Researchers have failed to specify when crime and counter-normative actions, as opposed to other responses may occur as a consequence of relative deprivation. To clarify this issue, a mediational model was developed that specified the causal processes leading from the recognition of deprivation to crime and counter-normative actions. This model hypothesizes that the recognition of deprivation (cognitive relative deprivation) leads to feelings associated with this recognition (affective relative deprivation) which in turn leads to crime and counter-normative actions. This model applies to both personal and group deprivation. In both cases, the feelings associated with deprivation include anger, resentment, dissatisfaction, and discontent. Data from a sample of 950 males between the ages of 16 to 30 supported the mediational model. Moderator variables were hypothesized to influence the causal processes in the mediational model, and were thus employed to specify the conditions under which the recognition of deprivation became more likely to lead to intense emotional reactions, and the conditions under which these emotional reactions became more likely to lead to crime and counter-normative actions. Personal deprivation was found to lead to stronger emotional responses if persons were pessimistic about their deprivation being relieved in the future, while at the group level, higher levels of optimism were related to stronger emotional responses. Both types of deprivation also lead to stronger emotional responses when persons believe that financial success and wealth are important. The emotive responses for both personal and group deprivation, in turn, were more likely to lead to crime and counter-normative actions if deprived persons had criminal peers. It was also found that the recognition of personal deprivation was more likely to lead to depression and lower self-esteem if people blamed themselves for their deprivation than if they did not. Persons who were not optimistic that their deprivation would be relieved in the future were more depressed than persons who were optimistic. Persons whose in-group was deprived were more likely to have lower self-esteem if they blamed the in-group for its deprivation than if they did not.

The frequent consumption of alcohol and cannabis by youth poses both concern and ambivalence to society about the nature of the problem and how to respond. In the last few decades, social science research has devoted considerable attention to substance use among youth, making it an important issue to consider; however, controversy abounds when considering where consumption patterns of youth fall on a continuum from normal to deviant. Central to these debates is the social acceptability of the substances being used, their legal status, the frequency with which they are consumed, and the particular groups most often engaged in their use. Youth who consume alcohol are viewed with less trepidation than those who consume cannabis. Moreover, those who use either substance recreationally or experimentally are deemed to be more typical than those who have escalated their use to more regular or frequent episodes. Finally, drug-using youth who are embedded in conventional society are viewed more positively than those who occupy the margins of society, such as those who are delinquent or homeless. To fully understand the debate about the deviancy versus the normalcy of adolescent substance use, more inclusive approaches that take into account structural, individual and situational explanations are needed; however, existing studies fail to consider all of these influences. Instead, there is debate about the dominance of each of these explanations. This dissertation examines and tests these competing representations and explanations of adolescent substance use by drawing on multiple sociological theories of deviance including control theories, differential association theory, routine activity approaches, and drift theory. Using a combined sample of high school students and street youth, the findings suggest that adolescent substance use is far too complex to be explained by only one theory. Instead, explanations for the variations in substance use must take into account both individual backgrounds and more immediate situational influences. Most importantly, individual beliefs about substances are an important and often ignored aspect of individual substance use patterns.

