Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons^™

Police Perceptions And Decision Making Related To Domestic Minors Trafficked Through Prostitution, Donna Sue Belin

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In spite of a paradigm shift redefining domestic minors trafficked through prostitution as victims instead of criminal offenders, many police officers experience uncertainty in the way they evaluate the nature of domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST) and assess the culpability status of prostituted minors. This problem often results in revictimizing children and hindering their ability to access needed services. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore police officers' perceptions of minors engaged in prostitution and derive an understanding of the experiences, beliefs, and values that underlie these perceptions. The study also focused on how these factors influence …

Predictors Of Community Supervision Failures Among Female Offenders, Fayola Wolfe

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

This study explored the predictors of community supervision failures amongst female offenders in the United States criminal justice system. Female offenders have, in comparison with male offenders, particular challenges for community reintegration. This study used the relational theory and Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory to investigate the effects of childhood trauma on adult female offenders' behaviors, including substance use disorder and mental health issues. Secondary archival data were obtained from the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency's AUTO Screener and Supervision and Management Automated Record Tracking System; this data pool included information on 1,085 female offenders who had served at …

The Initiation Process And Factors Associated With Adolescent Female Gang Membership, Clara Saavedra

Criminology & Criminal Justice Theses - Archive

This study sought to address the numerous internal and external factors associated with gang membership among adolescent females as well as the various ways females are initiated into the gang subculture. Motivations and initiation rites were determined based on a series of audio-recorded focus group interviews conducted on 16 female gang members from the North Texas region. The purpose was to identify internal/external factors as well as initiation methods in order to develop programs to reduce or prevent female gang membership.

The Influence Of A Juvenile's Abuse History On Support For Sex Offender Registration, Cynthia J. Najdowski, M. C. Stevenson, J. M. Salerno, T. R. A. Wiley, B. L. Bottoms, K. M. Farnum

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

We investigated whether and how a juvenile’s history of experiencing sexual abuse affects public perceptions of juvenile sex offenders in a series of 5 studies. When asked about juvenile sex offenders in an abstract manner (Studies 1 and 2), the more participants (community members and undergraduates) believed that a history of being sexually abused as a child causes later sexually abusive behavior, the less likely they were to support sex offender registration for juveniles. Yet when participants considered specific sexual offenses, a juvenile’s history of sexual abuse was not considered to be a mitigating factor. This was true when participants …

A Historical Review And Resource Guide To The Scholarship Of Teaching And Training In Psychology And Law And Forensic Psychology, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Bette L. Bottoms, Margaret C. Stevenson, Jennifer C. Veilleux

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

The field of psychology and law, including forensic psychology, is an exciting concentration of research activity and student training and has grown rapidly, but to what extent have teaching and training efforts in the field been systematically catalogued and evaluated? We conducted a historical review and content analysis of the American and Canadian literature on the scholarship of teaching and training in the field. This review catalogs (a) information related to the development of training and teaching, (b) descriptions of programs and courses at various levels, and (c) articles on teaching resources or techniques in this field. We hope it …

Culpability And Modern Crime, Samuel W. Buell

Faculty Scholarship

Criminal law has developed to prohibit new forms of intrusion on the autonomy and mental processes of others. Examples include modern understandings of fraud, extortion, and bribery, which pivot on the concepts of deception, coercion, and improper influence. Sometimes core offenses develop to include similar concepts, such as when reforms in the law of sexual assault make consent almost exclusively material. Many of these projects are laudable. But progressive programs in substantive criminal law can raise difficult problems of culpability. Modern iterations of criminal offenses often draw lines using concepts involving relative mental states among persons whose conduct is embedded …

The Formation And Deployment Of Swat In The Ivory Towers, Paul Grant

Online Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to investigate the formation of SWAT teams on college campuses and some of the reasoning behind their deployments. The study provides an overview of the early formation of SWAT, policing in a college setting and finally the creation of such teams that began in municipal policing but have migrated into campus law enforcement.

