Criminology & Criminal Justice Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2758
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Item THE EFFECTS OF PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT IN MAINTAINING DISCIPLINE ON SCHOOL CRIME: COMMUNITY AND CRIME TYPE VARIATIONS(2018) Devlin, Deanna Nicole; Gottfredson, Denise C; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Although crime on school grounds is lower than it has been in previous years, school crime still remains prevalent. Concern for school safety has resulted in school administrators, policy makers and parents seeking new ways to reduce school crime. Many of these efforts involve school staff in maintaining order. However, in addition to these efforts, schools have also begun forming partnerships with external parties to reduce crime on school grounds. These partners have consisted of law enforcement, community organizations, social service agencies, and sometimes parents. Typically, parental involvement has involved activities such as participating in PTA meetings, attending parent-teacher conferences and monitoring children’s homework. However, parents also have the potential to help reduce school crime when they collaborate with schools in maintaining safety on school grounds. Parents, when engaged in this way, can affect school crime by influencing important aspects of the school climate such as the culture of the school and discipline management. However, it is likely that these effects may vary by the type of community in which the school is located and where the families reside. To date, this type of parental involvement has not been rigorously evaluated. This study used a longitudinal sample from the School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS) for the years 2004, 2006, and 2008, to examine the effects of parental involvement in maintaining discipline on school crime. These effects were assessed across differing types of communities and across different crime types. Further, this study tested whether this type of parental involvement serves as a mediator in the relationship between community disadvantage and school crime. Overall, the findings indicated that parental involvement in maintaining discipline was not associated with any of the school crime types. Additionally, this effect was not moderated by level of community disadvantage.Item The Role of Police Officers in Schools: Effects on the Recording and Reporting of Crime(2015) Devlin, Deanna Nicole; Gottfredson, Denise C; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Deploying police officers, known as School Resource Officers (SROs), in schools has become a popular strategy to prevent and reduce school crime. The existing literature mostly examines the presence of SROs and their effects on crime outcomes. This study sought to examine whether differing SRO role approaches influence school crime recording/reporting differently. The study used a constructed longitudinal sample (n = 475) from the School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS) for the years 2004, 2006, and 2008. The findings supported the hypothesis that police presence would be associated with more recording and reporting of crimes. Further, and contrary to hypotheses, schools with SROs who provided mentoring or teaching in addition to law enforcement functions, but not schools with SROs who provided only law enforcement, were more likely to record and report crime than schools without police. Recommendations for future research and policy implications are discussed.