Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item Resilience in Formerly Incarcerated Black Women: Racial Centrality and Social Support as Protective Factors(2019) Yee, Stephanie Elza; Shin, Richard Q; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The United States incarcerates a larger percentage of its population than any other country in the world. Women are entering prison at higher rates than men in recent years, especially Black women, who are underrepresented in the criminal justice literature. Very little is known about formerly incarcerated Black women, who experience unique sociocultural challenges such as disproportionate rates of mental health issues, gendered racism, intimate partner violence, and recidivism to prison. This study examined how social support and racial centrality played a role in challenges faced by a sample of 54 formerly incarcerated Black women living in a large metropolitan city in the mid-Atlantic. Two multiple hierarchical regressions were used to explore whether social support and racial centrality moderated the relationship between gendered racism and depression. There was no evidence to indicate that racial centrality predicted depression or acted as a moderator between gendered racism and depression. However, social support was found to moderate the relationship between the variables. Implications for practice and future directions are discussed.Item Do Cellmates Matter? A Study of Prison Peer Effects under Essential Heterogeneity(2014) Harris, Heather Michele; Reuter, Peter; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study examines prison peer effects in an adult prison population in the United States using a unique dataset assembled from the administrative databases of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections. The members of a first-time prison release cohort were identified and matched to each of the cellmates with whom they shared a double cell. These data were then linked to arrest history data from the Pennsylvania State Police. Criminological theories of social influence expect unobserved and difficult to quantify factors, such as criminality, to affect criminal behavior both independently and through intermediate decisions, including the choice to maintain prison peer associations. Those theories, therefore, implicitly assume the presence of essential heterogeneity, which helps to account for the response heterogeneity observed in studies of social influence. This study introduces the concept of essential heterogeneity to criminology and is the first to apply a method to address it, local instrumental variables, to estimate causal social interaction effects. The analyses presented in this study demonstrate that there is considerable response heterogeneity in prison peer effects. That response heterogeneity is attributable to essential heterogeneity, as implicitly expected by criminological learning theories. However, the null average effects estimated do not accord with the predictions of criminological learning theories, including differential association, balance, and prisonization theories, each of which expects peers who are, on average, more criminally experienced to exert criminogenic effects. The presence of essential heterogeneity indicates that estimating average prison peer effects does little to adequately characterize the relationship between social interactions with cellmates and releasee reoffending behaviors. Within the null average prison peer effect estimates lies tremendous variation in marginal prison peer effects. Some marginal prison peer effects are significantly criminogenic, while others are significantly crimino-suppressive. That substantial variation in the measured effect of prison peers on reoffending persists despite rigorous analysis and the inclusion of robust theoretically relevant controls suggests that future work should focus on creating constructs more appropriate to the task of determining who is harmed and who is helped as a result of interactions with prison peers.Item Detention and dosage: Understanding the effects of incarceration on first-time arrestee juvenile delinquents(2009) Noe, Kathryn Ruth; Paternoster, Raymond; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis examines the relationship between detention and future recidivism for juvenile delinquents. Labeling and deterrence theorists have each hypothesized as to the effects that official sanction will have on future delinquency. Labeling researchers have observed that official sanction has a deviance amplification effect, causing juveniles to have increased delinquency. Empirical evidence has presented results both supporting and refuting the labeling effect of incarceration. However, many prior studies have not adequately taken the problem of selection bias into account. Juveniles sent to detention may differ significantly from their counterparts sent to probation on a variety of preexisting characteristics. In addition, past research often measures all detention experiences as equal with no consideration that the `dosage' of time spent in detention has a varying effect. The current study follows first-time juvenile offenders in New York City for 18 months who were either sent to probation or placement in detention. Utilizing propensity score matching to balance the punishment groups on preexisting characteristics, results indicate that while an incarceration effect could be observed prior to matching, this effect disappears once the samples are balanced. The dosage issue is difficult to thoroughly measure, but initial evidence suggests that juveniles who spent 12 months or less in detention had a higher probability of being rearrested.Item DUI: TREATMENT COMPLIANCE, RETENTION, AND MOTIVATION FOR TREATMENT(2006-08-04) Harris, Aaron Ashby; O'Grady, Kevin E.; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Alcohol abuse and its treatment have been an increasing focus of legal, social, and treatment research during recent decades. Motivational Interviewing (MI) is one treatment approach that has received considerable attention and increasing empirical support for treating individuals with alcohol use problems. DUI offenders represent a subgroup of the alcohol-abusing population who appear to face unique issues related to "coerced treatment", low motivation for change, and a major treatment focus on decreasing recidivism. Success in treating this population been mixed. Given their unique treatment issues, DUI offenders may particularly benefit from MI's focus on increasing motivation for change. However, only preliminary research examining the impact of MI on DUI offenders currently exists. The purpose of this study was to examine the factors that affect treatment participation, treatment engagement, and drinking behaviors by implementing a MI intervention with DUI offenders mandated to enroll in an outpatient treatment program. This study was the first to consider recidivist status and examine the efficacy of MI with DUI offenders with a reasonable sample size (N = 98). A brief MI intervention was randomly administered to 48 of the DUI offenders enrolling in outpatient treatment and data was collected at baseline and 3-month follow-up. Results of primary analyses revealed that only one outcome, self-confidence, was significantly affected by any predictor variables (i.e., treatment group, recidivist status, and motivation for treatment). Secondary analyses were conducted with two revised models. Offender compliance (i.e., number of positive urine tests) was predicted by recidivist status when the additional predictor variable of drug co-morbidity was included in the model. The second revised model limited the sample size to 54 "recent" offenders (i.e., entered treatment within 180 days of their most recent DUI offense) and revealed several additional significant findings. Although few significant findings were found relating to the impact of MI, results of this study nevertheless suggest that further examination of MI for treatment with DUI offenders is warranted. Moreover, the offender's recidivist status and the amount of time lapse since offense appear to be important clinical and empirical considerations for this population. Study limitations and future directions are discussed.Item EMPLOYMENT AND MARRIAGE: PATHWAYS OFF OF WELFARE?(2005-02-01) Roberts, Tracy Elizabeth; Martin, Steven P; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Does the way women exit welfare affect their probability of returning to welfare? Using data drawn from the 1979 - 2000 National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth, I examine the effect of marital and employment transitions on recidivism rates. I find that women who combine employment and marriage after exiting welfare, in that order, have significantly lower risks of recidivism than other women. Women who marry but do not enter employment have higher recidivism rates than women who combine employment and marriage, but they are less likely to return to welfare than women who are only employed. The data suggest that simply encouraging marriage or women's employment may not reduce welfare recidivism. The best policy strategy to reduce welfare dependence and encourage healthy marriages may be to strengthen work support programs and improve the circumstances of employment (and opportunities for strong marriages) for low-income men and women.