College of Behavioral & Social Sciences
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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations..
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Item Race, Disadvantage, and the Probability of Arrest: A Multi-Level Study of Baltimore Neighborhoods (2016-2018)(2024) Placzkowski, Madisen; Velez, Maria; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study examines the relationship among neighborhood racial composition, concentrated disadvantage, and the probability of an arrest following a Part 1 crime report. Racial threat theory predicts that as the proportion of Black residents increases over time (dynamic proxy for racial threat), the use of formal social control will increase, while the benign neglect hypothesis predicts that formal social control will diminish in areas with relatively higher proportions of Black residents (static proxy for racial threat). I test racial threat theory and the benign neglect hypothesis for both citizen-initiated and officer-initiated Part 1 crime reports, using Baltimore Police Department crime reports and arrest data, as well as block group characteristics from the 2011-2015 American Community Survey. Through multi-level modeling and including both static and dynamic measures of racial threat, I find that proportion Black is negatively associated with the probability of arrest; concentrated disadvantage has no effect. This finding supports the benign neglect hypothesis and is robust to alternative model specifications, including controlling for victim gender and race. Implications for policy and theories in the conflict tradition are discussed.Item WARRIORS, GUARDIANS, WOLVES, AND SHEEP: OFFICER PERCEPTIONS OF POLICE-CIVILIAN IDENTITIES AND THE PERSISTENCE OF ORGANIZED INEQUITY(2024) Powelson, Connor Reed; Ray, Rashawn; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Despite nearly a decade of community engagement and police reform efforts guided by the Warrior/Guardian paradigm, there remains little evidence of police culture change and rates of racially disproportionate police misconduct remain a social problem. In this work, I bring officers into this conversation and leverage the Warrior/Guardian paradigm as a starting point for an exploration of how identity structures constitute police organizational culture and practice, its consequences, and its potential for change. The present work contributes to the public and scholarly discourse on police culture and the role of identity processes in the reproduction of organizational practices. I characterize police culture as a set of identity schemas that connect people, practices, and social resources. I chart three domains of symbolic interaction that characterize the intersection of police structure, police culture, and public culture and account for police organizational rules and practices that distribute law enforcement outcomes and pattern organized inequity.Item RACE AND GENDER’S EFFECT ON POLICE OFFICER STRESS AND BURNOUT: A CASE STUDY OF THE BALTIMORE POLICE DEPARTMENT(2021) Duka, Leila; Xie, Min; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Law enforcement is an inherently stressful profession because officers deal with unique strains. Experiencing extensive and consistent amounts of stress ultimately leads to burnout, ineffective, and inefficient officers. Guided by several theoretical frameworks, the current study will examine the gender and racial differences in police officers’ stress and burnout in the Baltimore Police Department (N = 878). Specifically, I use several OLS regressions to understand the scaled responses of the officers’ psychological stress, physical stress, and burnout levels. I found female officers are more likely and black officers are less likely to experience both manifestations of stress. Further, I found no sign of increased burnout levels for either group. When analyzing a potential moderation between these demographics, I also found no difference between minority groups. While only a case study, the conclusions drawn can help identify which officers are most vulnerable to high stress and burnout levels.Item Racial Threat, Black Empowerment, and Civilians Killed by Police: An Analysis of the Largest US Cities in 2015(2021) Sperry, Toryn; Velez, Maria; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Estimates suggest that police have killed more than 1,000 people per year for at least nearly a decade. Blacks are 3 times as likely to be killed than Whites. One potential explanation for this disparity is Blalock’s racial threat hypothesis, which posits that the dominant group in society will impose social control upon the minority group when large minority populations are perceived as threatening to the dominant group’s status. However, if a minority population is large enough, they may be empowered to counter these attempts at social control. This study examines how Black demographic and political empowerment, as well as policy comprehensiveness impact killing rates of civilians. Findings suggest that greater Black demographic and political empowerment are associated with reductions in killings rates for Blacks as well as for Whites and the total population.