Book Summary: Does theism dominant the language and practices of public life in the United States? This volume explores this question from a humanist perspective, and in so doing it provides insight into the relationship of religion to public policy, and offers ways to advance a more democratic and secular public arena.

Research on the topics of atheism, agnosticism, and irreligion has been limited during much of the last century. We explain the reasons for a lack of research in this field and discuss the recent interest in this topic. The most recent wave of research has been concentrated during the past decade and tends to look at the dual issues of who composes the religiously unaffiliated and why they choose this self-identification. Recent research has begun to take a much wider and deeper view on the subject. This includes research on particular segments of the population such as atheists, as well as understanding how the religiously unaffiliated are viewed by the broader culture. We conclude by describing important directions for future research. In particular, there is a need to break out the separate forms of irreligion and use creative new methodologies to find and study this significant portion of the population.

Gender gaps in religiosity among Western populations, such that women are more religious than men, are well documented. Previous explanations for these differences range from biological predispositions of risk aversion to patriarchal gender socialization, but all largely overlook the intersection of social statuses. Drawing on theories of intersectionality, we contribute to the cultural and empirical analysis of gender gaps in religiosity by documenting an interactive effect between gender, education, and political views for predicting religious nonaffiliation and infrequent attendance at religious services among Americans. For highly educated political liberals, gender gaps effectively disappear, such that men and women are almost equally likely to be secular (or religious). The results have implications for the long-standing disputes about the gendered “nature” of religiosity and highlight the importance of multiple intersecting statuses and modalities in shaping aggregate patterns of religiosity and secularity.

Book Summary: The Routledge Handbook on Deviance brings together original contributions on deviance, with a focus on new, emerging, and hidden forms of deviant behavior. The editors have curated a comprehensive collection highlighting the relativity of deviance, with chapters exploring the deviant behaviors related to sport, recreation, body modification, chronic health conditions, substance use, religion and cults, political extremism, sexuality, online interaction, mental and emotional disorders, elite societal status, workplace issues, and lifestyle. The selections review competing definitions and orientations and a wide range of theoretical premises, while addressing methodological issues involved in the study of deviance. Each section begins with an introduction by the editors, anchoring the topics in relevant theoretical and methodological contexts and identifying common themes as well as divergence. Providing state-of-the-art scholarship on deviance in modern society, this handbook is an invaluable resource for researchers and students engaged in the study of deviance across a range of diciplines including criminology, criminal justice, sociology, anthropology, and interdisciplinary departments, including justice studies, social transformation, and socio-legal studies.

There is an overrepresentation of youths with disabilities in the juvenile justice system. As a result, each year thousands of juvenile offenders despite of the seriousness of the crimes committed, are released from incarceration with the hopes of living a successful life in society. Despite progressive research on identifying factors associated with desistance, it is still unclear what factors contribute to desistance for serious juvenile offenders and especially those with disabilities. The current study investigated the individual differences (e.g., moral disengagement, motivation to succeed and impulse control) and social factors (e.g., employment, education and maternal warmth) that are important in the process of desistance for serious juvenile offenders. The sample of 14 to 17-year-old male and female offenders (N =1354) was composed primarily of ethnically marginalized youths who have committed serious offenses. Results of the study indicated that both social and individual factors are significant predictors of desistance from crime. However, varied significance was found as it relates to Aggressive, Income Offending and desistance. Results obtained are applicable to scholarship across multiple disciplines, as well as inform policy, practice and future research on desistance from crime. Limitations of the study were also stated.

This dissertation explores the mechanisms of the increasing female crime in China from the effect of the one-child policy, which is treated herein as a natural experiment. Data reveal that the women’s share of documented crime dramatically increased after the mid-1990s when the first one-child generation reached the age of legal responsibility. This change reflects the interplay of the behavioral change and the net-widening effect. The increasing criminality of the one-child generation is attributable to the gap between the equal gender expectations of the individual, which has been reshaped by the unique socialization practices under the influence of the policy, and a stubbornly unequal gender hierarchy in the society. As a result, the one-child-generation women who disproportionately suffer the resulting strains are more likely to become involved in property and occupational crime as the alternative means to fulfill their aspirations for economic success. Additionally, the effect of the policy affects not only the individual gender roles of the only children but also their peers who have siblings through the intermediary of a culture shift. Therefore, the policy has changed the behavior of a whole new generation through the process of socialization and the lag in the structural change. The net-widening effect is another pathway of the unequal gender structure and ideologies to the increasing female crime. Moral panic associated with the emergence of diverse forms of female offenses lead to an inordinate degree of adverse attention focused upon the one-child-generation women by criminal justice professionals. The increased criminalization of sexuality brought an increasing number of the one-child-generation women into conflict with the law, usually for prostituting themselves for easy money to fulfill their material satisfaction. Consequently, the one-child-generation female offenders are perceived as “doubly deviant” from the law and from the socially prescribed ideology of gender and are, therefore, punished more harshly than before by the criminal justice system. This dissertation not only explores an understudied country in criminological research but also seeks to apply the findings to a broad sphere to explain the increasing female crime that has been observed worldwide. It disentangles the theoretical controversy in explaining the increase in the share of crime committed by women in general by embedding the argument in a multidimensional gender role repertoire.

