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 WHAT'S RACE GOT TO DO WITH IT?: EXAMINING THE IMPACT OF RACE ON THE IMMIGRATION-CRIME RELATIONSHIP(2024) Henry, Diomand; Vélez, Maria B; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Existing literature on immigration and crime suggests a negative correlation betweenimmigration and neighborhood crime rates. However, the influence of race on this relationship has been understudied. This thesis addresses this gap by examining the immigration-crime relationship at the neighborhood level with a focus on the racial background of the foreign born population and the dominant racial composition of the community. Utilizing data from the National Neighborhood Crime Study II (NNCS2) and the 2008-2012 American Community Survey, this study incorporates race in three ways: categorizing immigrants by racial group (Black, White, Latino, and Asian), analyzing the impact of immigration across distinct racial neighborhoods (Black, White, Latino, and Multi-Ethnic), and examining the interaction between the racial groups of immigrants and neighborhood types on crime rates. The findings reveal that: (1) consistent with prior literature, immigration is associated with lower neighborhood crime rates; (2) the strength of this relationship varies across different racial backgrounds of immigrants and (3) the relationship differs across varying levels of racial composition at the neighborhood level, indicating that race significantly influences the immigration-crime dynamic. Overall, the results underscore the critical importance of incorporating race into discussions about immigration and crime.Item Local violence and transitions to marriage and cohabitation in Mexico(Wiley, 2022-10-20) Caudillo, Mónica L.; Lee, JaeinObjective To assess whether local violence is associated with the timing and type of women's first union formation. Background Local violence may cause disruptions to marriage markets and psychological and behavioral changes that may affect union formation patterns. Method The authors exploited the variation in homicide rates caused by a shift in national drug-enforcement policy in Mexico in December 2006. Competing-risks Cox models and union histories from a nationally representative survey of women (N = 33,292) were used to assess whether a recent increase in violence was associated with the timing of the first union transition, which could be either marriage or cohabitation. Analyses were conducted separately by education level. Results A recent increase in the local homicide rate was associated with delayed first marriage formation for less educated women. Supplementary analyses suggested that a decrease in the number of employed men per women, as well as reduced social interaction due to fear of victimization could be plausible causal mechanisms. No statistically significant associations were found between a recent increase in violence and transitions to first cohabitation for the less educated, or with any first union transition for the moderately and more educated. Conclusion Among less educated women, a recent increase in violence was associated with a delayed entrance into marriage as a first union transition. Implications By increasing their barriers to marriage, local violence may contribute to the accumulation of disadvantage among disadvantaged women and families.Item The Social Terrain of Rebel Held Territory(2020) Breslawski, Marjorie; Cunningham, David; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The extent of local order varies widely in rebel held areas, from total chaos to well-run governing institutions. When these institutions exist, why do some include and even empower civilians to run community affairs, while others exclude civilians from governance? I argue that rebels choose different governing strategies that maximize their utility of territorial control, based on certain characteristics of civilian inhabitants populating the territory. Rebels’ constituency determines whether rebels seek to govern civilians or control them solely with coercive violence, and community cohesion (or lack thereof) then determines the type of institutions that rebels develop. I focus on three different outcomes for communities under rebel control—no institutions, exclusive institutions, and inclusive institutions. I test my argument using historical, statistical, and case evidence, leveraging original cross-national data on local order in rebel held territory as well as interviews with village heads, ex-combatants, and community members in Aceh, Indonesia. The results provide support for my theory and yield implications for our understanding of human security during conflict and the determinants of civilians’ political and social reality during war.Item Violence and Belonging: The impact of citizenship law on violence in Sub-Saharan Africa(2016) Fruge, Anne Christine; Birnir, Johanna K; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Many countries in Africa are embroiled in heated debates over who belongs where. Sometimes insider/outsider debates lead to localized skirmishes, but other times they turn into minor conflict or even war. How do we explain this variation in violence intensity? Deviating from traditional explanations regarding democratization, political or economic inequality, or natural resources, I examine how nationality laws shape patterns in violence. Citizenship rules determine who is or is not a member of the national political community. Nationality laws formalize these rules, thus representing the legal bond between individuals and the state. Restrictive nationality laws increase marginalization, which fuels competition between citizenship regime winners and losers. This competition stokes contentious insider/outsider narratives that guide ethnic mobilization along the dual logics of threat and opportunity. Threats reduce resource levels and obstruct the exercise of rights. Opportunities provide the chance to reclaim lost resources or clarify nationality status. Other work