persons. This research studies the association between a country’s efforts to reduce trafficking with the measure of inequality being the literacy rate difference and unemployment rate difference between men and women in each country. An analysis of variance yielded statistically significant results that national efforts to combat human trafficking were associated with inequality between men and women in those nations. Discussion on how …

Quantifying The Effect Of Socio-Economic Predictors And The Built Environment On Mental Health Events In Little Rock, Ar, Alfieri Ek, Grant Drawve, Samantha Robinson, Jyotishka Datta

Sociology and Criminology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Law enforcement agencies continue to grow in the use of spatial analysis to assist in identifying patterns of outcomes. Despite the critical nature of proper resource allocation for mental health incidents, there has been little progress in statistical modeling of the geo-spatial nature of mental health events in Little Rock, Arkansas. In this article, we provide insights into the spatial nature of mental health data from Little Rock, Arkansas between 2015 and 2018, under a supervised spatial modeling framework. We provide evidence of spatial clustering and identify the important features influencing such heterogeneity via a spatially informed hierarchy of generalized …

Nature And Nurture: How They Play A Role In Serial Killers And Their Victims (1970-1999), Sarah Mroczkowski

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

Investigating the relationship between a serial killer’s nature (their biological makeup) and nurture (their learned behavior) is important due to the fact that any trauma they experienced as a child makes them more likely to offend as an adult. This study investigated how nature (e.g., biological brain damage and the MAOA gene) and nurture (e.g., their physical upbringing) affected serial killers, specifically the number of their victims, during the ‘serial killer era’ (1970 to 1999). All serial killers meeting our criteria were studied to determine to what extent they were abused as a child, the number of victims they had, …

The 1985 Move Bombing: A Study In Perspectives, Kaci Delisle

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

On May 13, 1985, Philadelphia police dropped a military grade bomb on 6221 Osage Avenue, a row house in a Black neighborhood in West Philadelphia. This home was occupied by a revolutionary group called MOVE. The bomb started a fire that the police and firefighters decided to “contain” rather than put out, resulting in the deaths of eleven people and the destruction of sixty-one homes. Only two MOVE members survived the fire. Using court records, documents from the investigation conducted by the Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission (PSIC), and other interviews regarding MOVE and the bombing, this paper reconstructs different perspectives …

Public Opinion On Compensating Different Types Of Wrongful Convictions, Sishi Wu

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

People who are wrongfully convicted are a unique vulnerable group. However, not all exonerees get compensated for their time in prison. This research explores public opinion on compensating wrongful convictions from erroneously rejected affirmative defenses and from false guilty pleas. Using a randomized survey experiment of 1,000 US adults, this research found that (1) most respondents supported wrongful conviction compensation, regardless of wrongful conviction types and plea status. (2) Wrongful conviction types matter. People supported compensating exonerees in the self-defense case as much as in the wrong person case. The amount of compensation people gave in the mistaken self-defense case …

Brutality Behind Bars: A Look At Prison Violence In Ecuador, Zulema Alejandra Palacios Jaramillo

Graduate Masters Theses

Prisons are frequently perceived as spaces where those unwanted by society are placed. Thus, they are often purposefully ignored and left under-served. This is the reality of prisons and inmates in Ecuador, where violence has reached unprecedented levels, raising concerns about its causes. As this thesis shows, violence inside prisons is not an isolated incident only provoked by the restrictive nature of detention centers, or the character of inmates, but rather a manifestation of a complex mix of institutional, organizational, criminological, and social factors at play in the country. This thesis aims at understanding, from a conflict resolution perspective, what …

Effects Of Witnessing Terrorist Attacks On Perceived Causes Of Terrorism And Support For Security Measures, Austin Trevor Sullivan

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The following research aims to understand how individuals who were aware of, and affected by, terrorist attacks at the time they took place perceive the causes of terrorism and support security measures. It is hypothesized that the extent to which one â??witnessedâ?? attacks characterized by more traditional forms of terrorism, such as bombings and religiously motivated and affiliated perpetrators (Wave four), versus new forms of terrorism, such as shootings and lone wolves (Wave five), would be affected by the age of the witness. This research proposes an indirect pathway from age to "witnessing" terrorist attacks to attributions for the attacks …

Exploring The Mediating Link Between Stressful Life Events, Adverse Psychological Effects, And Ipv Victimization, Valeria Torres-Rivera