Une des caractéristiques fondamentales des policiers et des agents correctionnels est le recours légitime à la coercition pour imposer leur autorité. Cette force publique doit donc, en théorie, avoir le dessus sur toute forme de force privée. Dans l’étude des phénomènes de violence, cette caractéristique rend leur victimisation singulière. À ce jour, les formes d’influence, de pressions indues et d’intimidation vécus par les agents de la force publique demeurent relativement peu étudiées. Les objectifs de cette thèse sont d’améliorer notre compréhension des dynamiques d’intimidation, de soulever les différents enjeux pour la force publique et de proposer une théorie de l’intimidation criminelle. La force publique étant, avant toute chose, une émanation de l’État, nous avons commencé par analyser la problématique de l’intimidation criminelle de manière plus globale. En testant la théorie de l’action de sécurité (Cusson, 2010), nous avons constaté qu’une force publique intimidée et corrompue entraîne une perte de légitimité et une inefficacité du système judiciaire dans sa lutte contre la criminalité. Nous avons ensuite adopté une perspective interactionniste pour comprendre les dynamiques d’intimidation au quotidien. Nous nous sommes demandés quels étaient les éléments qui rendaient une intimidation crédible et grave pour les policiers. En identifiant leur monde d’objets (Blumer, 1986), nous avons constaté que les actes d’intimidation qui survenaient en dehors du cadre professionnel étaient jugés plus graves par les policiers et que l’appartenance de l’intimidateur à une organisation criminelle entraînait une augmentation de la gravité de la menace. Ensuite, nous nous sommes interrogés sur la notion d’identité sociale des agents correctionnels victimes d’intimidation (Tedeschi et Felson, 1994). Nous avons constaté que les intimidations mineures mais répétées avaient tendance à modifier les pratiques professionnelles des surveillants. Une analyse intégrée de ces perspectives met en lumière l’existence de deux formes d’intimidation : une intimidation réactive et peu sévère en nature et une intimidation planifiée et grave. Elle soulève également trois enjeux pour la force publique : son aspect symbolique, la transformation de son action et sa légitimité. En intégrant ces enjeux, une théorie de l’intimidation criminelle est proposée. En dernier lieu, des solutions préventives et répressives sont avancées pour lutter contre ce phénomène. / One of the most salient characteristics of police and correctional officers lies in their legitimate use of coercion to impose their authority. In theory, this public force must have precedence over any private force. In the study of violence, this feature makes their victimization particularly peculiar. Unlawful pressure and influence as well as intimidation tactics experienced by law enforcement officers have not been the focus of much attention. This thesis aims at bringing a better understanding of the intimidation dynamics, at identifying the major issues for the public force and at offering a more general theory of criminal intimidation. Public force being an inherently State function, we focussed first at the problem of intimidation in a global manner. By testing the theory of the action of security (Cusson, 2010), we observed that an intimidated and corrupted public force leads to a loss of legitimacy and efficiency of the judicial system in its fight against crime. We then adopted an interactionist approach to understand the everyday dynamics of intimidation. We asked ourselves what were the factors that officers considered severe and credible enough for them to consider an intimidation. By identifying the world of objects of police officers (Blumer, 1986), we observed that acts of intimidation that occurred outside the professional setting were considered more serious. Also, the fact that the intimidator belonged to a criminal organisation raised the gravity of the threat. Then, we looked into the social identities of correctional officers that experienced intimidation (Tedeschi et Felson, 1994). We discovered that minor but repeated acts of intimidation had a tendency to modify the professional practices of prison guards. An integrated analysis sheds light on two types of intimidation: on one side, a reactive and mild intimidation; on the other, a programmed and serious intimidation. This brings three issues for the public force: its symbolic aspects, a transformation of its action and its legitimacy. By integrating those issues, we have been able to offer a theory of the criminal intimidation. Lastly, preventive and repressive measures are discussed as a solution to criminal intimidation.

