Disparities in the administration of capital punishment are a prominent social and political issue. While the focus of death penalty disparity research initially lay with the defendant and how the defendant’s race or ethnicity affects sentencing outcomes, only marginal support for offender effects has been found. A consistent finding, however, is that victim race has a significant effect on capital sentencing outcomes. Recent examinations of the joint effects of victim characteristics indicate that victim gender also has some influence in capital sentencing decisions. While these prior studies have examined the interactive effects of victim gender and victim race the current study proposes that victim-related variables other than race may be important components in understanding the female victim effect. This analysis is focused on understanding the joint effects of victim gender in terms of identifying an “innocent female victim” effect. Based on prior studies and theoretical perspectives, three hypotheses are proposed and tested here using a sub-population of capital cases in North Carolina between the years 1990 and 2007: 1. Cases with a female victim and male defendant will be more likely to result in the death penalty than other defendant-victim gender dyads, 2. Cases with a female victim and stranger defendant will be more likely to result in the death penalty than other dyads, and 3. Cases with a female victim who was not involved in illegal activity at the time of her victimization will be more likely to result in the death penalty than other dyads. The results indicate that victim conduct (illegal activity) and victim gender both play a role in jury sentencing recommendations, but regardless of victim conduct, cases with a female victim are the most likely to result in the death penalty. Therefore, this study finds marginal support for an “innocent female victim” effect in jury decisions to recommend the death penalty, but consistent support for a “female victim” effect. Conclusions and implications of the findings are discussed.

The potential influence of extralegal characteristics on the outcome of post-Furman capital cases (1972) has been a focus of criminal justice researchers and legal scholars. Much of this literature has assessed the impact of victim and defendant race on the likelihood of receiving the death penalty while a relatively underdeveloped body of research focuses on how victim sex may affect capital sentencing decisions. The present study uses focal concerns theory and the chivalry hypothesis to test the potential mediating effect of theoretical variables on the relationship between victim sex and juror capital sentence decision-making. In addition, it uses victim sex specific logistic regression models to examine if different theoretical and/or control variables are important predictors of receiving the death penalty for male victim cases versus female victim cases. Findings demonstrate that victim rape mediates the relationship between victim sex and juror death penalty decision-making. In addition, findings reveal that sex specific models better explain juror decision making than the full model including victims of both sexes and that different extralegal and legal characteristics predict juror decision to choose the death penalty in cases with male victims versus female victims. Theoretical and legal implications as well as directions for future research are discussed.

The age of onset of delinquency has long been viewed as a primary indicator for further delinquency and criminality. However, studies on the risk factors for onset, and future delinquency have focused predominantly on males. The purpose of this study was to explore gender differences and similarities in risk factors for onset and frequency of arrest. The data used in these analyses were from a longitudinal study, Pathways to Adulthood: A Three Generational Urban Study, 1960-1994. Sixty-six percent (N=1,758) of the eligible children completed the final survey. Of these children, only 515 were used in this particular study because they had documented ages of first arrest. It is hypothesized that 1) female "early" onset occurs at a later age from that of male "early" onset, 2) risk factors predictive of early onset will differ across gender, and 3) "early" onset in females will be predictive of frequency of subsequent arrests.With these data, the author uses OLS regression, logistic regression, and negative binomial regression to evaluate these hypotheses regarding age of onset, risk factors for onset, and frequency of arrest. Insufficient evidence was found to support the hypotheses of the current study. A discussion of the findings, as well as implications and calls for future research are discussed

In recent years, a growing proportion of the population has moved into gated communities in response to an increasingly pandemic fear of crime. While a sizable body of research has addressed fear of crime and perceived safety in gated communities, few studies have investigated actual rates of victimization. The studies that do compare victimization in gated and non-gated communities tend to be localized assessments and present mixed findings on the effectiveness of community gating as a form of protection from crime. The present study utilizes a cross-section of National Crime Victimization Survey data to investigate the micro-level effects of living in gated communities across the United States. Additionally, a routine activities approach is used to determine whether increasing levels of guardianship exhibit differential effects in gated versus non-gated communities. Findings from logit and rare events logit regression analyses generally suggest that living in a gated community does not significantly influence the likelihood of victimization, although in some cases the odds either increased or decreased. Other measures of guardianship exhibit a variety of positive and negative effects on victimization likelihood. Suggestions for future research on gated communities and victimization include more comprehensive measurement of community- and household-level security as well as taking account of community characteristics such as informal social control and residential solidarity. Policy implications from this research include greater attention to gated community design and layout in order to reduce the likelihood of residents being victimized. In addition, residents may benefit from education on the actual risks of crime and realistic steps to reduce the likelihood of being targeted by potential offenders.