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Purpose: Research has established that violent victimization is influenced by a variety of life events and psychological effects. However, limited research has examined this relationship with a specific type of victimization, such as intimate partner violence (IPV). To fill this gap in the literature, this study aims to test whether stressful life conditions induce adverse psychological effects on a person, which then may lead to IPV victimization. Methods: To test this, a series of regression analyses are conducted. Data from the American subsample of the International Dating Violence Study (n = 4,162) are analyzed to test the link between stressful …

Dynamic Risk Trajectories, Community Context, And Juvenile Recidivism, Kevin T. Wolff, Michael T. Baglivio, Jonathan Intravia

Publications and Research

Purpose

While the implementation of risk assessment has expanded, the extent to which there are different trajectories of risk/protective factors among adjudicated youth during supervision in the community remains unanswered. The goal of the current study is to identify the distinct trajectories in dynamic risk and protective factors among youth on probation and assess whether different patterns in risk over time are associated with continued offending.

Method

Group-based trajectory modeling is used to identify distinct trajectories across multiple domains of risk/need. The individual- and neighborhood-level factors associated with these trajectories are then explored, prior to examining their relationship to continued …

Alternative Approaches To Police Interventions When Responding To Mental Health Crises Incidents, Karen Rivera Apolinar

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Purpose: This study explored mental health workers perspectives on alternative approaches in responding to mental health crises.

The study was carried out in Southern California, in collaboration with mental health workers who currently work or previously have worked in mental health crisis. It adopted a post-positivists paradigm and data was gathered through individual interviews with mental health workers who have direct experience with mental health crisis response in the community and with the police. The twenty participants in the study were men and women working in the mental health field, and of various backgrounds, licensures, and ages.

The study found …

Generative Stresnet For Crime Prediction, Ba Phong Tran, Hoong Chuin Lau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this work, we combine STResnet (Zhang et al., 2017) with VAE Kingma & Welling (2013) to generate crime distribution. The outputs can be used for downstream tasks such as patrol deployment planning Chase et al. (2021).

Unidentified Deceased Persons: Who Are At-Risk?, Sarah Duncan

All Theses

This study explores the silent mass disaster of unidentified deceased persons that is occurring across the United States and identifies the individual and community level characteristics that make a person “at-risk” of becoming an unidentified deceased person within the United States. This study identifies trends-based hotspots by using data reported on the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) and comparing those trends to the gender United States population. It finds that males, and age of death between 20-64 are overrepresented and White persons are underrepresented in the unidentified deceased person sample when compared the general population. Social and human …

Supervision In The Digital Age: Online Sexual Solicitation Of Children And Youth, Kaitlyn Taylor Swanberg

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Since the creation of the internet, offenders have been using cyberspace as a means to solicit children and adolescents for sexual content. With children having unrestricted access to the internet at an earlier age than ever before, it is crucial for academics to better understand the digital world in order to protect children online. This study aims to understand the relationship between internet activities, age, and online sexual solicitation largely using an environmental criminology framework, utilizing the Routine Activities Theory by Cohen and Felson (1979) and Target Congruence Theory by Finkelhor and Asdigian (1996). The sample of this study consisted …

The In/Visible Stockade: Sex Offender Management, Governmentality, And The Search For Normal Life, Christopher Wakefield

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Over the past thirty-five years, the United States has seen a dramatic expansion of regulatory policy around individuals convicted of sexual offenses. Sex offender management policies include national and state registries, notification laws, treatment mandates, residency restrictions, and numerous exclusions from institutions. A growing body of research from sociologists and criminologists has tracked the effects of this sex offender regime by measuring recidivism and collateral consequences among released offenders. Less attention has been paid to how sex offenders adapt to their regulator context—especially the selective public visibility that the registry generates. Furthermore, sociological scholarship has not yet developed strong theoretical …

Finish This Over Drinks? A Study Of Sexual Harassment Perceptions, Hannah E. Barti

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The awareness of sexual harassment has been growing within the workplace, in the home, and within public areas. The #MeToo movement has shined light on this issue in recent years. This study aimed to understand how college students perceive sexual harassment within three scenarios: a music student and their teacher, two coworkers, and between an academic advisor and an adult student. This study included 531 responses from a diverse student population at a Southwest university. Consistent with previous findings, women were more likely to recognize sexually harassing behaviors. There were no significant gender differences in blame attribution in any of …