L’exposition à la violence dans le secteur de la santé affecte les employés et a également des implications sur la qualité des soins offerts. Les agressions en milieu de travail peuvent engendrer divers émotions ou comportements chez le personnel soignant, tels que la peur et l’évitement des patients (Gates, Gillespie, & Succop, 2011). La présente étude phénoménologique tente de comprendre et de décrire l’expérience des intervenants d’un hôpital psychiatrique lorsque ceux-ci ont été victimes d’un acte de violence grave de la part d’un patient, ainsi que les impacts engendrés sur les services offerts. L’approche phénoménologique permet de porter un nouveau regard sur cette problématique en plongeant dans l’univers de chaque intervenant, comprendre l’interprétation donnée à l’acte de violence vécu. L’emploi de cette approche donne accès à davantage de contenu et permet de préciser de quelle façon leur quotidien est altéré par ce phénomène. Trente entrevues semi-structurées ont été réalisées, soit deux auprès de chacun des 15 participants (11 femmes) provenant de divers domaines professionnels œuvrant dans un hôpital psychiatrique. Les analyses sont basées sur la technique « Empirical Phenomenological Psychological » de Karlsson (1993). Une attention particulière a été portée quant à la possibilité d’expériences différentes selon le sexe des intervenants. L’analyse a fait ressortir quatre thèmes principaux qui sont présents indépendamment du sexe des intervenants, soit: l’hypervigilance, le caring, la peur spécifique du patient agresseur, puis la peur généralisée à tous les patients. Un état d’hypervigilance est retrouvé chez tous les intervenants qui ont été victimes d’agression de la part d’un patient. Comparativement aux intervenants qui ont assisté à l’escalade d’agressivité d’un patient, ceux ayant été agressés par surprise rapportent des répercussions de cette vigilance qui s’étendent jusqu’à leur vie personnelle. Une approche caring est présente chez la majorité des participants. Ceci implique une bienveillance et une authenticité envers le patient soigné. Mettant le patient au cœur de son intervention, l’intervenant « soignant » développe un lien de confiance et agit comme un agent de changement. Un sentiment de peur est également exprimé chez les participants. Celui-ci est modulé par la présence ou l’absence de caring. Les intervenants démontrant du caring ont développé une peur spécifique à leur agresseur, tandis que ceux ne manifestant peu ou pas de caring ont développé une peur généralisée de la clientèle. Suite à un évènement de violence, les intervenants étant caring le demeurent, alors que ceux n’étant peu ou pas caring seraient plutôt portés à se désinvestir et à se désengager des relations avec les patients. Engendrées par la violence subie en milieu hospitalier psychiatrique, l’hypervigilance et la peur, qu’elle soit spécifique ou généralisée, ont toutes deux des impacts sur la qualité des soins offerts. Un intérêt considérable devrait être porté au caring, qui vient moduler cette peur et les effets qui en découlent. Des recherches pourraient porter un éclairage sur l’origine du caring – est-ce que le caring est appris ou découle-t-il d’une vocation? Finalement, ces études pourraient établir des manières de renforcer ou de développer le caring. / Exposure to violence in the mental health sector both affects employees and has implications for the quality of care provided. These acts of aggression can have important effects on workplace conduct, generating various emotions and behaviors in healthcare workers, such as fear and avoidance of patients (Gates et al., 2011). This phenomenological study aims to describe and understand the ways in which acts of aggression from a patient may affect the health of workers in a psychiatric institute, their relationships with the patients and the services offered. The phenomenological approach allows for a novel outlook on this problem by diving into the experiential world of each participant and encouraging reflections on his or her own understandings and interpretations of violence. In this way, we gain key insight into the specific ways in which workplace violence affects daily life. Two semi-structured interviews were conducted with each of the 15 participants (11 women and 4 men) from various professional fields within a psychiatric hospital, totalling 30 interviews. The analyses are based on Karlsson’s "Empirical Phenomenological Psychological" technique (1993). Our analysis reveals four main themes that are present regardless of the sex of participants: hypervigilance, caring, specific fear towards the aggressor and generalized fear of all patients. A state of hypervigilance is found among all participants who have been victims of assault by a patient. Yet, compared to participants who witnessed the escalation of a patient's aggression, those who were taken by surprise in the attack more often reported that this hypervigilance extends beyond the workplace and into their personal lives. An emphasis on caring is present among the majority of participants. This outlook implies kindness and authenticity in the treatment of patients. Putting patients at the heart of one's work, the healthcare worker develops a relationship of trust and acts as an agent of change. A feeling of fear is also expressed by participants and is modulated by the presence or absence of caring. Those approaching patients with a caring disposition developed a specific fear of their aggressor, while those showing little or no caring developed a generalized fear of all patients. Following a violent event, caring participants maintained this outlook, while those demonstrating little to no caring were more inclined to disinvest and disengage from all patients. Moreover, hypervigilance and fear (both specific and generalized) caused by experiences of violence impact the quality of care provided. Considerable interest should thus be paid to caring, which can modulate fear and its effects. Additional research could shed light on the origins of caring: Is it learnt or does it result from a vocation? Finally, studies of this kind could establish or strengthen ways of developing this outlook.

