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published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

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The purpose of this thesis is to empirically explore prostitution through a feminist perspective. Several background factors are explored on a small sample of women in the northeastern United States. Some of these women have been involved in an act of prostitution in their lifetime; some have not. This research will add to the body of knowledge on prostitution, as well as highlight the unique experiences of women. The goal is to understand whether or not these life experiences have had a hand in women's choices to engage in prostitution.

Feminist activism in the digital age leverages technology to raise awareness of, and to mobilize support for, important issues and causes. Human trafficking is one such cause, and preventing it is included as a United Nations Sustainable Development Goal to achieve gender equality and empower women and girls. This study sought to understand the digital activism strategies of one women's civic leadership organization, the Junior League, for human trafficking awareness. In addition, this project analyzed how those digital activism strategies did or did not align with social justice approaches to human trafficking and how those digital activism strategies did or did not translate to offline action. To address these research questions, a three-pronged, feminist approach to data collection and analysis examined textual documents and included a qualitative survey and follow-up semi-structured interviews. Analysis revealed the overall disconnect between the mission of this women's civic leadership organization, its human trafficking awareness work, and its offline actions. Recommendations offered for this organization and for any nonprofit working in the anti-trafficking space include messaging and campaign goals for digital activism; connecting online efforts with offline action; developing organizational partnerships that consider multiple perspectives versus only a law-and-order angle; and including survivor voices and experiences into all anti-trafficking work.

Research on the prevalence of human trafficking (HT) is relatively scarce, even though more attention has been brought to this human rights issue in the past couple of decades. Widely known as a form of modern day slavery, trafficking of persons for sexual exploitative reasons to earn a profit for the trafficker occurs in every major city across the country, despite common misconceptions that it only thrives in foreign countries. To expand on limited existing literature on human trafficking, this research study explores possible correlations among areas of high violent crime rates, drug arrests, the presence of demand reduction strategies, sociodemographic variables, and tourism measures among the Florida counties to determine if they can act as predictive measures to locate areas where a human trafficking arrest is the most likely to occur. These relationships were investigated through the Offender Based Transaction Systems (OBTS), documented court actions filed by prosecutors between 2012-2016 of human trafficking arrests, and comparing it to violent crime rates and drug arrest rates for the Florida counties using data from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, in conjunction with demand reduction efforts. The results from this study did not support the hypothesis that the higher rate of violent crime and drug arrest rates would significantly increase to the presence of a human trafficking arrest. Instead, demand reduction efforts, e.g. street and web sting operations, neighborhood action, and public awareness, emerged as the only significant variable that predicted the likelihood of a human trafficking arrest occurring in a county. These findings stress the importance of reduction efforts targeting the leading consumers in this lucrative market; the demand for sex from sex buyers.

Looking back, America has seen its fair share of differences among its population, so it should not come as a shock that sentencing disparities are a serious criminal justice issue in the United States. Each year, thousands of people are sent to Federal prisons where they receive sentences for crimes they have been convicted of committing. The United States Sentencing Commission publishes these results annually. No matter the number of persons entering the prison system on the federal level, the number of female offenders often remains about the same (8555 in 2000; 9451 in 2007; and 9302 in 2008). While it is illegal to openly discriminate against a defendant and give them a sentence based on his or her demographics, the laws are written in ways where discrimination can still be allowed. The current research examines the relationship between not only gender, but also looks to education, race, age, and the crime committed to explain this gap in sentencing. Methodology: The data for the current research are from the United States Sentencing Commission (USSC), an annual report comprised of details for every person who entered federal prison in the given year. The current research used data from the year 2016 and includes 67,660 cases. Findings: Findings are supportive of previous research. Whether or not a defendant will receive a sentence is influenced by gender, age, race, education, and offense type. Sex, race, and education also affected the length of the sentence received. Unlike previous studies, age did not appear to be significant when determining the length of a sentence.

In these three essays, I examine the relationship between housing prices and civil disturbances. In the first essay, I examine the Ferguson Unrest in 2014 following the killing of Michael Brown. Using a hedonic model and a repeat sales model using data from ZTRAX, I find a highly significant negative affect around the events temporally and spatially. In the second essay I examine house price indices across the US during the onset of COVID and during the protests following the killing of George Floyd. I use the Zillow Home Value Index and I find cities which experienced protests experienced less growth than those which did not, and COVID requirements have a heterogeneous effect dependent on enforcement. The severity of the negative effect of the protest depends on protest size and the interaction between the COVID lockdown requirements. In the third and final essay, I continue using the Zillow Home Value Index and find the George Floyd protests had spillover effects into adjacent municipalities within the same metropolitan statistical area. Cities which experienced protests which resulted in a death experienced spillover effects with the adjacent municipalities having a statistically and economically significant reduction in housing price growth, but less severe than the city where the protest took place. Taken together the essays contribute to the literature on civil disturbances and their relationship with housing prices, the literature on crime and its relationship with housing prices, and the literature on COVID-19 restrictions and their relationship with housing

Thesis. 1975. B.S.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning. / Bibliography: leaves 74-75. / by Kenneth J. Isaacson. / B.S.

The purpose of this study it to research the role and public perception of security surveillance on a university campus. The research measured variables such as age, gender, class standing political affiliation, and one's residence whether on campus or off campus. This study is focused on how students view security surveillance, and whether they see security surveillance as an important tool for the safety of the public or a threat to privacy. A student survey was administered to undergraduate students asking how they felt about crime on campus and whether crime was a problem that could be solved by security cameras. The research indicates that the majority of students do not view security surveillance as a threat to their privacy, and that security cameras are an important tool in combating crime.