Police And Their Relationship With The Public, Kevin Hebri

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This research essay aims to understand some of the social themes relevant to issues present between the public and the police institutions of the United States. Existing literature about this topic has noted the decentralized nature of law enforcement in the United States and the differences in policies and procedures used by different police departments and agencies. The existing literature has also cited the importance of police officer discretion and the situational factors that contribute to their decision-making. Occupational stress, and characteristics of a civilian involved in a police interaction, influence the decision-making process for police officers. This research is …

Supporting Reentry At The Egocentric Level: Investigating The Role Social Networks Play Post Incarceration, Jennifer Perretti

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Reentry is an important subject matter to investigate. With high incarceration and recidivism rates it is essential to highlight ways to reduce the flow of offenders into the criminal justice system and understand how to foster desistance. Borrowing from social capital theory, this study investigates the barriers reentrants face, their ability to overcome these obstacles and the role supportive and non-supportive relationships play in reintegration. Exploring how offenders’ networks constrain or support community reentry, this study found that structural characteristics indicative of higher social capital covaried with successful reentry. Thematic coding of open-ended survey responses revealed that quality of social …

The Impact Of Childhood Experiences On Involvement And Confidence In Social Institutions, Jordan Sydney Donohue

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Childhood is made up of a wide array of both negative and positive experiences. One potential negative childhood experience may be understood as childhood maltreatment. Childhood maltreatment consists of physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, or neglect prior to age 18 (World Health Organization, 2020). Neighborhood, family, and school dynamics are other areas in a child’s life that may create difficulties and challenges. Prior research has concluded that negative outcomes are associated with poor school, community, and family dynamics (Coulton, 2007; Lansford, 2009; Split et al., 2012). Previous research has also examined the impact of childhood maltreatment on different domains …

The Impact Of Attachment And Optimism On Delinquency, Kaylee Dawn Faria

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this study is to assess if justice-involved juveniles’ optimism toward future prospects mediates the relationship between parental and peer attachment and the likelihood of future delinquency. Theory and prior research support the argument that there is a negative relationship between parental and peer attachment and delinquency, and a negative relationship between optimism and delinquency. This study attempts to expand on this research by exploring whether parental and peer attachments influence delinquency through their influence on optimism for future prospects. This study utilizes data from the Pathways to Desistance Study, a panel study of seriously justice-involved youth, to …

Occupational Therapy Fieldwork In An Emerging Justice-Based Setting: Hope For Prisoners, Noah Claypool

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This capstone occurred through a partnership with HOPE for Prisoners in Las Vegas, Nevada. As an emerging area of practice, the occupational therapy profession needs more resources and programs focused on the justice system. The lack of evidence-based resources to support future level I fieldwork students at HOPE for Prisoners poses a barrier for students to maximize their fieldwork experience and effectively engage with the organization’s population of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated men, women, and young adults in southern Nevada.This capstone experience involved a 14-week immersion at HOPE for Prisoners, including participation in training and workshops and engagement with clients, …

Coercive Sexuality: The Effect Of Early Victimization On One’S Views And Attitudes Toward Sex, Kevin Elias Hoover

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The prevalence of childhood sexual abuse is difficult to assess but research is growing on possible long-term consequences of this victimization. Two areas of concern are potential repeat victimization and changed attitudes toward the coercive nature of sexuality. Children who have their sexual boundaries violated at a young age may be more likely to experience sexual assault later in life (Scoglio et al., 2021). Research continues to confirm that many sexual abusers were in fact abused themselves as children (King et al., 2019). This research seeks to make connections between these experiences of sexual victimization and support for coercive sexual …

A Comparative Analysis Of The European And American Child Advocacy Model To Address Violence Against Children, Abigail Champion

Undergraduate Research Symposium

This presentation attempts to explain how each of the child advocacy models in the United States and Europe are different and similar. In addition, the presentation demonstrates how each model addresses violence against children. The slideshow provides examples of tools and resources therapists, social workers, and other social scientists use in the field. Lastly, the slideshow offers solutions and references on how the audience can become advocates and learn more information about child advocacy, child advocacy centers, and the different careers people can work in the child advocacy area.