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- All Subjects: criminology
- Creators: Katz, Charles M.
- Creators: Stolzenberg, Stacia
Description
Frederic Thrasher's early work with youth gangs in Chicago continues to influence contemporary gang research. Thrasher's basic premise, that conflict with outside groups facilitates strong interpersonal ties between adolescents, has yet to undergo quantitative analysis. Using data from Wave II of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health ("Add Health"), this conflict is measured by the aggregate number of juvenile arrests for property and violent crimes in a community. Multivariate regression is conducted to explore the impact of police threat on number of friendship nominations, while logistic regression is conducted to see if police threat is impacting relationship strength between respondent's first male and female friend. The results from both the multivariate and logistic regressions do not support Thrasher's hypothesis. Implications for future research are discussed.
ContributorsMoule, Richard K (Author) / Katz, Charles M. (Thesis advisor) / Ready, Justin T. (Committee member) / Pratt, Travis C. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
The literature on hopelessness suggests youth living amid impoverished conditions, social disorganization, and limited resources are more likely to experience increased feelings of hopelessness. Similarly, many of the aforementioned aspects are considered, in some capacity, in the research on gangs. Though a considerable amount of gang literature alludes to the fact that loss of hope may be present, it neither directly addresses it nor references it. This study attempts to converge the present literature on hopelessness among minority youth to minority youth in street gangs. This is done using data obtained from an earlier evaluation of the Mesa Gang Intervention Project, using self-report data from 197 youth, asking questions about socio-demographic information, gang activity, education, employment, crime and delinquency, family and individual crisis, and self-reported detention. Findings implicate a connection exists between gang membership and increased levels of hopelessness. Moreover, results suggest education and self-esteem help to reduce loss of hopelessness.
ContributorsRedner-Vera, Erica N (Author) / Katz, Charles M. (Thesis advisor) / Decker, Scott (Committee member) / Roe-Sepowitz, Dominique (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
A perceived link between illegal immigration and crime continues to exist. Citizens continue to believe that immigration creates crime and fear that as the immigrant population grows, their safety is jeopardized. Not much research in the field of criminology, however, has focused on examining this perceived relationship between immigration and crime. Those studies which have examined the relationship have mainly relied on official data to conduct their analysis. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the relationship between immigration and crime by examining self report data as well as some official data on immigration status and criminal involvement. More specifically, this thesis examines the relationship between immigration status and four different types of criminal involvement; property crimes, violent crimes, drug sales, and drug use. Data from a sample of 1,990 arrestees in the Maricopa County, Arizona, was used to conduct this analysis. This data was collected through the Arizona Arrestee Reporting Information Network over the course of a year. The results of the logistic regression models indicate that immigrants tend to commit less crime than U.S. citizens. Furthermore, illegal immigrants are significantly less likely than U.S. citizens to commit any of the four types of crimes, with the exception of powder cocaine use.
ContributorsNuño, Lidia E (Author) / Katz, Charles M. (Thesis advisor) / White, Michael D. (Committee member) / Decker, Scott H. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Research examining the long-term impacts of federal interventions under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act on correctional institutions has been scant. The result has been a failure to understand the sustainability of reforms aimed at protecting the civil rights of confined persons. This dissertation examined the long-term reforms at the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections following a consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice from 2004 to 2007. Interviews were conducted with current and former ADJC employees, juvenile justice advocates across Arizona, and county court representatives to determine how each of these groups perceived the status of the reforms at the ADJC. The findings of the current dissertation suggest that long-term reforms following consent decrees imposed on correctional institutions are possible. At the ADJC, the methods for securing the reform required that the agency reform its culture, implement a Quality Assurance process, revamp the Investigations and Inspections unit at the agency, and consider the perspectives of external agencies. One of the primary reasons why the department has been committed to making these reforms is because of the perceived loss of legitimacy and resources that would occur if they failed to reform. Such a failure for the agency could have potentially resulted in a closure of the agency. However, the increase in punitive and preventive policies used to enforce the reforms may have negative repercussions on the organizational culture in the long term. Policy implications for future CRIPA consent decrees are outlined, limitations are addressed, and suggestions for future research are made.
