Criminological, psychological, and developmental researchers have relentlessly explored behavioral characteristics and juvenile justice outcomes in an effort to establish the most appropriate means of analyzing childhood and adolescent problem behaviors. Cross-discipline, empirical evidence and factor analytic research has consistently identified the presence of two predictive concepts, physical aggression and nonaggressive rule-breaking. Research pertaining to the risk factors and correlates of these two distinct substructures of offending align with theoretically postulated typologies of delinquency and offending as well as the frequently cited patterns of delinquency and offending within reviews of longitudinal research. Using longitudinal data from a sample of 756 at-risk, males and females during late childhood and early adolescence, the present research examined variations in latent trajectories of physical aggression and nonaggressive rule-breaking as well as empirically substantiated risk factors that may influence problem behaviors and juvenile justice involvement. The findings support a 4-class model for both physical aggression and nonaggressive rule-breaking as well as a relationship between supported risk factors and latent class membership. A comprehensive understanding of physical aggression and nonaggressive rule-breaking may provide the basis for targeted, problem-specific strategies aimed at early intervention.

Studies of the association between race/ethnicity and juvenile court outcomes have found that minority youth often receive disadvantaged outcomes compared to similarly situated Whites, and that community context may condition this relationship. Sampson and Laub's (1993) revised conflict perspective is one theoretical model that can potentially explain the social control of youth throughout juvenile justice proceedings. One of the main propositions of Sampson and Laub's (1993) perspective is that communities characterized by underclass poverty and racial inequality will impose greater social control on youth referred to the juvenile court, especially Blacks and youth charged with a drug offense because they are perceived as a threatening population to middle-class values and standards. The current research drew upon Sampson and Laub's (1993) macrolevel theory of inequality and social control to examine the juvenile court outcomes of White, Black, and Hispanic youth from all counties in a Northeast state from 2000-2010. Hierarchical generalized linear modeling (HGLM) was employed to examine the relationship between disadvantaged community characteristics (underclass poverty, racial inequality, ethnic inequality) and juvenile court outcomes; especially if race/ethnicity, drug offending, and type of drug offense (possession versus distribution) tempered these relationships. The results indicate that disadvantaged community characteristics did not directly impact the social control of youth, but individual and joint effects of race/ethnicity and drug offending resulted in greater social control for Black and Hispanic youth of various drug offending combinations. In particular, the effect of race/ethnicity on social control was greater for Hispanic youth compared to Blacks. Depending on the stage examined, the relationship between race/ethnicity, drug offending, and juvenile court outcomes were conditioned by disadvantaged community characteristics. Based on the findings, empirical and theoretical implications are provided that focus on the applicability of Sampson and Laub's (1993) perspective to more recent court outcomes, as well as prevention and intervention programs that focus on decreasing the presence of minority youth in the juvenile justice system. Directions for future research are highlighted to provide greater insights into the circumstances surrounding case outcomes and under what situations community context and race/ethnicity matter in the treatment of youth within the juvenile court.

Changing lifestyles in today's world have resulted in the evolution of many human activities. One of them is recreational drug use. The purpose of this study was to explore the association between drug usage, mental well-being and felony convictions among a sample of adult recreational drug users. The primary purpose of this analysis was to develop a set of predictor variables from the DRUGNET data set (i.e., lifestyle, drug usage, GWBS) that were able to account for the criterion variables (i.e., drug-related felony vs. no drug- related felony and non-drug felony vs. no felony ). The analyses attempted to differentiate the smaller portion of drug users who have experienced felony offenses (i.e., cases) from the majority of users who have not been convicted of these offenses (i.e., controls). Epidemiological case-control analyses (discriminant analyses) were performed by drawing a matched sample of cases and controls using their gender and age (+/- 2 yrs.). Drug laws and policies differ from country to country. Therefore the present study was limited to the United States citizens of age 18 yrs. or older. The study results support the hypothesis that there is a subgroup of the drug consuming population (i.e., recreational drug users) who lead productive and successful lives. The results found suggest that punishing a relatively small portion of drug users for their personal habits of using/possessing drugs may be counter productive rather than focusing on controlling abuse. The implication is that drug use should be perceived as a public health problem, not a criminal activity. The national policy targets should focus on education, public health, treatment and rehabilitation rather than incarceration.