This three-paper dissertation quantitatively identifies and examines three different substantive areas using data from the American College Health Association’s Fall of 2016 National College Health Assessment (ACHA-NCHA). Specific areas of inquiry include, marginalized populations and college campus sexual assault, intersectional analyses of risk factors for college campus sexual assault, and drinking protective behavioral strategies as prevention tools for college campus sexual assault. Paper one, titled, “College Campus Sexual Assault and Students with Disabilities,” explores a particular marginalized group of students that have been largely left out of college campus sexual assault studies: female college students with disabilities. The logistic regression analyses find that having any disability increases risk for any type of college campus sexual assault more than other commonly cited risk factors such as binge drinking, or Greek affiliation. Moreover, the study indicates that odds for female students with disabilities are varied depending on the type of assault, completed, attempted, or relationship, as well as the specific type of disability. Results are discussed, and policy implications, limitations, and opportunities for future research are delineated. Paper two, titled, “College Campus Sexual Assault: Moving Toward a More Intersectional Quantitative Analysis,” is guided by an intersectional theoretical framework. The study employs classification and regression tree analyses (CART) to identify more specific groups of students that are at disproportionate risk for sexual assault beyond singular variables or even interaction effects. Unlike traditional regression techniques, CART does not assume a linear relationship, and can simultaneously account for independent variables relationship to one another while determining which variables have the most explanatory power for the dependent variable and for which unique groups of students. The study discusses results of analyses in relationship to intersectional research both theoretically and methodologically, as well as future research, and policy implications. Alcohol consumption, particularly binge drinking, has been consistently linked to greater risk for college campus sexual assault victimization. However, there is a lack of college campus violence prevention and intervention programming that addresses alcohol consumption in relation to campus sexual assault. As such, paper three, titled, “Drinking Protective Behavioral Strategies and College Campus Sexual Assault,” uses logistic regression to explore whether or not the use of drinking protective behavioral strategies (PBS) lowers risk for sexual assault in female college students that drink alcohol. The study examines both the main effects of drinking PBS on sexual assault risk, as well as whether or not the use of drinking PBS moderates the risk of frequent alcohol consumption, and binge drinking on college campus sexual assault. The paper discusses findings, limitations, policy implications, and avenues for future research.

According to the 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment created by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, there are more than 33,000 gangs in the United States, cited as being responsible for nearly 48% of the violent crime in the country. Using information drawn from gang-related court cases, this study examines the nature of inter- and intra-gang violence occurring between January 1, 2002-December 31, 2011. An innovative application of network analysis will be used to hone in on rivalries, the existence of possible hierarchy, and the relational and structural characteristics of Blood and Crip gangs in Los Angeles County. Results show that the majority of gang-on-gang violence originates and targets individuals in the city of Los Angeles. Furthermore, more than two-thirds of the violence committed at the hands of Blood and Crip gangs is upon individuals that are not affiliated with a gang. Strategies are offered on how to improve the effectiveness of existing community-based policing or hot-spot policing in areas known to have violent gang-related incidents (Los Angeles City). Furthermore, the implementation of programs designed to assist and deter the formation and proliferation of gangs will result in less gang violence and therefore more time to be spent on creating law enforcement strategies aimed at quelling the more troublesome gang rivalries.

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between traditional African-American American parenting and the overrepresentation of African-Americans in America’s jails and prisons. This qualitative study utilized semi-structured interviews of twelve parents who have had a child incarcerated in their adult life to gather data. Study participants were asked their experiences with several traditional happenings, supported by research, in some traditional African-American households. Topics discussed included religion, spanking, and single parenthood. The study found that many of the traditional happenings of African-American parenting occurred within the homes of parents with children who were incarcerated, which supports previous research. Additionally, the study found that negative views of law enforcement officers were held by several participants and passed down to their children. Moreover, the majority of participants believed that race had some bearing on the treatment of their child by law enforcement and the legal system. The findings of the study suggest that there is room for social workers to be more aware of the unique needs of the African-American community and advocacy is necessary for programs and resources to reach this special population. Furthermore, social workers should continue to seek cultural competence and demonstrate racial awareness when working with clients.

Mental Health Courts (MHCs) are a diversion program for mentally ill offenders in lieu of incarceration. The Substance Abuse and Mental Services Administration (SAMHSA) developed these specialized court programs in the 1990’s to assist mentally ill offenders in overcoming barriers to treatment. While new laws have begun to change the way mentally ill offenders are viewed from a law enforcement standpoint, social workers’ attitudes and beliefs about these programs have not been studied. This quantitative study’s purpose was to examine Master of Social Work (MSW) Graduate students’ attitudes and beliefs of mentally ill offenders and MHCs. Social work student participants completed an online questionnaire developed by the researchers using Qualtrics software. We analyzed the data using descriptive and inferential statistics, including a t-test. Our hypothesis that attitudes and beliefs of social work students varied based on the student’s year in the MSW program was not supported by the data. These findings suggest that students’ attitudes and beliefs about MHCs remain consistent throughout their graduate social work training. Although, our findings do not generalize to all social work students or to social workers in the field, these findings suggest students’ exposure to this topic during their MSW program may be limited and may warrant further investigation. We discuss these findings and their implications for social work curriculum and practice.