Master of Arts / Department of Communication Studies / William Schenck-Hamlin / The following research project seeks to answer the question: “To what extent can differences among juvenile detention centers be explained on the basis of concepts of restorative and retributive justice?” To investigate, mission statements were collected from a national sample of Juvenile Detention Centers. A semantic network analysis was performed to answer the above research question. The computer program CATPAC was used to create 2-d images of the semantic analysis. From these images eight themes emerged through clusters: institutional identity, public safety, life skill values, family and child tie, and community and family tie, support from staff, support from environment, and support from environment and staff. These themes were reflective of retributive or restorative orientation. Results indicate that male public institutions are reflective of retributive justice while female public, male private, and female private institutions are more reflective of restorative justice. These findings suggest biases and treatment patterns within the juvenile justice system.

This research examines the content and process involved in developing criminal profiles. To assess the material typically included in profiles and the way that the conclusions are developed, a qualitative analysis of the content of profiles was undertaken. This included, among other things, the characteristics offered, their prevalence, and the most common characteristics by profiling method. A further quantitative study was undertaken employing Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) which revealed three general themes in the advice given. These included Crime Scene, Internal Offender and Offender Characteristic facets, each of which was comprised of features suggestive of that facet. For example, the Crime Scene facet typically described offender actions and their interpretation at the physical location of the criminal event, such as staging and methods of control.The study employed a sample of 49 profilers reflective of the four main schools of thought; Criminal Investigative Analysis (CIA), Investigative Psychology (IP), Diagnostic Evaluations (DE) and Behavioural Evidence Analysis (BEA). CIA profiles were greatest in number with a sample size of 19. There were 14 BEA profiles and 8 each of DE and IP profiles. Together, there were in excess of 3000 individual variables ranging from age, sex and race to employment, geography, mental illness and risk.Results indicate that the vast majority of profilers employ either research or personal belief in forming their opinions, and that physical evidence is used the least in justifying a profiler’s opinion. However, when considering the individual methods, BEA placed the greatest reliance on physical evidence and its interpretation according with the forensic science philosophy of the method. CIA, the method used by the FBI, produced the most characteristics of the sample at 312 across 19 profiles, followed by BEA at 166 characteristics across 14 profiles. IP and DE profiles, with a sample size of eight each, had 90 and 61 characteristics respectively.Beyond these findings, the implication of the research will be discussed and some future direction for this research and the field in general will be provided. These areas include education, training, the scientific method and professionalisation. This thesis will also canvass the issue of whether profiling is an art or a science with particular reference to the research results and the existing literature that has bothered to address this issue.

This study examines the dynamics and implications of trans-spatial subordination in/across the lived experiences of six incarcerated participant youths in a secure custody facility for juveniles in Louisiana. Five male teenagers (four African American, one White) and one female teenager (African American) discuss the limitations, harassment, and confinement in various aspects of their lives and speak about the impact on their expectations for the future. The author employs several methodologies in order to develop a multimedia, multifaceted representation of their lives. The narratives elicited through interviews provide the bulk of the data as the participants describe this perpetual subordination. The photographs, resulting from the implementation of a visual ethnographic methodology, provide images that serve as catalysts for introspection and analysis of significance in the mundane and routine, particularly as they apply to the carceral facilities, structures, and policies themselves. Film viewing and discussion offer an array of depictions of youth and criminality to which the youths responded, granting a simultaneous peek at how these marginalized youths viewed themselves and how mainstream media productions depict them. After a particularly provoking viewing session of an animated film, the author expands the preliminary boundaries of the work beyond cells and the walls of the prison. The expanding focus examines subordinating elements in their lives with their families and in their neighbourhoods. The challenges, harassment, and obstacles experienced in their communities continued in their schools and during their encounters with law enforcement, the latter of which often led directly to imprisonment. Finally, the youths reflected on the confining subordination that existed in the facilities, the product of the combination of: their discomfort with the surveillant structure, their perceived arbitrariness of privilege, and the lack of any relevant education. They also identified opportunities for voicing their opinions and recognized the relative safety of this facility compared to others. As the participants conceptualized their futures and articulated their relatively narrow and often ambiguous hopes, the sobering influence of such perpetual subordination is evident. The author closes with a discussion of the study’s importance to future research with marginalized youth in a society of increasing surveillance and security as well as implications for teacher education.

