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- All Subjects: Developmental Psychology
- All Subjects: Crime prevention
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Description
Knowing that disorder is related to crime, it has become essential for criminologists to understand how and why certain individuals perceive disorder. Using data from the Perceptions of Neighborhood Disorder and Interpersonal Conflict Project, this study uses a fixed photograph of a neighborhood, to assess whether individuals "see" disorder cues. A final sample size of n=815 respondents were asked to indicate if they saw particular disorder cues in the photograph. The results show that certain personal characteristics do predict whether an individual sees disorder. Because of the experimental design, results are a product of the individual's personal characteristics, not of the respondent's neighborhood. These findings suggest that the perception of disorder is not as clear cut as once thought. Future research should explore what about these personal characteristics foster the perception of disorder when it is not present, as well as, how to fight disorder in neighborhoods when perception plays such a substantial role.
ContributorsScott, Christopher (Author) / Wallace, Danielle (Thesis advisor) / Katz, Charles (Committee member) / Ready, Justin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Mexican drug cartels have been a difficult group to get official data on because of the clandestine nature of their operations and the inherent dangers associated with any type of research on these groups. Due to the close relationship that the United States and Mexico share, the United States being a heavy demander of illicit drugs and Mexico being the supplier or the transshipment point, research that sheds light on cartels and their effects is necessary in order to solve this problem. A growing concern is that cartels have been seeking to improve their international infrastructure. This could potentially be done by partnering with gangs located in the United States to help with the distribution of drugs. The author uses data from the 2009 and 2010 Arizona Gang Threat Assessment and three sets of analyses (dummy variable regression, change score, multinomial logistic) to shed light on the possible partnership between cartels and U.S. based gangs. Primarily using the varying level of intervention strategies practiced by police departments throughout the state of Arizona, this study is exploratory in nature, but attempts to find the effectiveness of intervention strategies on "cartel affiliated" gangs, as identified by federal authorities, and how police departments respond towards these same groups. With the current data, there was no significant evidence that suggests that intervention strategies were less effective on "cartel affiliated" gangs or that police departments were responsive towards these “affiliated” gangs.
ContributorsMora, Victor, M.S (Author) / Sweeten, Gary (Thesis advisor) / Wang, Xia (Committee member) / Katz, Charles (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Problem-oriented policing (POP) dynamically addresses unique community issues in a way that allows police departments to be cost-effective and efficient. POP draws upon routine activities and rational choice theories, at times incorporating elements of crime prevention through environmental design. A recent systematic review found POP to be hugely popular, but not rigorously assessed or implemented. In 2009, the Glendale, Arizona Police Department and researchers from Arizona State University received funding through the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) Smart Policing Initiative (SPI) to target crime at convenience stores through a problem-oriented policing approach. The Glendale SPI team devised an approach that mirrored the ideals put forth by Goldstein (1990), and provided a thorough undertaking of the SARA model. A comprehensive response plan was developed with several proposed responses, including: intervention with Circle K leadership, suppression, and prevention at the six highest-activity stores. Despite a thorough POP implementation, the initial descriptive evaluation of the Glendale SPI reported positive effects on crime, but left questions about the intervention’s long-term impact on convenience store crime in Glendale, Arizona. The policy and theoretical influence of the initiative warrants a more rigorous evaluation. Supplanting the original assessment, a difference in difference model, negative binomial regression, and relative effect size are calculated to ascertain the SPI’s long-term effects on target and comparison stores. Phi and weighted displacement quotient are calculated to determine the existence of displacement of crime or diffusion of benefits. Overall, results indicate support for the project’s effectiveness on crime reduction. Further, none of the six intervention stores experienced crime displacement. Five of the six stores, however, experienced a diffusion of benefits in the surrounding 500-yard area; that is, a crime reduction was observed at the intervention stores and in the surrounding areas of five of these stores. Disorder and property crimes at the targeted stores were most affected by the intervention. One of the intervention stores did experience an increase in violent crime, however. Future studies should strengthen the methodological design when evaluating POP projects and seek to flesh out more precisely the crime control effects of unique problem-oriented strategies.
