Matching Items (5)
Filtering by
- All Subjects: Crime prevention
- All Subjects: offending
- Creators: Sweeten, Gary
- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
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
Criminologists have directed significant theoretical and empirical attention toward the institution of marriage over the past two decades. Importantly, the momentum guiding this line of research has increased despite the fact that people are getting married far less often and much later in the life course than in any point in American history. The aim of this dissertation is to address this disconnect by focusing attention to nonmarital romantic relationships and their instability during emerging adulthood. To do so, it uses data from the Pathways to Desistance Study, a longitudinal study of 1,354 at-risk males and females who were adjudicated from the juvenile and adult systems in Phoenix and Philadelphia between 2000 and 2003. The project focuses attention to the following issues: (1) the effect of romantic dissolution on aggressive and income-based offenses; (2) the extent to which strain
egative emotionality and peer influence/exposure account for the effect of romantic dissolution on crime; and (3) the extent to which certain relationship and individual circumstances moderate the effect of romantic dissolution. The models reveal a few key findings. First, romantic dissolution is strongly related to an increase in both aggressive and income-based crime, but is more strongly related to income-based crime. Second, the effect of romantic dissolution is reduced when measures of strain
egative emotionality and peer influence/exposure measures are added to models, but the peer influence/exposure measures account for the strongest reduction. Finally, romantic dissolution does not serve as a positive life event among these at-risk youth, but its effect is exacerbated under a number of contexts (e.g. when an individual is unemployed). This study closes with a summary of these findings as well as its key limitations, and offers insight into potential policy implications and avenues of future research.
egative emotionality and peer influence/exposure account for the effect of romantic dissolution on crime; and (3) the extent to which certain relationship and individual circumstances moderate the effect of romantic dissolution. The models reveal a few key findings. First, romantic dissolution is strongly related to an increase in both aggressive and income-based crime, but is more strongly related to income-based crime. Second, the effect of romantic dissolution is reduced when measures of strain
egative emotionality and peer influence/exposure measures are added to models, but the peer influence/exposure measures account for the strongest reduction. Finally, romantic dissolution does not serve as a positive life event among these at-risk youth, but its effect is exacerbated under a number of contexts (e.g. when an individual is unemployed). This study closes with a summary of these findings as well as its key limitations, and offers insight into potential policy implications and avenues of future research.
ContributorsLarson, Matthew Joseph (Author) / Sweeten, Gary (Thesis advisor) / Piquero, Alex (Committee member) / Spohn, Cassia (Committee member) / Wallace, Danielle (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
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