Numerous medical and environmental toxicology studies have established a link between lead (Pb) exposure, crime, and delinquency. In human environments, lead pollution- like crime- is unequally distributed, creating lead hot spots. In spite of this, studies of crime hotspots have routinely focused on traditional sociological predictors of crime, leaving environmental predictors of crime like lead and other neurotoxins relatively unaddressed. This study attends to this gap in the literature by asking a very straightforward research question: Is there a relationship between hotspots of lead and hotspots of crime? Furthermore, what is the nature and extent of this relationship? Lastly, is the distribution of lead across communities relative to race, class, and/or ethnicity? To explore these issues, a series of thirteen research hypotheses are derived based on findings from previous lead and crime studies. To test these research hypotheses, data was collected from the city of Chicago's Community Areas (n = 77) in Cook County, Illinois. Information from a range of secondary sources including the U.S. Census, Environmental Protection Agency, Chicago Police Department, and City of Chicago are merged and analyzed. Cross sectional and longitudinal assessments are conducted, and results from a series of negative binomial regressions, fixed effects negative binomial regressions, and correlations are presented. Findings suggest the association between lead and crime appeared particularly robust with respect to rates of violent index crime, but less so for rates of property index crime. Contrary to what prior research suggests, the association between lead and crime appears stronger for rates of arrests for adult index crimes than rates of arrests for juvenile index crime arrests. This study concludes by discussing theory and policy implications alongside recommendations for future study.

The main argument of this thesis is that the penitentiary crisis in Venezuela is brought about an inept criminal justice system whose functioning (or lack thereof) further exacerbates overcrowding in penitentiary facilities as well as violates the most basic human rights. More elaborately, I argue that the unintentional (mis)use of pre-trial preventive detention, one of the consequences of the inept criminal justice system, further exacerbates the overcrowding in prisons and creates serious human rights implications. The purpose of this study is to establish a connection between the penitentiary crisis in Venezuela, with a focus on pre-trial preventive detention, and the larger criminal justice system failure in the country. The data source and data gathering technique for the thesis consists of a content analysis and a secondary literature review. Since the theoretical framework of the project is international human rights, instruments from the United Nations and the Organization of American States are used. Reports from non-governmental organizations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Observatorio Venezolano de Prisiones provide the data to conduct the analysis which is specific to pre-trial preventive detention in Venezuela. These reports are produced on a yearly basis and will help to compliment the data obtained from government sources, mainly the Venezuelan Ombudsman's office. The findings of the thesis support the argument that contrary to common belief, the (mis)use of pre-trial preventive detention in Venezuela is in fact mainly accidental, it is not systematic in the sense that it is not targeting a particular group of people due to their political affiliation and/or beliefs. Furthermore, I prove that Venezuelan penitentiary facilities are overcrowded due to the (mis)use of pre-trial preventive detention. Immediate recommendations for the Venezuelan state include re-categorizing the penal population in Venezuela as well as diminishing the use of deprivation of liberty, specifically pre-trial preventive detention.

This study's purpose is to investigate the expansion of social control efforts in American elementary and secondary school settings, particularly the use of zero-tolerance policies. These policies entail automatic punishments, such as suspensions, expulsions, and referrals to the juvenile and criminal justice systems for a host of school-based infractions. The widespread implementation of zero-tolerance policies and the application of harsh, exclusionary sanctions have intensified over the past decade. Numerous studies have documented this rise; however, there has been little effort to explore the explanation of the expansion of school-based social controls. A potential explanation is found in the application of political economic theories in relation to the increased use and evolving nature of social control in the neoliberal era of capitalism. As such, the current study employs a new theoretical approach, which utilizes neoliberal theory combined with theoretical components from existing metanarratives in the literature. By using this new approach in regard to school-based social control, the connection between the expansion of social control of the working class and marginal populations in the criminal justice process, and the retraction of the social safety nets that characterized neoliberal capitalism is extended to the explanation of trends in the social control of school-based infractions. This investigation incorporates a qualitative, empirical exploration of how these school criminalization efforts have been implemented and legitimized by the state, specifically through the authority of the courts. By engaging in textual analysis, the jurisprudential intent that informs both the relevant state appellate and Supreme Court decisions was subjected to legal exegeses to determine how and if the judicial system legitimizes the practice of zero tolerance in schools, which are consistent with neoliberal ideals. In addition, a quantitative component, to this overall study, examined nationally representative School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS) data across three academic years to determine if school security measures and disciplinary actions were increasingly applied to marginal populations in elementary and secondary schools over time. Results from the qualitative inquiry revealed that in the overwhelming majority of court cases evaluated, the courts decided in a fashion that reinforces zero-tolerance policies as legitimate neoliberal social controls in schools. Several theoretically relevant themes emerged from the jurisprudential intent, which are transferable for further theory development and future research. Quantitative findings reveal that, over time, the total disciplinary actions and removals from school without continued educational services are disproportionately applied to schools with the highest percentages of minority students and students who reside in high-crime areas compared to schools with the lowest percentages of minority students and students who reside in high-crime areas. Conversely, the results also reveal that the average use of school security measures (e.g., metal detectors, access controls, security guards, etc.) are more likely to be used in schools with the lowest percentages of minority students than schools with the highest percentages of minorities over time. These results are discussed in detail, and recommendations for changes in school policies and practices are offered, while being mindful of evidence-based best practices that may serve as viable alternatives to the zero-tolerance policies currently being used. Avenues for future research and theory development are also outlined.

