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- Creators: School of Criminology and Criminal Justice
- Creators: Young, Alexander
Description
A music therapy informed music group program was created and implemented at the Maricopa Reentry Center in Phoenix. This program \u2014 entitled Building Hope Through Music \u2014 utilized music therapy techniques including lyric analysis, songwriting, singing, musical games, and guided visualization in order to improve self-awareness, provide a medium for self-expression, increase teamwork and collaboration, promote relaxation, facilitate emotional processing and awareness, and improve tolerance of non-preferred activities in participants. This group was conducted for seven months and had participation from over 400 male ex-offenders.
ContributorsQuirbach, Rachel Marie (Author) / Wright, Kevin (Thesis director) / Thompson, Jason (Committee member) / Belgrave, Melita (Committee member) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor) / School of Music (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Recidivism rates in the United States are alarmingly high. The vast number of inmates who re- offend upon release and re-enter into correctional facilities upsets people and many individuals focus their blame on the private and public prisons. Currently, the research that is available on private and public prisons is unpersuasive because it creates a harsh polarization between the two prison systems. The benefits as well as the detriments of each sector are explained in great detail, but all of the current research is lacking one thing: insider experience. The majority of the available research is conducted by people behind a computer screen or behind the binding of a book. While a wide variety of different articles, short stories, and journals have been published and are readily available to eager readers and researchers, these arguments repeat themselves and fail to weigh the complex merits of each system against the other; specifically, each body of work is lacking knowledge from people who have experienced both private and public prisons from an internal perspective. To compensate for this lack of ethnographic research, the current study allows the reader to get an internal perspective of public and private prisons. This was done by interviewing two wardens who have served on the federal, state, and private levels as well as touring a private correctional facility in Arizona. These experiences paved the way for novel research to be conducted and was used as a tool to weave the complicated web of private and public prisons in the United States. Findings, interviews, and ideas for the future of prisons are discussed.
ContributorsTometich, Drake (Author) / Wright, Kevin (Thesis director) / Young, Jacob (Committee member) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Prison re-entry is a complicated process and is associated with a number of challenges for offenders to overcome. Unfortunately, many are not successful at navigating this process, and consequently, recidivism is a prevalent concern within the criminal justice system. These concerns are problematic with drug offenders, specifically, as this group is a quite pervasive component of the correctional population in America and one that tends to face more difficult experiences with reintegrating into society. In addition, a substantial need for substance abuse treatment in the community is in place for these offenders, yet is not necessarily readily available. This study examines the accessibility and nature of such treatment through the use of interviews with community treatment providers. It also assesses the barriers offenders face accessing help as well as potential solutions to these obstacles. The findings suggest that independence, support networks, resistance to treatment, motivation to change, rule conformity, mental illness, institutionalization, a lack of resources, and restrictions within the agencies that provide treatment are all significant factors in recovery. The results then demonstrate that treatment providers are able to provide incentives to bolster motivation, encourage healthy mindsets, help gain access to the resources that are available, and validate success through celebration in order to overcome these difficulties. The study may be limited by a potentially non-generalizable sample and a lack of specificity could be addressed by more expansive but focused research in the future as well as financial analyses to raise awareness regarding the severity of the situation.
ContributorsJohnson, Nicole Jolene (Author) / Chamberlain, Alyssa (Thesis director) / Wright, Kevin (Committee member) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
Abstract What began in 1971 as a "War on Drugs," led to the political position of being "tough on crime" and has ultimately given birth to the mass incarceration crisis that we see in 2017. The United States composes 5% of the world's population, yet holds 25% of the world's incarcerated. At least 95% of those incarcerated in the United States will be released at some time and each year, 690,000 people are released from our prisons. These "criminals" become our neighbors, our colleagues, and our friends. However, the unfortunate reality is that they will go back to prison sooner than we can embrace them. In order to end this cycle of recidivism, higher education in prison must be made more available and encouraged. Those who participate in education programs while incarcerated have a 43% less chance of recidivating than those inmates who do not participate. This thesis dissects that statistic, focusing on higher education and the impact it has on incarcerated students, how it affects society as a whole, and the many reasons why we should be actively advocating for it. Additionally, I wish to demonstrate that students, educators, and volunteers, as a collective, have the power to potentially change the punitive function of the prison system. That power has been within education all along. While statistics and existing research will play heavily in the coming pages, so will anecdotes, first-hand experiences, assessments of established programs, and problems that still need to be overcome. By no means are the following pages a means to an end, but rather a new beginning in the effort to change the interpretation of being "tough on crime." Keywords: higher education, prison, recidivism
ContributorsGood, Hannah Rose (Author) / Wells, Cornelia (Thesis director) / Herrera, Richard (Committee member) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
The objective of this study was to determine whether prosecutors would be more inclined to prosecute a juvenile sex offense case when the offender is gay versus straight. I also tested whether the effect of offender sexual orientation would be different for male versus female juvenile offenders. Based on previous research showing leniency toward lesbian juvenile sex offenders among laypeople, I hypothesized that prosecutors would be more likely to prosecute a case in which the offender was gay instead of heterosexual—but only if they were boys. In contrast, if the offenders were lesbians, I hypothesized that prosecutors would be less inclined to prosecute, compared to heterosexual girls. Based on survey data, I found that prosecutors’ decisions to prosecute were not affected by the offender’s gender or sexuality, but their impressions of the offender were. Prosecutors perceived males to be more likely to recidivate than females. Specifically, gay males were perceived as more likely to recidivate than heterosexual males; however the difference between lesbians and heterosexuals were nearly indistinguishable. Prosecutors also viewed gay males as having more negative attributes than heterosexual males. Contrarily, lesbian girls were perceived as having slightly less negative attributes than heterosexual girls. Still, females overall were perceived as having less negative attributes than males. These impressions on recidivism and negative attributes were important because they both positively correlated with the prosecutor’s decision to prosecute the case.
ContributorsFletcher, Sarah Renee (Author) / Salerno, Jessica (Thesis director) / Hall, Deborah (Committee member) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
An in depth look at the rhetoric behind the campus carry debate at the University of Texas at Austin. This thesis researched and examined primary sources from The Daily Texan and The Austin-American Statesman attempting to analyze what was at stake for both sides of the argument and what the most effective rhetorical tool was.
ContributorsBlumstein, Cory Joshua (Author) / Young, Alexander (Thesis director) / O'Flaherty, Katherine (Committee member) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor) / School of Public Affairs (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
Description
Literature review of existing prison-based programs meant to reduce the post-release likelihood of recidivism. Upon completion of the literature, this paper leverages criminology theories to explore the potential causes of program correlations to recidivism.
ContributorsHostal, Katherine (Author) / Morken, Maya (Co-author) / Samuelson, Melissa (Thesis director) / Koretz, Lora (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor)
Created2022-05
Description
The "no compromise" gun rights movement, which advocates against any form of gun control and the absolute right to keep and bear arms, and white Christian nationalism, a cultural framework built on the belief that Christianity should serve as the foundation of the American government, have both recently come to the national political forefront. The connection between these two movements runs deep: white Christian nationalism informs the religious rhetoric of the "no compromise" movement. To understand why this is, the existing scholarship argues that white Christian nationalists advocate against gun control because they believe the Second Amendment is divinely inspired and that gun control does not address what they perceive to be a moral decline in the United States. However, these explanations are insufficient to fully grasp the inherent importance of guns and gun rights to white Christian nationalists. Therefore, I examine the specific roles that guns play in their worldview.
ContributorsMyers, Patrick (Author) / Young, Alexander (Thesis director) / Livingston, Lindsay (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor)
Created2023-12