Data for this study was collected using a 20 question survey sent to college campuses that are members of IACLEA or International association of college law enforcement administrators. The return rate was 37% and the surveys were analyzed using SPSS version …

Intimate Partners In Crime: Utilizing Life Course To Examine Female Criminality, Emily Ann Hayden

Online Theses and Dissertations

Employing a life-course framework, this research examines how various relationship typologies expands Sampson and Laub’s (2003) discussion of ‘marriage’ as a crucial mechanism involved in desistence. Moreover, recent contributions to life-course theory has identified a void in the literature in regards to how ‘turning points’ operate within female offenders. As such, this research fills those gaps by re-conceptualizing relationship typologies and focusing on the similarities between marriage and relationships. Two research questions are explored: If marriage is a turning point for crime, do non-marital relationships have a similar effect? If so, do different qualities and typologies of relationship status provoke …

Destroying Blackness One Body At A Time: Examining The Mediated Representations Of Lynchings Past And Present, Bethany Callan Nelson

Online Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the politics of racial violence in America. Lynchings have served as a means for controlling black communities since the end of the Civil War. For southerners, the model of the plantation economy had to be followed during industrialization in order to maintain social and economic hierarchies. This paper examines numerous aspects of lynchings and their legal justifications as foundational to modern police and vigilante killings. A critical race virtual ethnography was conducted to explore the similarities and differences between historical lynchings and the recent killings of black men in the media. I have outlined that there are …

5-0 Is Not Coming To Save You: Examining The Lack Of Police Intervention In Lgbtq Intimate Partner Violence, Lucais Wallen

Online Theses and Dissertations

Intimate partner violence (IPV) has garnered a lot of attention by the criminal justice system, the media and, academia. Intimate partner violence laws have seen drastic changes over the past hundred years often coupled with the changes of culture and society. Though intimate partner violence surely warrants that attention, the growing and important issue of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) intimate partner violence has largely been ignored. The ongoing struggle of LGBTQ community for equality has not as of yet been a catalyst for drastic legal change. Utilizing narratives from victims of intimate partner violence from around the …

Everybody Matters: A Mixed-Methods Analysis Of Support Services Available To Survivors Of Human Trafficking In Central Kentucky, Arika Morgan Bow

Online Theses and Dissertations

This research is designed to identify service and capacity gaps that exist and need to be addressed in Central Kentucky to improve the provision of social services for survivors of human trafficking. Relying upon in-depth interviews with individuals from different organizations/agencies (e.g., social service providers, federal and local law enforcement agencies, human trafficking task forces) in Central Kentucky that work on human trafficking and with survivors, this research provides a comprehensive picture of the social services available to survivors of human trafficking, including the need for additional services. This research offers an analysis of the capacity gaps that exist, making …

Fear In The World Of Social Media, Jamie E. Hildreth

Criminology & Criminal Justice Theses - Archive

Many researchers believe that perception of crime is formed by how crime is presented or framed by news media. News media has previously been society's only gateway to the rest of the world. "Violent crimes are prominent and presented as the norm in news media and commercial television programs, thus providing millions of people with a daily diet of rape, murder and drug abuse" (Greer, 2005). Emergence of social media may be removing many of the controls news media had in place with instantaneous, supposedly unbiased, unfiltered information. Social media may also be exacerbating the effects of news media by …

School Interventions And Criminality: An Analysis Into The Types Of School Interventions And Criminality, Holton Silas Hemby

Criminology & Criminal Justice Theses - Archive

The study focuses on the types of school interventions used in the educational system in order to understand a correlation with criminality. The participants consist of 105 individuals that were sentenced to probation in Parker County, Texas, from January 1, 2015 to February 28, 2015. The research displays gender, race, education, school interventions, juvenile criminality, and adult criminality from the participants of Parker County Community Supervision and Corrections Department. The variables of the participants were then analyzed through a cross tabulation and logistical regression. According to the results, there is no significant association with school interventions and adult criminality. In …

Gang Activity: A Deeper Analysis Into The Types Of Crime Committed By Gang Members, Zane Lehman Nash