explains conditions necessary for insider/outsider violence to break out or escalate from the local to the national level. I show that this violence intensifies as laws become more exclusive and escalates to war once an outsider group with contested foreign origins faces denationalization. Groups have contested foreign origins where the “outsider” label conflates internal and foreign migrants. Where outsiders are primarily in-migrants, it is harder to deny the group’s right to citizenship, so nationality laws do not come under threat and insider/outsider violence remains constrained to minor conflict. Using an original dataset of Africa’s nationality laws since 1989, I find that event frequency and fatality rates increase as laws become more restrictive. Through case studies, I explain when citizenship struggles should remain localized, or escalate to minor or major conflict. Next, I apply a nationality law lens to individual level conflict processes. With Afrobarometer survey data, I show that difficulty obtaining identity papers is positively correlated with the fear and use political violence. I also find that susceptibility to contentious narratives is positively associated with using violence to achieve political goals. Finally, I describe the lingering effects of a violent politics of belonging using original survey data from Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana.Item CAUSAL OR MERELY CO-EXISTING: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF VIOLENCE AND DISORDER AT PLACES(2007-08-02) Yang, Sue-Ming; Weisburd, David; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This research examines the relationship between disorder and violence across geography, specifically whether disorder and violence are causally related. This issue has generated much debate in the field of criminology. The broken windows thesis argues that untended disorder will lead to crime while social disorganization theory suggests that these two phenomena are merely spuriously related. To examine the longitudinal relationship between disorder and violence, this dissertation used data from the city of Seattle, Washington and analyzed them with dynamic statistical tools. Group-based trajectory analysis was used to identify different patterns of disorder and violence. The findings reveal a moderate level of spatial association between disorder and violence. Moreover, the results show that lack of disorder may be a protective factor for places in preventing future crime. This particular finding provides a new insight for crime prevention strategy. I further use Granger causality tests to examine the causal association between disorder and violence within selected violence and disorder hotspots. Findings from the Granger causality tests indicate that disorder does not lead to violence. As such the results suggest that public policy targeting disorder may not lead to crime reduction benefits. This particular finding challenges the notion of broken windows policing. Although broken windows policing might increase the chance to apprehend criminals due to the spatial clustering of social disorder and violence, the findings suggest that reducing levels of disorder will be unlikely to have strong impacts on crime rates. Additionally, potential collateral effects of police crackdowns on disorder need to be considered. Lastly, social disorder and physical disorder seem to relate to violence differently. Specifically, social disorder corresponds with violence more strongly than physical disorder. This issue has theoretical implications and should be explored further in future research.Item The Use of Violence in an Offense in a Sample of Convicted Rapists Within a Population Heterogeneity/State Dependence Framework(2005-05-20) Fahey, Susan M.; Paternoster, Raymond; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The use of violence in a rape offense is an important but neglected question. This study seeks to enumerate the variables that predict the use of moderate and severe violence in a rape offense within a population heterogeneity/state dependence framework. Population heterogeneity asserts that crime or violence is caused by an underlying propensity while state dependence argues that prior crime or violence can increase or decrease the likelihood of future crime. A mixed model asserts that time-stable traits predispose an individual towards a certain level of crime or violence and time-varying characteristics can amplify or diminish this underlying risk. A sample of 222 convicted rapists from the Massachusetts Treatment Center was assessed on developmental, relationship and job attributes. A multinomial logistic regression analysis was performed on three levels of the outcome: no violence, moderate violence or severe violence. The results support a mixed model. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.Item GUN ACCESS AND FEMICIDE: A DIFFERENTIAL IMPACT OF FIREARMS ON INTIMATE KILLINGS(2005-05-03) Cross, Amanda Brown; LaFree, Gary; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Studies of intimate partner homicide have repeatedly suggested that gun accessibility increases the risk that a confrontation between intimates will end in the death of one partner, usually the woman. In the larger arena of gun accessibility research, experts have posited opposing conclusions about how gun accessibility affects the risk of homicide in the population overall. This thesis is an attempt to build a bridge between literature linking gun access to increased intimate partner homicide and literature exploring the affect of gun availability on homicide in general. Based on previous research, the current study poses the following hypotheses: (I) Gun accessibility is a stronger predictor of intimate partner homicide than non-intimate partner homicide and (II) Gun accessibility is a stronger predictor of intimate partner homicide of women than intimate partner homicide of men. My analysis is consistent with hypothesis II but offers no support for hypothesis I.