Measuring the Impact of New York City's Specially Targeted Offenders Project on Sex Offender Recidivism
Author:
Lisa Williams-Taylor
Year of Dissertation:
2009
Abstract
EXPLORING GENDER DIFFERENCES IN DEVELOPMENTAL AND LIFE-COURSE CRIMINOLOGY: AN EXAMINATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STIGMATIZATION AND SOCIAL BONDS IN THE DESISTANCE PROCESS
Year of Dissertation:
2012
Developmental and Life-Course (DLC) criminology is one of the leading theoretical paradigms for understanding why people stop committing crime. One of the more prominent theories within DLC, Sampson and Laub's (1993) age graded theory of informal social control, states that the formation of quality social bonds leads prior offenders towards desistance. Using this theoretical framework, the current study aims to explain inconsistencies in prior research on the relationship between social bonds and desistance, specifically the inconsistencies found between men and women. Taking into account the theory posited by Li and MacKenzie (2003) that the desistance process may be different for men and women due to increased stigmatization placed on female offenders, a new casual model is created which examines the relationships between adolescent delinquency, stigmatization, the development of high quality social bonds, and desistance. Using data from the National Youth Survey, results show that the desistance process varies for men and women, as well as for offenders split into low rate, mid rate, and high rate offender groups. Additionally, this study finds that the measurement of delinquency used in the analysis (frequency and severity) yields different results, adding another possible explanation for inconsistencies in prior research.
State Control, Social Ties, Social Control: Examining the Roles of Residents' Perception of the Police on Social Interactions, Social Cohesion, and Informal Social Control
Year of Dissertation:
2009
The main purpose of this dissertation is to extend the scope of ecological research, by investigating the effects of police social control on social ties, social cohesion, and informal social control. To accomplish this goal, the author proposes a new comprehensive measure of police social control, independent from the effects of demographic characteristics and experiences of individuals, structural components of community, and neighborhood social problems - including crime, victimization, disorder, and police deviance. The data used in this dissertation are collected by secondary sources including the 2000 Census, 2000 Household Survey in Lexington and Louisville, Kentucky, and Crime Data provided by two Kentucky police departments. Two main analytical techniques - HLM and M-plus 5.0 are utilized to examine the multilevel regression models and to draw the multilevel pathway models.
Reciprocity and the Laws of War: An Historical Analysis of U.S. State Practice
Year of Dissertation:
2011
Advisor:
George Andreopoulos
This dissertation argues that reciprocity has been an instrumental component of the state practice of the United States in post-World War II 20th century armed conflict. This contrasts with conventional narratives that argue that the humanitarian emphasis of post-World War II treaties have rendered reciprocity invalid. Despite recent interest in the laws of war, there remain two substantial gaps in the literature that this dissertation has sought to address. Fist, research has yet to thoroughly examine, from the perspective of state practice, the historical role that reciprocity has played in this branch of international law. Second, reciprocity and the laws of war have not been framed within a theoretical model that allows for multiple perspectives of international relations. This dissertation addresses these gaps in two primary ways.