ContributorsTaylor, Melanie Ann (Author) / Decker, Scott H. (Thesis advisor) / Katz, Charles M. (Committee member) / Fox, Kathleen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The current study examines the social structure of local street gangs in Glendale, Arizona. Literature on gang organization has come to different conclusions about gang organization, largely based on the methodology used. One consistent finding from qualitative gang research has been that understanding the social connections between gang members is important for understanding how gangs are organized. The current study examines gang social structure by recreating gang social networks using official police data. Data on documented gang members, arrest records, and field interview cards from a 5-year period from 2006 to 2010 were used. Yearly social networks were constructed going two steps out from documented gang members. The findings indicated that gang networks had high turnover and they consisted of small subgroups. Further, the position of the gang member or associate was a significant predictor of arrest, specifically for those who had high betweenness centrality. At the group level, density and measures of centralization were not predictive of group-level behavior; hybrid groups were more likely to be involved in criminal behavior, however. The implications of these findings for both theory and policy are discussed.
ContributorsFox, Andrew (Author) / Katz, Charles M. (Thesis advisor) / White, Michael D. (Committee member) / Sweeten, Gary (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
For 40 years, rape myth scholars have assessed the effects of rape myths on perceptions of and responses to rape, demonstrating that rape myths pose significant barriers to rape prevention efforts and contribute to attrition. Most of this research centers female victims, theorizing rape myths’ relationship to gender stereotypes and how they maintain women’s oppression. However, scholars have largely ignored the relationship between rape myths and race and how rape myths contribute to racial oppression. I used an intersectional framework to reconceptualize rape myths as tools of both gender and racial oppression. I argued that rape myths have race-specific effects on rape perceptions and case processing outcomes, that rape myths contribute to racial disparities that align with racist social hierarchies, and that their influence is structural and systemic. I used three studies to assess these assertions. First, I used a randomized vignette survey to explore how victim and perpetrator race (e.g., White, Black, and Latinx) moderate the effects of rape myths (e.g., “victim precipitation,” “accidental rape,” “women cry rape,” and the “real rape” myth), on victim and perpetrator blame in a hypothetical rape (Chapter 2). Second, I assessed how victim race (e.g., White, Black, and Latinx) moderates the effects of rape myth factors (e.g., victim precipitation, credibility issues, real rape consistency) on police case processing decisions in real sexual assault cases (Chapter 3). Third, I analyzed sex crimes detectives’ descriptions of victims, reports, and decisions to determine how rape myths influence their focal concerns (Chapter 4).
Collectively, findings indicate that rape myths contribute to racial oppression. In Chapters 2 and 3 I found that race moderated the effects of rape myths on rape perceptions and police decisions. Further, rape myths had more negative impacts for Black and Latinx victims, than White victims. Finally, in Chapter 4, I found that detectives use rape myths to evaluate victim credibility, evidence, and case viability, suggesting that rape myths’ influence is structural and systemic. In addition to implications for practitioners, these findings indicate that rape myth scholars should rearticulate rape myths and their effects intersectionally, with particular attention to intersections with race.
ContributorsCoble, Suzanne St. George (Author) / Spohn, Cassia (Thesis advisor) / Stolzenberg, Stacia (Committee member) / Wang, Xia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
Due to numerous instances of police brutality in the U.S., researchers and policymakers have urged police to shift their job orientation to become more guardian-oriented (i.e., prioritizing community safety and building relationships) and less warrior-oriented (i.e., prioritizing physical control and fighting crime). Using the group engagement model and the expectancy disconfirmation hypothesis, this study examined: (1) young adults’ desire for police to be warrior- or guardian-oriented, (2) their perceptions of the extent to which police in their community are warrior- or guardian-oriented, and (3) the association between participants’ perceptions of the discrepancy between what police in their community should be versus are perceived to actually be and police legitimacy. In this study, a racially and ethnically diverse sample of young adults aged 18-25 in the United States (N = 436) responded to a self-report survey. Participants preferred police to have more of a guardian than warrior orientation and reported that police are not as guardian oriented as they wanted them to be. Further, if police did not meet their guardian expectations, young adults had more negative perceptions of police legitimacy. Expectations for police behavior may influence police legitimation and, within the context of police reform, young adults support the call for police to be more guardian-oriented by prioritizing community safety and building relationships. Fostering a guardian orientation in police is particularly important for police departments that are interested in promoting perceptions of legitimacy among the communities they serve.