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.Item NEIGHBORHOOD CONTEXT AND POLICE BEHAVIOR: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF THE FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE POLICE USE OF FORCE BEHAVIOR IN DISADVANTAGED NEIGHBORHOODS(2014) Hudson, Jan Stephen; McGloin, Jean; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Previous empirical research suggests that patrol officers' arrest and use of force behaviors are differentially distributed across neighborhood contexts. Using a qualitative interview approach, this exploratory study elaborates upon earlier findings by investigating if officers' use of force behavior (particularly on the verbal end of the force continuum) in a police-suspect encounter varies by neighborhood context in the small community of Plum Town. Specifically, this study attempts to provide a clearer understanding of the mechanisms through which officers interpret their beat and the extent to which certain neighborhood factors play a role in influencing their actions. In Plum Town, situational and individual level factors -in particular, the need for officer safety and previous police experience-- lead officers to lower their verbal use of force threshold and increasingly threaten arrest. However, the interviews suggest that, to some extent, these variables are rooted in and influenced by place.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 MAKING SENSE OF BROKEN WINDOWS: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERCEPTIONS OF DISORDER, FEAR OF CRIME, COLLECTIVE EFFICACY AND PERCEPTIONS OF CRIME(2009) Hinkle, Joshua Conard; Weisburd, David; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The broken windows thesis has had a profound impact on policing strategies around the world. The thesis suggests that police can most effectively fight crime by focusing their efforts on targeting disorder--minor crimes and nuisance behaviors such as loitering, public drinking and vandalism, as well as dilapidated physical conditions in a community. The strategy was most prominently used in New York City in the 1990s, and has been often credited for the crime drop observed in the city over that decade. Despite the widespread influence of the broken windows thesis, there has been relatively little rigorous empirical research which has sought to test the validity of its theoretical propositions. This dissertation aimed to address this shortcoming by using structural equation modeling to test the relationships between perceived disorder, fear of crime, collective efficacy and perceptions of crime suggested by the broken windows thesis using survey data collected during a randomized, experimental evaluation of broken windows policing in three cities in California. The results are supportive of the broken windows thesis, but also raise some challenges. Perceptions of disorder were found to increase fear of crime, reduce collective efficacy and lead to crime as suggested. However, fear of crime was not significantly related to collective efficacy as suggested, and the direct effect of perceived social disorder on perceptions of crime was the strongest effect in every model. Nevertheless, the findings do suggest that a reduction of disorder in a community may have positive effects in the form of reducing fear and promoting collective efficacy, and suggest the limitations of studies which only test for direct effects of disorder on crime and/or do not examine the variables at the perceptual level. Future research needs to further examine the broken windows thesis, ideally involving a prospective longitudinal study of crime at place.Item Community Policing and Changing Crime Rates: Does What Police Do Matter?(2006-01-17) Beckman, Karen Anne; Weisburd, David; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Community policing is one of the most significant transformations in American policing (Maguire and King, 2004). While many assert that community policing played a significant role in the decline of national index crime over the last decade, research has yet to fully explore the contribution of community policing activities to aggregate crime trends (Eck and Maguire, 2001; GAO, 2005; Levitt, 2004; Zhao and Thurman, 2004). To fill this gap, this study assessed police involvement in eight community policing activities between 1997 and 2000. Focusing on subgroups of jurisdictions determined to be the most different on the basis of index crime rate change between the four year period of study, the research tested whether police involvement in community policing distinguished jurisdictions measuring improvement from those measuring worsened total, property, and violent index crime rates. Overall, the study found no discernible relationships between police involvement in the community policing activities of interest and improvements in index crime rates within the subgroups of jurisdictions and time period examined. These findings suggest community policing alone will unlikely affect crime change and emphasizes the need for improving measures of community policing practices in support of studies of effectiveness.