Criminology & Criminal Justice Theses - Archive

The aim of this study is to get a better understanding of the different types of gang-related crime. The arrests of 410 gang members in Arlington, Texas from 2010-2014 are the subjects of analysis. These records display the date of arrest, age, committed offense, and gang affiliation of each gang member arrested by the Arlilngton Police Department's gang unit during this time span. Characteristics of gang members, such as age and gang type, were compared to attributes of gang-related offenses. Gang members were broken down into different age groups and gang classifications, while criminal offenses were categorized as being violent, …

Efficacy Of Property Marking As A Situational Crime Prevention Strategy, David J. Brooks, Michael Coole, Chauncey Johnson, Jeff Corkill, Malcolm Jenkinson

Australian Security and Intelligence Conference

Burglary and stealing are crimes that have a significant impact and cost on its victims and society. To mitigate such crimes, property marking is a situational crime prevention strategy that attempts to prevent through dissuasion. There are many forms of property marking, yet there is limited research of its efficacy. Where there have been such studies, there has been some indications of success. Therefore, the study assessed the efficacy of property marking to reduce burglary and stealing crimes. The study undertook a quantitate approach using non-equivalent control groups to assess the geo-spatial impact of property marking when applied at a …

Tragic Choices In Ideological Battles: Gay Rights Versus Religious Freedom, Anthony Walsh

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications and Presentations

A major domestic issue in the United States today is the battle between gay rights and religious liberty. It is an issue often framed as a zero-sum battle where one side must lose and be faced with a tragic choice. Thus far, it has only been religious individuals who believe marriage is only supposed to be between men and women, and who act on this belief who have been made to make this choice. Religious believers connected to the wedding industry who refuse to facilitate gay weddings have been faced with the tragic choice of either abandoning their faith or …

Police Opinions Of Digital Evidence Response Handling In The State Of Georgia: An Examination From The Viewpoint Of Local Agencies’ Patrol Officers, Tanya Macneil

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

This research examined opinions of local law enforcement agencies’ patrol officers in the State of Georgia regarding preparedness and expectations for handling of digital evidence. The increased criminal use of technology requires that patrol officers be prepared to handle digital evidence in many different situations. The researcher’s goal was to gain insight into how patrol officers view their preparedness to handle digital evidence as well as their opinions on management expectations regarding patrol officers’ abilities to handle digital evidence. The research focused on identifying whether a gap existed between patrol officers’ opinions of digital evidence and the patrol officers’ views …

Creating An Operational Security Management Structure For Inimical Environments: Papua New Guinea As A Case Study, William J. Bailey

Australian Security and Intelligence Conference

Security is a necessary cost for businesses wishing to operate in the developing economy of Papua New Guinea. The country continues to face levels of crime and violence out of proportion to other East Asian countries; which deters many would be investors. However, the potential in PNG is vast and eagerly sought after despite the high costs required to operate without harm, therefore, it is necessary manage the security situation. Experience from similar countries has shown by using optimal security management systems and structures it is possible to work safely, securely and effectively, but this requires a comprehensive security, threat …

University Student Beliefs About Sexual Violence In Prison: Rape Myth Acceptance, Punitiveness, And Empathy, Laura L. King, Kathleen J. Hanrahan

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications and Presentations

Although prison rape has been recognised for years, it began to receive increased attention in the USA following the passage of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). In addition to prevalence and victimisation estimates, several researchers have examined the attitudes of correctional personnel towards prison rape. However, few have surveyed the opinions of those not currently working in the criminal justice system. Drawing from the body of research on rape myths, our goal was to examine prison rape myth acceptance among a university student sample to describe these beliefs, as well as examine attitudinal correlates. The findings indicated that prison …

Organized Crime In Insurance Fraud: An Empirical Analysis Of Staged Automobile Accident Rings, Chris Longino

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The growing trend of insurance fraud continues to cost US consumers billions of dollars a year through increased premiums. In 2015, the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud estimated the cost of insurance fraud as being at least $80 billion dollars a year. Even though an increasing number of criminals are drawn to the low risk, high reward of insurance fraud, little criminological literature has explored this topic and the public remains relatively unaware of the extent of the problem.

One alarming aspect of insurance fraud is the involvement of organized criminal groups. These organized criminal enterprises are formed for the sole …