The growing trend of insurance fraud continues to cost US consumers billions of dollars a year through increased premiums. In 2015, the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud estimated the cost of insurance fraud as being at least $80 billion dollars a year. Even though an increasing number of criminals are drawn to the low risk, high reward of insurance fraud, little criminological literature has explored this topic and the public remains relatively unaware of the extent of the problem. One alarming aspect of insurance fraud is the involvement of organized criminal groups. These organized criminal enterprises are formed for the sole purpose of defrauding the insurance industry. Often, these enterprises are believed to have ties to traditional organized criminal groups, such as the Italian Mafia or the Russian Mob. In order to combat these criminal organizations, it is important to understand the behavior and motivation of such groups. The present study aims to analyze the generally held belief throughout the insurance industry that organized insurance fraud rings are more likely to operate in states with mandatory Personal Injury Protection (PIP) policies. This analysis was conducted by examining staged automobile accidents reported to the National Insurance Crime Bureau. The results of this analysis were mixed. Although a larger percentage of states with mandatory PIP displayed higher staged accident rate, some mandatory PIP states did not, and multiple non-PIP states also demonstrated a high staged accident rate. In an attempt to better understand this crime, further criminological research is needed.

Money laundering is a serious crime with potentially wide ranging consequences that have numerous implications for criminological research. However, criminology rarely explores this crime, nor its potential impact on other more central crimes of interest (e.g. drug trafficking or organized crime). The present study adds to a limited body of literature examining money laundering from a criminological perspective, evaluating aspects of its regulation and social control within the banking industry. Several aspects of regulatory oversight and company dynamics such as fine/settlement size, company size, and the likelihood of non-AML/OFAC violations to predict future AML/OFAC violations were evaluated. These analyses largely supported that banking crimes, and more specifically AML violations, follow the same patterns observed within previous corporate crime research. However, the primary focus of this research was to evaluate the effectiveness of industry success rankings as a form of social control as it pertains to AML violations and to determine whether or not banks that ranked well on industry rankings were also less likely to have banking violations. A variety of rankings including safety, asset-based, and overall performance measures were used to assess their relationship to bank violations, with analyses supporting that these banking industry success markers held little relationship to or acknowledgment of a firm’s previous AML/OFAC violations. Implications are discussed at length including the importance of and numerous directions for future criminological research on money laundering violation within the banking industry, suggested regulatory reforms, and the need for a wider variety and more tailored industry success measures to affect some level of social control.

Both elite deviance, committed by the upper echelons of society, and organized crime threaten development and the rights and security of people across and within nations; however empirical research on these topics is limited, especially in the field of criminology. This study addresses this gap in the literature by testing hypotheses derived from Simon’s symbiotic theory of elite deviance, which posits that direct and indirect relationships exist between elite deviance, organized crime, and conventional crimes exist (2008). The intervening effects of national culture and political economic ideology are also considered. To test the research hypotheses, this study uses homicide rates, corruption and organized crime measures, and indicators of national culture from 114 nations. Findings suggest that empirical linkages exist between elite deviance, organized crime and conventional deviance at the cross-national level. These data suggest the level of corruption and organized crime within a nation are better predictors of homicide than conventional explanations of violent crime (e.g., modernization/development, opportunity/routine activities). Furthermore, organized crime partially mediated the relationship between corruption and homicide rates in the same (positive) direction. This implies that the criminogenic effect of elite deviance on non-elite deviance operates indirectly through organized crime. The corruption-homicide relationship was also partially mediated by a national culture of moral cynicism and capitalist economic conditions. Although not definitive given methodological concerns and alternate theoretical explanations, this study provides avenues for future research into the underlying social processes that influence the crime rate within nations.