Twenty-five female and 20 male college students participated in semi-structured focus groups or interviews. Open coding was used to gain an understanding of their beliefs concerning sexual assault. Results demonstrated that students possess multiple and often contradictory beliefs about sexual assault and issues that contribute to those beliefs that can be addressed and changed using sexual assault prevention. Three of those broad themes included barriers to talking about sexual assault, social and cultural norms that contribute to sexual assault and how college students communicate their sexual needs and desires, including consent. This research reveals that researchers and advocates do not have a complete understanding of perspectives of sexual assault among college students. Prevention programs may have been developed based on incomplete information and assumptions about what college students believe. Therefore, this study provides information that can be used to develop intervention programs that specifically target the most relevant ideas about sexual assault that are most relevant to the experiences of college students.
Secondary qualitative and quantitative data collected as part of Dr. Alesha Durfee’s National Institute of Justice Researcher-Practitioner Partnerships Grant “Investigating the Impacts of Institutional and Contextual Factors on Protection Order Decision-Making” (Dr. Alesha Durfee, PI; Mesa Municipal Court and National Center for State Courts, co-PIs) (2015-IJ-CX-0013) are analyzed in this thesis.
The purpose of this paper was to examine the impact of perceived discrimination among Latino immigrants in the context of recent immigration policies and immigration enforcement strategies. Data for this study were drawn from a pilot study (n=213) of adult Latino immigrants living in Arizona during the summer of 2014. The results of multivariate OLS linear regressions indicated greater perceived discrimination was significantly related to reporting:
1. Avoidance of immigration officials.
2. Family has suffered.
3. Friends have suffered.
In addition, greater perceived discrimination was significantly related to lower confidence in a better future for the individual, their families, their children, and the children of today.
This study examined the relationship between acculturation and Latinos’ perceptions of health care treatment quality, discrimination, and access to health information. The results of this study indicated that participants who had lower levels of acculturation perceived:
1. Greater discrimination in health care treatment.
2. A lower quality of health care treatment.
3. Less confidence filling out health related forms.
4. Greater challenges understanding written information about their medical conditions.
Participants who identified as immigrants also perceived that their poor quality of medical care was due to their inability to pay and to their race/ethnicity.
Latinas’ Perception Of Law Enforcement: Fear Of Deportation, Crime Reporting And Trust In The System
Latinas may be unlikely to report violent crime, particularly when undocumented. This research examines the impact of fear of deportation and trust in the procedural fairness of the justice system on willingness to report violent crime victimization among a sample of Latinas (N = 1,049) in the United States. Fear of deportation was a significant predictor of Latinas perceptions of the procedural fairness of the criminal justice system. However, trust in the police is more important than fear of deportation in Latinas’ willingness to report violent crime victimization. Social workers can provide rights-based education and encourage relationship building between police and Latino communities.
This study examined the relationship between the fear of deportation and perceptions of law enforcement, the criminal justice system, and the willingness to report crimes among Latinos in the US. Understanding the relationship between increased immigration enforcement and fear of deportation may promote public safety by improving the relationship between the police and Latino communities.
Multivariate ordinal logistic regression analyses of the data found that participants who had a greater fear of deportation reported:
1. Less confidence that police would not use excessive force (p<.01).
2. Less confidence that police would treat Latinos fairly (p<.05).
3. A lower likelihood of reporting crimes (p<.05).
4. Less confidence that the courts would treat Latinos fairly (p<.01).