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Articles 121 - 137 of 137

Full-Text Articles in Social Control, Law, Crime, and Deviance

Defining Safety For Universities: The Slippery Conceptual Slope, Pam Jenkins Mar 2013

Defining Safety For Universities: The Slippery Conceptual Slope, Pam Jenkins

DRU Workshop 2013 Presentations – Disaster Resistant University Workshop: Linking Mitigation and Resilience

In this presentation, we address the issue of the fragility of campus safety. The uniqueness of a college campus creates a context for safety that requires an intentional and specific understanding. Campus life for many is no longer (or perhaps never was) ‘an ivory tower’— a place separated and protected from the rest of the community. However, many still have the attitude that a campus is not like the real world in the United States. And in fact, colleges and universities are often much safer and more open than communities around them. Yet, ask any student affairs director or safety …


False Promises: The Failure Of Secure Communities In Miami-Dade County, Alex Stepick, Steve Held, Cynthia S. Hernandez, Cheryl Little, Susana Barciela Jan 2013

False Promises: The Failure Of Secure Communities In Miami-Dade County, Alex Stepick, Steve Held, Cynthia S. Hernandez, Cheryl Little, Susana Barciela

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This report addresses the impact on Miami-Dade County of the Secure Communities program, currently one of the primary federal immigration enforcement programs administered by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). DHS claims that the program prioritizes the removal of convicted criminal aliens who pose a danger to national security or public safety, repeat violators who game the immigration system, those who fail to appear at immigration hearings, and fugitives who have already been ordered removed by an immigration judge.


The Transition To Adulthood And Independence: A Study Of Young People Leaving Residential Care, Mary Kilkenny Nov 2012

The Transition To Adulthood And Independence: A Study Of Young People Leaving Residential Care, Mary Kilkenny

Masters

The transition to adulthood is difficult for most young people. It is a time when young people make important decisions about their lives including their future education, career and living arrangements. Most young people have strong family and social networks to support them in these decisions. However, young people leaving residential care are often expected to make this transition abruptly and at a young age with no family or social networks to support them. The leaving and aftercare supports provided by the State are often not sufficient to provide for the needs of these young people leaving them at risk …


Predictive Policing: A Review Of The Literature, Portland State University. Criminology And Criminal Justice Senior Capstone Jul 2012

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. …


Pioneers Of Youth Justice Reform: Achieving System Change Using Resolution, Reinvestment, And Realignment Strategies, Douglas N. Evans Jun 2012

Pioneers Of Youth Justice Reform: Achieving System Change Using Resolution, Reinvestment, And Realignment Strategies, Douglas N. Evans

Publications and Research

In the past three decades, state and local governments implemented various reform strategies to reduce the youth justice system’s reliance on confinement facilities and serve as many youths as possible in their own homes or at least in their own communities when removal from the home is warranted. The various reform strategies may be conceptualized as relying on three distinct but interrelated mechanisms: resolution, reinvestment, and realignment (Butts and Evans 2011). Resolution refers to the use of managerial authority and administrative directives to influence system change; reinvestment entails using financial incentives to encourage system change, and realignment employs organizational and …


The Pedagogy Of Pornography: What Popular Pornography On The Internet Teaches Us About Aggression And Consent, Anthony Springrt Jr. Dec 2011

The Pedagogy Of Pornography: What Popular Pornography On The Internet Teaches Us About Aggression And Consent, Anthony Springrt Jr.

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Pornography remains a highly discussed and hotly debated topic within the academy and popular culture. Despite declining revenues for pornographic content, the proliferation of the Internet makes pornography easier to access than ever before. This study examines aggression and consent in popular pornography on the Internet. One hundred scenes across five highly trafficked Web sites’ “most viewed” sections were selected for analysis. Consistent with existing research literature, women were overwhelmingly the targets of aggressive acts and typically expressed consensual reactions to acts of aggression. The results are examined within the context of social learning theory to posit what ideas and …


The Writing On The Stall: Graffiti, Vandalism, And Social Expression, Brett Wolff Nov 2011

The Writing On The Stall: Graffiti, Vandalism, And Social Expression, Brett Wolff

Kaleidoscope

Graffiti and vandalism are everywhere in the modern city; they seem to be part of the typical urban background. While graffiti are usually associated with concrete walls, bridges and train cars, one particular area of focus of vandalistic writing is the walls and stalls of public bathrooms. This area, for both obvious, and sometimes unclear reasons, is a popular forum for anyone wanting to write. This project was conducted with the intent of better understanding these somewhat ubiquitous and seemingly mundane scribbles. As the first step toward this goal, a literature review of approaches to vandalism was conducted. This theoretical …


Resolution, Reinvestment, And Realignment: Three Strategies For Changing Juvenile Justice, Jeffrey A. Butts, Douglas N. Evans Sep 2011

Resolution, Reinvestment, And Realignment: Three Strategies For Changing Juvenile Justice, Jeffrey A. Butts, Douglas N. Evans

Publications and Research

In recent decades, legislators and administrators have created innovative policies to reduce the demand for expensive state confinement and to supervise as many young offenders as possible in their own communities. This report reviews the history and development of these strategies and portrays their methods as following one of three models: resolution, reinvestment, and realignment.


