Criminology & Criminal Justice
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2227
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Item Neighborhood Transition and the Criminalization of Minorities(2019) Triece, Molly; Xie, Min; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study investigates the relationship between neighborhood transition and criminalization in Washington, D.C. census tracts. The main hypothesis predicts that racially diversified census tracts will experience increases in formal social control (a.k.a. criminalization) of minority and low-income groups due to social tension between race groups. Existing ethnographic literature links neighborhood levels of racial diversity to various forms of criminalization but quantitative literature on the topic is sparse. This study uses demographic census data and official stop-and-frisk data to examine how changes in neighborhood racial composition affect police stop-and-frisk practices in Washington, D.C. The longitudinal nature of the data and the spatial methods employed build upon the existing body of quantitative criminalization research. Findings indicate that increases in racial diversity are associated with increases in the criminalization of black individuals, particularly in tracts that were predominantly black at the beginning of the study period.Item UNDERSTANDING THE PROCEDURAL JUSTICE IMPLICATIONS OF MACRO-LEVEL POLICE POLICIES: EVIDENCE FROM LONGITUDINAL POLICE AND JUVENILE OFFENDER DATA(2016) Collins, Megan Eileen; Loughran, Thomas A; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In response to a series of high profile conflicts between police and the communities they serve, President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing recommended that law enforcement agencies adopt procedural justice as a guiding principle to inform their policies. While there is general agreement about the importance of procedural justice in shaping an individual’s view of their encounters with police, it remains unclear how the many police policies that are already in place affect citizens’ perceptions of police procedural justice. This dissertation seeks to understand how a common police policy—sending more officers to the areas with the most crime—impacts perceptions of procedural justice, so that policies formed with the goal of enhancing perceptions of procedural justice might be better informed. This study exploits quasi-experimental conditions that resulted from the selective implementation of the Philadelphia Police Department’s 2008 Crime Fighting Strategy (CFS) in only nine of their twenty-three police districts. In doing so, the effect of sending more police officers to high crime areas on perceptions of police procedural justice can be estimated. While many have sought to estimate the impact of more police on offending and delinquency externalities, this particular question has not yet been researched. Further, this research focuses specifically on the perceptions of serious adolescent offenders; this is critical, as offenders were ostensibly the intended target of the CFS, many of whom experience frequent and high stakes interactions with police. Findings indicate that serious adolescent offenders’ perceptions of procedural justice based on personal experiences do not operate in tandem with perceptions based on vicarious experiences, with the two measures displaying opposite signs when correlations with district level crime and socio-economic factors were estimated. The CFS did not appear to influence significant changes in adolescents’ perceptions of procedural justice when the treatment and control districts were compared, or when within-individual changes were estimated. Further, perceptions did not necessarily update as a function of moving from one district to another, as many of the individuals who remained in a single district also updated their perceptions. Implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.Item Victim Perceptions of Legitimacy of Diversion to a Conditional Out-of-Court Disposal: A Randomized Controlled Trial(2014) Slothower, Molly; Gottfredson, Denise; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This paper describes a randomized controlled trial testing the impact of a conditional out-of-court police disposal on victim satisfaction. The study draws on three previous research findings: that the quality of procedural factors about the way a case is handled (fair and respectful treatment, etc.) influence victim satisfaction more than the outcome of cases; that victims' primary goal for their case is to stop the offender from committing the crime again; and that the way in which a sanction is communicated can change how appropriate the sanction is perceived to be. In this sample of 142 UK crime victims, half of the offenders in these victims' cases were randomly assigned to court as usual, and half to diversion into Turning Point, wherein offenders agreed to complete conditions designed to stop their offending and address victims' needs. Based on a victim survey (70% response rate), Turning Point sample was 45% more satisfied with their cases (72.5% and 50% satisfaction, respectively). Potential explanations and implications are discussed; how out-of-court disposals are communicated may be key. In a third non-randomized but suggestive sample of victims with Turning Point cases without special attention to communication with victims, only 54% of victims were satisfied.Item General and Specific Displacement Effects of Police Crackdowns: Criminal Events and "Local" Criminals(2014) Mazeika, David; Sherman, Lawrence W; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Geographically focused police crackdowns have widely diffused amongst larger American police departments in the past decade and have been recently cited in a Police Executive Research Forum survey as the most commonly used tactic to combat violent crime. Evidence from a number of randomized control trials, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses suggests that these interventions have the ability to reduce crime without displacing it to nearby locations. However, virtually every study of crime displacement in response to a geographically concentrated police intervention focuses on small buffer zones immediately surrounding the intervention location. While crime may not displace just around the corner, to date, few studies have tested displacement beyond this limited geographic constraint. During the summer of 2011 the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington D.C. implemented a geographically focused arrest-driven police crackdown called the Summer Crime Initiative (SCI). The current work aims to examine the impact of the SCI on the volume and placement of robbery through a quasi-experimental research design. By developing a theoretically informed framework, a broader set of hypotheses regarding local and non-local crime displacement are tested. The results of this study confirm prior research on crime displacement. Despite reductions in robbery, there is no evidence that these offenses or offenders were displaced within or beyond two blocks of the intervention sites.Item Using Procedural Justice to Explore the Relationship betweeen Victim Satisfaction with Police and Victim Participation in Prosecution(2010) Greenman, Sarah; Dugan, Laura; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis uses procedural justice to explore the relationship between victim satisfaction with the police and victim participation in prosecution. Prior procedural justice research has focused either on offenders or on limited sections of the criminal justice process. Expanding upon prior research by using victims and the entire criminal justice process, this thesis hypothesizes that increased victim satisfaction with the police leads to increased victim participation in prosecution and that this effect weakens throughout the prosecution process. Conversely, this thesis hypothesizes that increased victim satisfaction with the prosecutor leads to increased participation in prosecution and that this effect strengthens throughout the prosecution process. Using logistic and Tobit regressions this thesis finds some support for the hypotheses of this thesis: procedural fairness, police, and prosecutors all have an impact on victim participation. Future research can further delineate the questions that remain: when, how, and for whom satisfaction has the largest impact.Item The Failure to Innovate: A Study of Non Adoption of Computerized Crime Mapping in American Police(2008-05-19) Mazeika, David Michael; Weisburd, David; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Scholars have noted a recent accumulation of innovations in policing (Bayley, 1994; Weisburd & Braga, 2006; Weisburd & Eck, 2004). Due to the increase and scope of these innovations, some scholars have called this the most dramatic period of innovation in policing (Bayley, 1994). Studies have tried to explain why this dramatic period of innovation occurred, but while in general the study of the diffusion of innovations is widespread (Rogers, 2003), there have been relatively few in policing (Klinger, 2003; Weisburd & Braga, 2008). Particularly, little is known about the relationship between resources and innovation. The current work attempts to better explain this relationship by increasing the scope of resources measured and by disentangling the effects of measures employed in the extant literature. In contrast to previous studies (Chamard, 2004; King, 1998; Mastrofski et al., 2003; Mastrofski et al., 2007; Skogan & Hartnett, 2005; Weisburd et al., 2003), findings from the current work indicate that various measures of resources are not related to innovation and those who fail to innovate.