ContributorsCross, Allison (Author) / Fine, Adam D (Thesis advisor) / Stolzenberg, Stacia (Committee member) / O'Hara, Karey (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
When questioning children during courtroom testimony, attorneys are instructed to use questions that are short and simple to address children’s cognitive abilities; however, this typically leads to anaphora. Anaphora occurs when a word is substituted for a previously mentioned word, phrase, or concept. For example, the pronoun “he” in “Bill is moving to New York. He is very excited.” indicates an anaphora since the word “he” replaces the name Bill. When asked a question that includes a pronoun-specific anaphora, the respondent must use cognitive skills to refer back to the initial referent. This likely means that as the number of conversational turns between the initial referent and the end of the reference increases, there will be more probable miscommunications between children and attorneys in cases of alleged Child Sexual Abuse (CSA). In this thesis, I analyzed 40 testimonies from cases of alleged child sexual abuse (5-10 years old, 90% female), located attorney use of pronoun anaphora, backward reference distances, and identified probable misunderstandings. I identified 137 probable misunderstandings within 2,940 question-answer pairs that included pronoun anaphora. Attorneys averaged 4.1 questions before clarifying the referent (SD = 10.14), sometimes extending up to 146 lines, leading to considerable backwards referencing. The distance between the anaphora and referent had a significant effect on misunderstandings, where each additional Q-A pair made misunderstandings more likely to occur. To reduce misunderstanding, attorneys should avoid pronoun anaphora of excessive length that require children to backward reference.
ContributorsRuiz-Earle, Ciara Aisling (Author) / Stolzenberg, Stacia (Thesis advisor) / Fine, Adam (Committee member) / Yan, Shi (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
There is a wealth of knowledge about the harmful effects of prisons. This expertise on negative experiences has resulted in a limited understanding of incarcerated people’s strengths and how prisons may be places where growth can occur. Some researchers have discovered narratives of positivity and identity reconstruction among people in prison who have described their experiences as transformative. However, there is little knowledge about the nuanced aspects of their positive experiences and less understanding about how this information can be translated into practice. The effects of age on positive experiences have also gone unexamined within this literature, despite known linkages between age and positive outcomes such as fulfillment in life and desistance from crime. Through structured interviews with 100 incarcerated women, the current study uses thematic analysis to identify themes within women’s responses to a prompt about a time they felt their best in prison and how these themes vary according to their ages. Four major themes were identified across all responses: accomplishments, personal growth, healthy relationships, and helping and supporting others. While accomplishments and personal growth remained the most common themes across responses from women of all adult life stages (i.e., young, middle, and late adulthood) the theme of helping and supporting others was more often the focus in responses from women in middle and late adulthood (ages 35-83) compared to women in young adulthood (ages 21-34). The results have important implications for taking action to identify the sources of incarcerated people’s positive experiences and provide the means to generate and reinforce them.
ContributorsWhite, Hannah Rose (Author) / Wright, Kevin A (Thesis advisor) / Young, Jacob T N (Committee member) / Stolzenberg, Stacia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
This study draws upon original data to identify protective factors of resilience among Indigenous college students who experience victimization with the goal of facilitating safety and health. The data draws from 16 interviews and 95 surveys with Indigenous college students about their victimization, including their experiences with the global issue of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples (MMIP). This research uses a decolonizing methodology, a trauma-informed approach, and a human-centered design while incorporating aspects of community-based participatory research with Indigenous populations. Many participants experienced at least one form of victimization (82%), and nearly all (94%) were aware of the MMIP crisis. Interviews revealed that MMIP had an emotional, psychological, and social impact on students regardless of their relationship with a victim. Participants identified several protective factors that enhanced their resilience, including reclaiming identity, reciprocity, taking healing actions, self-reflection, taking healthy risks, having goals, being with their community and their family, and having courage and strength. These findings provide support for five culturally appropriate university policy recommendations to enhance Indigenous students’ resilience through culturally-competent programming, evaluation, and training.
ContributorsHarvey, Cassie L. (Author) / Fox, Kathleen A. (Thesis advisor) / Stolzenberg, Stacia (Committee member) / Sharp, Christopher (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023