Matching Items (4)
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- All Subjects: Sex Offenders
- Creators: Spohn, Cassia
- Member of: ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Description
The purpose of this preliminary study is to determine if sentencing disparities exist between male and female teachers who have been convicted of sexual misconduct with a student in Maricopa County, Arizona over a ten-year period. The hypothesis is that male teachers convicted of sexual misconduct with a student will receive harsher punishment than their female counterparts. In addition, this research will analyze the sentencing decisions of Arizona judges and prosecutors through plea-bargaining when compared with the presumptive sentence set by the Arizona Legislature. Issues that will be addressed include: a brief review of gender disparities in sentencing, sex offender sentencing, Arizona's rules of criminal procedure, and a review of the Arizona Revised Statutes pertaining to sexual crimes as well as the Arizona Supreme Court sentencing guidelines. The data set consists of fifteen different Maricopa County teachers who committed a sexual offense against a student and were convicted of that offense from February 2000 through September 2009. According to the results of this study, male teachers do receive harsher penalties than their female counterparts within Maricopa County.
ContributorsSimmon, Christopher (Author) / Holtfreter, Kristy (Thesis advisor) / Wright, Kevin (Committee member) / Spohn, Cassia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Over the past 40 years, the rate at which women are incarcerated has increased dramatically. Of the 111,000-plus female inmates currently in prison, most will be returned to the community and reenter the labor market. Despite its significance in prisoner reentry and in how ex-offenders remain crime-free, previous research finds that employers are unwilling to hire employees with a criminal record. Moreover, Pager (2003) and Pager, Western, and Bonikowski (2009) found that White job applicants with a prison record were more likely to be interviewed or hired than Black or Hispanic applicants without a record. These troubling findings regarding the effect of race/ethnicity, however, are from research that focuses on men's employment. Given the already low job prospects of ex-prisoners makes it more difficult for women with a prison record to find employment, who also face labor market barriers on account of their race/ethnicity and gender. This dissertation research uses two audit methods with an experimental design to examine the independent and interaction effects of race/ethnicity and incarceration on the likelihood women job applicants will advance through the hiring process. Job applications were submitted online and in-person. The effect of race/ethnicity varied by the method used to apply for jobs. When applying for jobs online, Black women had lower odds of employment than White women. Hispanic women, however, had higher odds of employment than White women when food service jobs were applied for in-person. The effect of a prison record was significant in both experiments; the effect was direct online, but conditioned by ethnicity in-person. Hispanic women with a prison record were less likely than White women with a prison record to advance through the hiring process. The results point to the importance of understanding how women are disadvantaged by incarceration and how mass incarceration contributes to racial/ethnic inequality through its effect in the labor market. Several recommendations follow for future research and policies concerning prisoner reentry and the use of criminal record information by employers.
ContributorsOrtiz, Natalie Rose (Author) / Decker, Scott (Thesis advisor) / Spohn, Cassia (Committee member) / Holtfreter, Kristy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Prior sentencing research, especially research on cumulative disadvantage, has mainly focused on the treatment of male defendants, and little attention has been paid to female defendants, especially minority female defendants. Drawing on the intersectional vulnerability and focal concerns perspectives, the current study emphasizes the need to examine disparity in sentencing through an intersectional lens and across multiple decision-making points. Using the State Court Processing Statistics dataset (SCPS) from 1990-2009, this paper investigates the impact that race/ethnicity has for female defendants across individual and successive stages in the sentencing process. The results suggest that race operates through direct and indirect pathways to cause lengthier sentences for Black female defendants compared to White female defendants, thus providing evidence of cumulative disadvantage against Black female defendants. Theoretical, research, and policy implications will be discussed.
ContributorsKramer, Kelsey Layne (Author) / Wang, Xia (Thesis advisor) / Spohn, Cassia (Committee member) / Telep, Cody (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
While there is a good amount of research focused on sex offenders as a whole, only a limited number of studies examine variations within these offenders, how people view the variations, and why their opinions may differ. This study focuses on the interconnections among gender norms, rape myth acceptance, and the perception of sex offenders by administering an online student survey. The survey measured rape myth acceptance and adherence to traditional gender roles to see how they affected perceptions of sex offenders. Perceptions were measured using vignettes that were varied by gender and the situation described. Results showed that higher rape myth acceptance would decrease the blameworthiness of the offender, that the offender was seen as more blameworthy when the offender was a male, and that women tended to see the offender as more blameworthy than men did. The type of sexual situation did not have an impact on blameworthiness, nor did adherence to gender roles. The findings support past research that suggests that rape myth acceptance can impact people’s opinions about offenders in sexual situations and specifically that these opinions differ depending on the gender of the offender. With some offenders being viewed as more blameworthy than others, it is necessary to examine sex offense laws to see how they may disproportionately affect some offenders and implement harsher punishments than the public may deem necessary.
ContributorsArenas, Lauren (Author) / Spohn, Cassia (Thesis advisor) / Fradella, Henry F. (Committee member) / Stolzenberg Roosevelt, Stacia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018