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 CAN SOCIAL PROTESTS CHANGE LOCAL SENTENCING PATTERNS? EVIDENCE FROM THE 2015 BALTIMORE UPRISING(2023) Li, Dixin; Johnson, Brian D; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Research examining the effects of violent protests has long produced mixed results and more recent studies are no more definitive. Very little work explicitly considers their potential impact on the criminal justice system, and particularly on the courts, the institution that primarily distributes punishment and exerts formal social control. At the same time, criminologists and sociologists agree that courts do not operate in a social vacuum but are embedded in layered contexts. Although some court research examines contextual effects, it has treated them as relatively inert over time, and little is known about how court decisions may deviate from their patterns in the face of sudden political turmoil. Bringing together varied lines of theories, this research discusses the effect of social protests on criminal courts, using data from the Maryland State Commission on Criminal Sentencing Policy (MSCCSP) to examine local sentencing pattern shifts in the aftermath of the 2015 death of Freddie Gray and the subsequent social unrest that follwed. This study analyzes (a) whether the overall punitiveness of courts changed after the event, (b) whether the change disparately impacted different racial and ethnic groups, and (c) whether these effects vary geographically across the state of Maryland.Item COLLECTIVE EFFICACY, THREAT, AND URBAN CHANGE: EXAMINING SOCIAL CONTROL FORCES IN AREAS OF GENTRIFICATION(2015) Kozey, Kathryn Noe; Paternoster, Raymond; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Since the term gentrification was first coined in the 1960s, scholars have had an interest in understanding how this process of change can impact neighborhoods. Empirical research focusing on the relationship between gentrification and crime has yielded varying results, with little examination of the contextual mechanisms which may influence the relationship. In addition, little empirical attention has been devoted to the possibility of the spatial displacement of crime due to gentrification. The purpose of this dissertation is to contribute to our understanding of how gentrification impacts levels of crime in three ways. First, using data from the U.S. Census, the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, and the Chicago Transit Authority, I examine whether gentrification is significantly associated with lower levels of crime. Second, I examine levels of crime in gentrifying and adjacent areas to assess the presence of spatial displacement. Third, I incorporate two contextual factors - collective efficacy and perceived neighborhood change - to examine whether or not they modify the relationship between gentrification and crime. Analyses utilize multilevel modeling techniques and difference-in-differences estimation. Results offer preliminary support for the moderating roles of collective efficacy and perceived neighborhood change mechanisms on the relationship between gentrification and crime. While there is an overall negative association between gentrification and crime, this effect is strengthened with collective efficacy, but reversed with rising levels of perceived neighborhood change. Additionally, there is preliminary evidence that the spatial displacement of crime is not occurring as a result of gentrification. I conclude this dissertation with a discussion of the limitations, policy implications, and future directions for this area of research.