Criminology & Criminal Justice Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2758
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Item Public Communication as Counter-Terrorism: An Examination of Zero-Sum Counter-Terrorism Assumptions(2017) Fisher, Daren Geoffrey; Dugan, Laura; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Terrorist groups from around the globe rely on a range of communication tactics to rally support to their political movement, including publicly directed discourse ranging from public talks to online publications. Thus far, the criminological literature has focused primarily on efforts embodied in law and policy to make terrorism harder to commit. Based on the zero-sum assumption that any losses for a terrorist group result in gains for a government, this perspective suggests that terrorism may only be reduced through deterrence or by diminishing the relative capacity of terrorist organizations. In contrast, this dissertation argues that public communications are a relatively inexpensive, readily available, and less oppressive means to potentially reduce terrorism. Seeking to identify the role that government public communications have played in existing counter-terrorism strategies, this dissertation examines US public communications regarding terrorism delivered by US Presidents and their Press Secretaries between 1970 and 2014. Drawing upon the 6,001 transcripts of presidential communications concerning terrorism during this period, a series of structural equation models are employed to estimate the impact of the quantity and sentiment of presidential communications concerning terrorism on subsequent terrorism aimed at US targets. Findings from these models suggest that the frequency of presidential communications regarding terrorism is consistently related to reductions in terrorism targeting the US in the following month. The frequency of terrorism communications is related to decreases in both domestic and international terrorism, but is also related to increases terrorist casualties between 1970 and 2014. After accounting for the sentiment in these models, support primarily emerged that communicating negative sentiment reduces terrorism in line with restrictive deterrence theory. Key differences in the impact of both the frequency and sentiment of terrorism communications between presidential administrations are also identified, suggesting that influences were more prominent for Presidents such as Carter and George W. Bush. Finally evidence that public approval moderates the impact of presidential communications on domestic terrorism is provided, with presidents with approval ratings in the lowest 25% netting the largest decreases in terrorism but greatest increases in terrorist casualties through their communications.Item THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY: HOMICIDE, DYNAMIC CHANGE, AND DETERRENCE IN WASHINGTON, D.C. NEIGHBORHOODS, 1998-2006(2014) Goodison, Sean Edmund; Paternoster, Raymond; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Studies examining homicide rates often have two limitations. First, there is a lack of rich, dynamic data to account for change, and second, no consideration of formal social controls at the neighborhood-level. To address these limitations, longitudinal data from Washington, D.C. was collected at the neighborhood level. This homicide incident and neighborhood demographic data, which spans from 1998-2006, allow for a test of two theoretical perspectives within a classical/social control sphere, namely social disorganization and deterrence. This work poses two main questions: Do dynamic structural factors influence homicide rates across neighborhoods? Does aggregate deterrence influence homicide rates across neighborhoods? Results suggest that dynamic structural factors predict homicide rates better than static factors, though deterrence results are insignificant. Implications and avenues for future research are also discussed.Item The Restrictive Deterrent Effect of Warning Messages on the Behavior of Computer System Trespassers(2014) Jones, Harriet Mary; Maimon, David; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Computer system trespassing is a growing concern, but it has received little criminological attention. The present study discusses the results of an experiment which looked at system trespasser behavior after exposure to one of three warning messages (or no message) in the context of deterrence theory. One message consisted of an attempt at moral persuasion; the second a generic legal warning, and the third an ambiguous threat. Keystroke data was analyzed to assess how the type of message affected the employment of restrictive deterrent techniques designed to limit trespasser activity on a compromised system. It was found that moral persuasion generally reduces both the incidence and frequency of command entry by trespassers on an illegally accessed system, while legal and ambiguous warnings produce no significant differences from the control condition. This suggests that in order to reduce trespasser activity, system administrators should use moral persuasion instead of legal sanction threats.Item Examining General Deterrence Using Data from the National Football League(2014) Greenman, Sarah; Paternoster, Raymond; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)To date, research studies have found only mild support for classic deterrence theory with the greatest support for increased certainty, little support for increased severity, and scant research on the effect of increased celerity. Much of this prior literature has used scenario-based data, relied heavily on student samples, and explored rule breaking behavior over relatively short time periods. Finally, the slow pace of punishment within the criminal justice system potentially reduces any existing deterrent effect of the certainty and severity of punishment. This dissertation seeks to address these limitations of prior deterrence studies by using 13 years of data (2000-2012) from the National Football League consisting of rule breakers who are punished with penalties and monetary fines almost immediately upon discovery of the infraction. The main question driving this research is whether there is evidence of general deterrence. Specifically, this dissertation seeks to determine whether prior punishment reduces current rule-breaking behavior. To address this question, this research explores the effect of on-field penalties and post-game fines on behavior within the National Football League at both the league and team levels. The dataset has several rare characteristics including: large variety and detail in the types of punishment administered, an opportunity to directly observe the effect of punishment, the near immediate imposition of punishment, and the transmission of almost perfect information about punishment. The primary finding is that there is no evidence of general deterrence in the National Football League, independent of control variables. Specifically, penalties and fines do not appear to prevent future rule breaking behavior. In general, when controlling for particular seasons, opponents, or the record of a team, the effects of penalties and fines loose significance and approach zero. The different controls for seasons, opponents, or record are fairly consistent in their statistical significance for all penalties and violent penalties, although it appears that violent penalties vary less according to these outside factors than all types of penalties. In sum, this dissertation finds no evidence that punishment affects future rule-breaking behavior at either the team or league level and thus, does not provide support for general deterrence.Item THE UTILITY OF DETERRENCE-BASED SANCTIONS IN THE PREVENTION OF VIOLENCE AGAINST ABORTION PROVIDERS: TESTING A BLENDED MODEL OF DETERRENCE AND BACKLASH(2012) Bartholomew, Brad; LaFree, Gary; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The American abortion debate has existed since the early 19th century; however, the previous four decades have born witness to fundamental changes within the abortion opposition movement. Beginning in the 1970s, activists started to focus more of their attention on abortion providers. Soon thereafter, the traditionally peaceful protest activities of the activist movement began to share space with acts of harassment, arson, bombings, assaults, and even assassination. Today, abortion provider-related crime has become an unwelcome staple within the broader pro-life movement. In an attempt to prevent future attacks, state and federal legislatures have enacted a series of protection laws designed to raise the penalties associated with crimes against abortion providers. Despite the recent proliferation of these laws, their impact on abortion provider-related crime has seldom been the subject of rigorous empirical research. In this dissertation, I aim to address this shortcoming by using zero-inflated negative binomial regression modeling to present the first longitudinal test of the relationship between protection laws and abortion provider-related crime using incident-level data from 1975 to 2008, collected during a year-long research project at The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). The results of this study offer considerable support for the backlash hypothesis and the notion that traditional deterrence-based policy is often demonstrably unsuccessful in the prevention of this particular type of crime. Additionally, the findings suggest that not all protection laws are created equal with respect to their impact on crime. While state laws prohibiting minor forms of anti-abortion crime are shown to produce a backlash effect for crimes of harassment and vandalism, other types of state protection laws were shown to have no effect on crime whatsoever. Furthermore, the presence of the highly visible FACE Act is shown to generate similar increases for both major and minor crime types.