False confessions are a leading cause of wrongful convictions. Defendants under the age of 18 or who have mental retardation are at a high risk of making false confessions. Participants read a short synopsis of a hypothetical robbery and trial. They then answered several questions as jurors. The age (16 years or 32 years) and intelligence in terms of IQ (68 or 102) of the defendant were manipulated. Results suggest there was no effect of age or intelligence on verdict or confidence that the confession was true. There was an effect of age and intelligence on guilt confidence such that defendants are less confident of a guilty verdict when the defendant is a juvenile or has mental retardation than when the defendant is an adult or of average intelligence. Punishment of younger defendants was more lenient than punishment of adult defendants. Confessions made by defendants with mental retardation were perceived as less reliable than confessions made by defendants of average intelligence, but there was no effect of intelligence on punishment.

Victim offender overlap is a relatively new area of research with most studies having focused on applying this concept to the study of assault and homicide. Research in intimate partner violence has found that there exists a group of victim offenders or individuals who are involved in initiating, sustaining, and engaging in intimate partner violence as both victims and offenders (Johnson & Ferraro, 2000; Steinmetz, 1980). This Master’s thesis explored the concept of victim offender overlap in connection to intimate partner violence (IPV). Bivariate analyses were conducted using Paul C. Friday, Vivian Lord, M. Lyn Exum, and Jennifer L. Hartman’s (2003-2005) data, Evaluating the Impact of a Specialized Domestic Violence Police Unit in Charlotte, North Carolina. The findings suggest that there is a separate group of individuals involved in intimate partner violence who are both victims and offenders. Furthermore, the three groups (offenders only of IPV, victims only of IPV, and victim/offenders of IPV) were found to be different across gender, past criminal involvement, and future criminal activity as predicted. Suggestions for future research and the implications of the findings are discussed.

The developmental and life-course criminology (DLC) paradigm has become increasingly popular over the last two decades. A primary limitation of this paradigm is the lack of consideration of race and ethnicity within its framework. Race unquestionably matters in today's society and yet it has generally been ignored within the context of DLC theories. The current study aims to contribute to the literature informing DLC by viewing life-course theories through the lens of race and ethnicity. Utilizing nationally-representative data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, the current study examines race-specific developmental trajectories of offending over 11 years during the transition from adolescence to adulthood. The current study employs semiparametric group-based mixture modeling (SPGM) in order to assess heterogeneity in the development of offending both in general and across race and ethnicity. Racial and ethnic differences in offending trajectories are explored and the relevance of these findings is discussed in relation to extant DLC theories. Additionally, the current study explores the utility of theoretically relevant risk and protective factors for distinguishing between offending trajectories and examines whether or not the ability of these factors to distinguish trajectories varies across race and ethnicity. In examining the generality of risk factors across offending trajectories, the current research also explores the utility of general versus developmental theories of offending. The results of the current study indicate that there are stark similarities in the number and patterns of offending trajectories that emerge across race and ethnicity. Additionally, the current study finds support for both general and race-specific effects regarding the ability of risk and protective factors to distinguish offending trajectories. The finding that some risk factors have race-specific effects has implications for DLC theories which predict racial invariance in the causal processes that influence offending throughout the life-course. Additionally, the current study finds little evidence of trajectory-specific etiologies across the full study sample. This finding supports general over developmental theories and is consistent with prior research which indicates that risk factors are best able to distinguish between offenders and non-offenders rather than between offenders who follow divergent developmental trajectories. Overall, the current study findings contribute to the growing body of empirical research examining key DLC issues in the context of race and ethnicity.