ContributorsDario, Lisa M (Author) / White, Michael D. (Thesis advisor) / Spohn, Cassia C. (Committee member) / Sweeten, Gary (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Life course criminology is characterized by a two-pronged approach to research. The first branch emphasizes social integration and involvement with pro-social institutions as turning points in the criminal career. The second branch of this work assesses how access to the institutions that facilitate social integration are conditioned by factors such as involvement in the criminal justice system. Theories of capital are chiefly concerned with social integration and the continuity of conventionality, conformity, and prosperity offered through social ties and social networks. Absent from life course criminology is a better understanding of how different forms of criminal capital can influence access to institutions like higher education, marriage, and employment during the transition to adulthood. Drawing on insights from distinct bodies of literature on peers, capital, and status attainment, the present study elaborates on the influence of criminal capital for (un)successful transitions to adulthood. Using three waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (“Add Health”), the effects of adolescent criminal social capital on criminal cultural and human capital, and subsequent educational, occupational, and marital attainment in early adulthood are examined. Results from a series of regression models demonstrate that criminal social capital has minimal effects on fatalistic beliefs or thoughtful and reflective decision making, and that these forms of criminal capital generally have inconsistent effects on later life transitions. Implications for theory and future research are discussed.
ContributorsMoule, Richard Kenneth Jr (Author) / Decker, Scott H. (Thesis advisor) / Sweeten, Gary (Committee member) / Wallace, Danielle (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Criminological theories have long incorporated personality traits as key explanatory factors and have generally relied on assumptions of trait stability. However, growing evidence from a variety of fields including criminology, psychology, and neurobiology is demonstrating that personality traits are malleable over the life-course, and substantial individual variation exists in the developmental patterns of personality traits over time. This research is forcing criminologists to consider how and why “enduring” individual characteristics may change over the life course in ways that are meaningfully related to offending. Two traits that have been consistently linked to offending and conflated in key criminological theories (i.e. Gottfredson and Hirschi’s self-control theory), impulsivity and sensation seeking, have recently been shown to be independent personality traits with different normative maturational timetables and biological underpinnings. This dissertation extends this work by examining developmental patterns of impulsivity and sensation seeking and social sources of variation in these traits with the Family and Community Health Survey, a longitudinal data set that consists of approximately 900 African American youth and their families followed from late childhood to their late-twenties. Multiple longitudinal modeling methods are employed (hierarchical linear modeling and group-based trajectory modeling) to address this research agenda. Results from this dissertation lead to four broad conclusions. First, and in support of existing research, there is substantial variability in developmental trajectories of impulsivity and sensation seeking. Average developmental trajectories of these traits greatly mask the degree of individual variability in developmental patterns that exists. Second, social factors are significantly associated with levels of impulsivity and sensation seeking. Socio-environmental experiences characterized by hostility and unsupportiveness are generally associated with elevated levels of impulsivity and sensation seeking while socio-environmental experiences characterized by warmth and supportiveness are associated with lower levels of impulsivity and sensation seeking. Third, sex differences in developmental patterns of impulsivity are nonexistent while sex differences in developmental patterns of sensation seeking are significant. Finally, with few exceptions, predictors of trait levels operate in a general fashion such the same factors typically explain both male and female trait levels and produce similar effects on impulsivity and sensation seeking.
ContributorsHannula, Kara Valentina (Author) / Sweeten, Gary (Thesis advisor) / Decker, Scott (Committee member) / Fine, Adam (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
From a theoretical and policy perspective, little is known about the life-course development of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) people in criminology. In particular, turning points for LGBTQ+ people have not received much theoretical discussion or testing. The lack of theoretical discussion persists even though LGBTQ+ people are overrepresented in the criminal legal system. To address this gap, the current dissertation seeks to queer the life-course perspective in criminology. This dissertation takes stock of the relevancy of traditional turning points (marriage and employment) for LGBTQ+ people, examines through a critical lens the cis- and hetero-normative construction of life-course and theoretical criminology, and theorizes turning points specific to LGBTQ+ people. This dissertation draws on scholarship from various disciplines to present and test an interdisciplinary framework that theorizes three queer turning points: (1) the coming-out process (Chapter 2), (2) family reaction to LGBTQ+ identity (Chapter 3), and (3) establishing a chosen family (Chapter 4). This study is among the first to collect original data via life history interviews with 25 formerly incarcerated LGBTQ+ people to offer comprehensive and in-depth examinations into the relationships between the coming out process, family reaction to LGBTQ+ identity, and chosen family on offending and desistance trajectories. Collectively, findings indicate that these queer turning points are significant life experiences that shape the development and offending/desistance trajectories among formerly incarcerated LGBTQ+ people. In particular, these queer turning points are linked to increases and decreases in offending across the life-course, which are highly contextualized by generational and structural factors. In addition, this work explores how coming out, family reaction, and chosen family shape interactions with the criminal legal system among LGBTQ+ people. Overall, this dissertation expands the queer perspective within life-course criminology through the lens of queer turning points and can shape future policies that meet the needs and best support LGBTQ+ people.
ContributorsMorgan, Skyler (Author) / Fox, Kathleen A. (Thesis advisor) / Wang, Xia (Committee member) / Sweeten, Gary (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023