Addiction And Sociality: Perspectives From Methamphetamine Users In Suburban Usa, Paul Boshears, Miriam W. Boeri, Liam Harbry Aug 2011

Addiction And Sociality: Perspectives From Methamphetamine Users In Suburban Usa, Paul Boshears, Miriam W. Boeri, Liam Harbry

Faculty Articles

This article contributes to a growing body of literature that emphasizes the social nature of drug use, abuse and addiction. Current discourses of addiction tend to focus on the individual while limiting attention on the social environment and the role of sociality. We seek to contribute a more intuitive, insiders'' perspective of the drug trajectory and a broader conceptualization of addiction. Drawing from our qualitative study on 100 current and former methamphetamine users in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia (USA), we examined the trajectories of methamphetamine use to provide greater insight on what influences drug initiation, progression, cessation and relapse …


Drug Use Trajectory Patterns Among Older Drug Users, Miriam W. Boeri, Thor Whalen, Benjamin Tyndall, Ellen Ballard May 2011

Drug Use Trajectory Patterns Among Older Drug Users, Miriam W. Boeri, Thor Whalen, Benjamin Tyndall, Ellen Ballard

Faculty Articles

To better understand patterns of drug use trajectories over time, it is essential to have standard measures of change. Our goal here is to introduce measures we developed to quantify change in drug use behaviors. A secondary goal is to provide effective visualizations of these trajectories for applied use. We analyzed data from a sample of 92 older drug users (ages 45 to 65) to identify transition patterns in drug use trajectories across the life course. Data were collected for every year since birth using a mixed methods design. The community-drawn sample of active and former users were 40% female, …


Geographic Factors Of Residential Burglaries - A Case Study In Nashville, Tennessee, Jonathan A. Hall Nov 2010

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 …


Positive Youth Justice: Framing Justice Interventions Using The Concepts Of Positive Youth Development, Jeffrey A. Butts, Gordon Bazemore, Aundra Saa Meroe Apr 2010

Positive Youth Justice: Framing Justice Interventions Using The Concepts Of Positive Youth Development, Jeffrey A. Butts, Gordon Bazemore, Aundra Saa Meroe

Publications and Research

Positive youth development could be an effective framework for designing general interventions for young offenders. Such a framework would encourage youth justice systems to focus on protective factors and risk factors, strengths, problems, and broader efforts to facilitate successful transitions to adulthood for justice-involved youth. The positive youth development approach supports youth in successfully transitioning from adolescence to early adulthood by encouraging young people to develop useful skills and competencies and build stronger connections with pro-social peers, families, and communities (Butts, Mayer, & Ruth, & Ruth, 2005). Young people engaged with trustworthy adults and peers to pursue meaningful activities and …


Domestic Violence And Recidivism: Does Stake In Conformity Matter?, Sara R. Olson Apr 2010

Domestic Violence And Recidivism: Does Stake In Conformity Matter?, Sara R. Olson

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

Domestic violence is a pervasive problem throughout society and has been in existence since the beginning of interpersonal relationships. There have been changes in how the academic community, law enforcement, and the general public respond to this problem in the last thirty years. Punishments have become more punitive and mandatory arrest policies have been instituted. Mandatory arrest for domestic violence batterers has increased the number of batterers that are involved with the criminal justice system. In response to this increase, diversion to batterer treatment and other community based programs has taken the place of jail time for many offenders. This …


Sources Of Informal Social Control And The Relationship To Victimization In Southeastern Virginia, Jennifer R. Jones Oct 2009

Sources Of Informal Social Control And The Relationship To Victimization In Southeastern Virginia, Jennifer R. Jones

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

The link between community characteristics and crime has been at the forefront of criminological research for some time. Social disorganization theory focuses on the relationship between structural characteristics of communities and crime. Recent examination of the social disorganization perspective has emphasized the role of informal social control as mediating the effects of structural characteristics on victimization. In this study, contemporary social disorganization theory was tested using data from the U.S. Census Bureau: Census Tract Fact Finder (2000) and the Southeastern Virginia Community Survey (2008). This research addressed three central research questions: Is there a relationship between structural characteristics (i.e., poverty, …


Pathways To Drug And Sexual Risk Behaviors Among Detained Adolescents, Dexter R. Voisin Sep 2008

Pathways To Drug And Sexual Risk Behaviors Among Detained Adolescents, Dexter R. Voisin

Faculty Scholarship

This study recruited 559 youths from detention centers (mean age was 15.4 years; 50.1% of detainees were girls) to investigate pathways that link witnessing community violence in the 12 months before detainment to drug and sexual risk behaviors in the two months preceding detainment. Through the use of audio-computer-assisted technology, data were collected on demographics, family factors, peer influences, religiosity, witnessing community violence, and drug and sexual risk behaviors. When controlling for demographics and family variables, the authors found positive associations between witnessing community violence and drug and sexual risk behaviors. Witnessing community violence was directly linked to sexual risk …


Social Disorganization And The Ability And Willingness To Enact Control: A Preliminary Test, Ruth A. Triplett, Ivan Y. Sun, Randy R. Gainey Jan 2005

Social Disorganization And The Ability And Willingness To Enact Control: A Preliminary Test, Ruth A. Triplett, Ivan Y. Sun, Randy R. Gainey

Sociology & Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Dominant models in the social disorganization literature differentially focus on the ability of neighborhoods to enact social control and the willingness to do so. Despite the interest in both concepts, often no clear definition of either is provided, and there is little discussion of their relationship or how they interact to affect neighborhood crime rates. This paper begins to explore the relationship between ability and willingness to enact social control. The findings suggest that, for formal control, ability and willingness are closely related. Furthermore, at the aggregate level, concentrated disadvantage combined with perceived inability has a strong impact on neighborhood …


Gang Specific Policies And Regulations In The K-12 Educational Context, Jesse Christopher Cheng Jan 2003

Gang Specific Policies And Regulations In The K-12 Educational Context, Jesse Christopher Cheng

Social and Cultural Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

This paper is a modest step toward resolving a sorely underresearched question: How to counter the troublesome effects of youth gangs in the K-12 school setting?