Mental health courts have recently emerged with goals to reduce recidivism and improve clinical outcomes for people with serious mental illness in the criminal justice system. The present study is a review of mental health court literature assessing their effectiveness in reducing recidivism and improving clinical outcomes for participants using meta-analytic techniques. A total of 20 studies that included sufficient information to compute the standardized mean difference effect size, focused on adult populations, and were within the United States were included in the analysis. Only experimental and quasi-experimental research designs were obtained. Using Cohen's d (1988) guidelines, mental health courts were found to have a small effect on reducing recidivism (0.32, p<.05) and a nonsignificant effect for improving clinical outcomes for participants. Several moderator analyses were conducted and indicated that the nature of the control group (whether they were a treatment as usual or participants who "opted-out") was found to be significant between groups (Q=22.33, p<.001) as a possible moderating effect.

The present study drew on Agnew's General Strain Theory (GST) to examine the relationship between strain, race, and delinquent behavior. To address this possible association, five hypotheses were tested to examine if different types of strain and stress exposure influence delinquent coping and if these relationships are conditioned by race and ethnicity. Using data from the Add Health Study, White, African American, and Hispanic adolescents, the present study attempts to generalize GST to different racial and ethnic groups. Results from OLS and negative binomial regression analyses indicate that some support was found for GST, in that indicators of strain to varying degrees predicted negative emotionality and youth involvement in nonserious and serious delinquency. Negative emotionality, however, did not mediate the relationship between strain and nonserious and serious delinquency. While, White, African American, and Hispanic youth did experience certain types of strain that lead to delinquent coping, these groups overall were not statistically different from one another. Furthermore, race and ethnicity were directly related to delinquent coping mechanisms, providing evidence that GST cannot fully explain the overrepresentation of minorities as delinquent offenders. A discussion of the findings, theoretical implications and directions for future research are highlighted.

Police corruption is a primary concern for law enforcement agencies. The purpose of this study was to identify factors that could predict the likelihood of police officer susceptibility to corruption. Data was collected through surveys of 1083 officers within eight U.S. police agencies that were participating in the National Police Research Platform funded by the National Institute of Justice. The data were analyzed using multilevel structural equation and base multilevel models. The theoretical model for this study addressed susceptibility to corruption on both the departmental (clusters) and individual officer levels. Four main constructs were utilized in this study. Acceptance of deviant norms was the outcome variable operationalizing susceptibility to corruption. Anomie was a departmental predictor operationalizing expectations that socially accepted goals could not be accomplished through socially acceptable means. Decoupling was a departmental predictor measuring the extent to which departmental pragmatic goals were out of alignment with official ethical codes. Moral disengagement was the individual predictor operationalizing the ability to use cognitive mechanisms to excuse unethical decision-making. Departments higher in anomie and decoupling were hypothesized to have higher acceptance of deviant norms that condone corruption. Officers with higher levels of moral disengagement were also expected to have a greater acceptance of deviant norms. The departmental environment was expected to have more influence than individual officer traits such that anomie and decoupling would moderate the effects of moral disengagement within departments. The results demonstrated the promise of the multilevel theoretical model. Anomie was a strong predictor of acceptance of deviant norms. Moral disengagement was also a moderately strong predictor of acceptance of deviant norms in the base multilevel models. Anomie moderated the effect of moral disengagement to some degree, although it had no impact on the slope between acceptance of deviant norms and moral disengagement. Differences between departmental subgroups indicated how officer assignments and demographic characteristics may impact susceptibility to corruption. Study limitations related primarily to the multilevel structural equation model, scale construction, and sampling. Limitations are addressed as regards their general relevance to theory and methodology. Implications of the results for policy and future research are discussed.

Using data from the Drug Use Forecasting (DUF) and the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) programs collected by the National Institute of Justice the question whether the drug estimates of DUF, using a non-probability sample, and the drug use estimates of ADAM, using a probability sample, yield substantially different results will be explored. The following main questions will be addressed using equivalence analysis: Are there substantial differences in the DUF and ADAM samples with regard to the drug use information obtained from arrestees at nine sites across the United States? The analysis suggests that the drug use information contained in DUF and ADAM is not substantially different for marijuana, cocaine, and opiates for all sites analyzed together. Additionally, there are no substantial differences for seven of the nine sites. The implications of these findings are discussed.