My dissertation is a critical ethnography of grassroots feminist agencies and immigrant organizations involved in the governance of gender violence in Toronto, Ontario. Along with examining the agencies operating on the outskirts of the law, I also observe the organizations that contract directly with the provincial government to counsel abusers prosecuted through the city’s specialized domestic violence courts. Drawing on the methodological and theoretical insights of socio-legal studies, postcolonial feminism, and governmentality scholarship, my research explores the governance of domestic violence through the community. Specifically, I examine how the voluntary sector performs the state’s work of prosecuting domestic violence, punishing offenders and building citizens. My research reveals the significant influence that community organizations exert on the prosecution of gender violence and in defining the conditions of punishment for offenders. Through court observation of Toronto’s domestic violence plea court, I show how grassroots administrative workers transform into hybrids of the prosecutor and defense within governance networks. In addition, based on interviews with service providers delivering counseling to offenders, I document how non-profit organizational habits add distinctive flavors to the administration of punishment, materializing in governing regimes that emphasize care in some contexts and discipline in others. Finally, I also explore the dual constructions of immigrant counselors as both the experts and the “others” to the nation with regards to gender violence. In contrast to assumptions of ignorance amongst the immigrant “other” in the liberal imaginary, my findings indicate that the notion of women’s empowerment is nothing new or unfamiliar within Toronto’s diasporic communities; several of the immigrant anti-violence experts involved in this research credit their politicization and training “back home” as foundational to their involvement in feminist and the anti-violence movement. These findings challenge liberal assumptions of the East as a space devoid of the cultural material of women’s empowerment, which form the backbone of Western performances of modernity.

This study examines the dynamics and implications of trans-spatial subordination in/across the lived experiences of six incarcerated participant youths in a secure custody facility for juveniles in Louisiana. Five male teenagers (four African American, one White) and one female teenager (African American) discuss the limitations, harassment, and confinement in various aspects of their lives and speak about the impact on their expectations for the future. The author employs several methodologies in order to develop a multimedia, multifaceted representation of their lives. The narratives elicited through interviews provide the bulk of the data as the participants describe this perpetual subordination. The photographs, resulting from the implementation of a visual ethnographic methodology, provide images that serve as catalysts for introspection and analysis of significance in the mundane and routine, particularly as they apply to the carceral facilities, structures, and policies themselves. Film viewing and discussion offer an array of depictions of youth and criminality to which the youths responded, granting a simultaneous peek at how these marginalized youths viewed themselves and how mainstream media productions depict them. After a particularly provoking viewing session of an animated film, the author expands the preliminary boundaries of the work beyond cells and the walls of the prison. The expanding focus examines subordinating elements in their lives with their families and in their neighbourhoods. The challenges, harassment, and obstacles experienced in their communities continued in their schools and during their encounters with law enforcement, the latter of which often led directly to imprisonment. Finally, the youths reflected on the confining subordination that existed in the facilities, the product of the combination of: their discomfort with the surveillant structure, their perceived arbitrariness of privilege, and the lack of any relevant education. They also identified opportunities for voicing their opinions and recognized the relative safety of this facility compared to others. As the participants conceptualized their futures and articulated their relatively narrow and often ambiguous hopes, the sobering influence of such perpetual subordination is evident. The author closes with a discussion of the study’s importance to future research with marginalized youth in a society of increasing surveillance and security as well as implications for teacher education.

No description available.