A growing body of neighborhood research focuses on external resources, ties to the public level of social control, and their impact on neighborhood crime rates. This work generally finds that stronger ties to the public level and greater external resources are associated with lower levels of crime and victimization. Much of the recent research in this area focuses on the impact of home lending on crime. While informative, prior studies frequently consider all forms of lending within a single variable ignoring heterogeneity in loan purpose and quality. In addition, past work has neglected the possible impact of small business loans on crime rates. This study addresses those gaps in the literature by assessing the impact of prime and subprime home lending in addition to home loans of various purposes. Furthermore, data on community levels of small business lending is used to examine the influence of these loans on robbery. In doing so, this study utilizes longitudinal census tract data from 53 American cities. The results from the longitudinal fixed effects negative binomial models indicate that higher levels of subprime lending are related to increases in robbery rates, while increases in prime lending yield declines in robbery. However, the impact of prime loans only become apparent after accounting for subprime loans, suggesting a nuanced relationship between home lending and crime. In addition, the number of small business loans in a census tract corresponds to lower robbery rates and this effect is independent of home lending. / A Dissertation submitted to the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2018. / June 29, 2018. / Communities and Crime, Community Investment, Criminology, Public Social Control / Includes bibliographical references. / Brian J. Stults, Professor Directing Dissertation; Keith R. Ihlanfeldt, University Representative; Daniel P. Mears, Committee Member; Eric A. Stewart, Committee Member; Eric P. Baumer, Committee Member.

Studies have found that sexual victimization adversely affects an individual’s psychological wellbeing, physical health, and behavior. The current study examines the effects of sexual victimization on adolescent social networks. In particular, it seeks to determine whether sexual victimization has an adverse influence on adolescent victims’ friendship networks. The study uses data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to examine the effects of sexual victimization during childhood and early adolescence on adolescent friendship networks. Multivariate regression models are estimated to assess whether sexual abuse is negatively associated with the victims’ popularity, centrality, and density of their friendship networks. The analyses indicated that sexual victimization was associated with a decrease in victims’ level of popularity and centrality within their friendship networks; there was no effect on the density of these networks. The results suggest that sexual victimization adversely affects victims’ level of popularity and centrality within their friendship networks. Combined with prior research, the results suggest that sexual victimization may exert harmful effects that extend across diverse psychological and social domains. / A Thesis submitted to the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Fall Semester 2017. / October 6, 2017. / Adolescence, Peers, Sexual victimization, Social networks / Includes bibliographical references. / Daniel P. Mears, Professor Directing Thesis; Jillian J. Turanovic, Committee Member; Eric A. Stewart, Committee Member.

abstract: The presence of restorative justice (RJ) in the United States has grown steadily within the last five decades. The dynamics of RJ programs are meant to more holistically address the harms caused by crime in comparison to the traditional criminal justice system (CJS). Yet, evaluative research has provided inconsistent evidence of their effectiveness and the quality of empirical study has gone untested. The current study sought to fill the gaps within past research by examining how success has been measured, assessing the rigor of study methodology using the Maryland Scientific Methods Scale (SMS), and determining the impact of RJ programs on recidivism, victim satisfaction and restitution compliance using meta-analysis. A systematic search of past literature identified a sample of 121 studies whose dependent measures were coded, and methodological designs were rated using the SMS. Most studies failed to include community-based measures of success or measures which reflect the goals of RJ to undue harms and restore relationships. SMS scores were well distributed within the sample. Despite restricted sample sizes, meta-analyses used extracted data from 35 case-control, quasi-experimental and experimental studies to generate 43 unique treatment contrasts and 3 summary effects. Meta-analytic findings favored RJ treatment over CJS control groups across all dependent measures. Heterogeneity between subsequent arrest studies was scrutinized using subgroup analysis. The fewest subsequent arrests were associated with adult offenders, mandated participation, mediation and hybrid programs, and the most rigorous methodologies. Findings support continued efforts to improve the methodological rigor of evaluations, targeted focus on specific program types and delivery characteristics. Future meta-analyses would benefit from the inclusion of non-American RJ program evaluations to enlarge pooled sample populations and better detect moderating influences. Other suggestions for research design improvements include the use of more holistic and stakeholder-centric measures for success, use of continuous measures, and refined indicator variables for heterogeneity testing (e.g., crime type severity, characteristics of program fidelity). The author recommends continued use of these programs, specifically with adult offenders and incidents of serious crime toward a better understanding of the true impacts of RJ on stakeholders. More detailed results, study limitations and implications are discussed herein. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Criminology and Criminal Justice 2019

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Scholars increasingly recognize the proliferation of co-offending incidents, estimating that one-quarter to one-half of all offending involves two or more individuals. The presence of co-offenders has been found to impact the duration, type, and intensity of offending yet the literature remains sparse regarding co-offender effects on other aspects of offender behavior, such as the journey to crime. This study examines differences in the journey to crime distance and direction travelled when comparing offenders acting alone versus with co-offenders. This dissertation uses a dataset of official arrest records from the City of Philadelphia, PA for 2010 to 2017 (inclusive), containing 50,928 arrest records and 14,735 individual offenders with at least one arrest on their own and one arrest with a co-offender. Descriptive and inferential circular statistics as well as Euclidean distance metrics are employed to highlight the journey to crime differences when individuals commit solo vs. co-offenses across different crime types. Broadly, the research found no significant differences in journey to crime distance and only exploratory differences in directionality. However, the directional analyses did reveal the importance of the city center as a magnet for offending behavior and several key variations between crime types and offender demographics. The research demonstrates the application of an underutilized methodology in the spatial analysis of criminal justice data while examining the impact of having a co-offender on offender travel behavior. / Criminal Justice

The transnational character of contemporary organized crime has resulted in cooperative efforts to address crimes which pose a mutual threat to multiple entities across the globe. But are such collective efforts achieving their aims? One such partnership, or group of partnerships, which has, is the global response to Somali piracy in the Western Indian Ocean off eastern Africa. While it has not eradicated piracy or the conditions giving rise thereto, it has effectively contained attacks. This achievement, and the public-private partnerships which gave effect to these efforts, is unprecedented for a response to transnational organized crime at sea. This has sparked debate regarding the response's utility for other transnational organized crimes which continue to plague the world's oceans. Although counter-piracy has been the object of much research due to its international nature, cooperative responses to other forms of transnational organized crime off the eastern Africa littoral have been neglected. In particular, the utility of counter-piracy for these other organized crimes is under-examined. This thesis therefore aims to present evidence to answer the research question: does the global governance response to Somali piracy provide a model for responding to other forms of transnational organized crime in the Western Indian Ocean? The research straddles criminology and law and is grounded in the theoretical frameworks of global governance, organized crime and maritime security. Research data was generated through a literature review, complimented by expert interviews and participant observation. This thesis uses the case studies of heroin and ivory trafficking in the Western Indian Ocean to consider comparative lessons from counter-piracy. It considers each crime's modus operandi, applicable international legal frameworks, impact, responding actors and existing and potential responses. It does so in order to illuminate the conditions under which global governance efforts against transnational organized crime at sea are likely to emerge and achieve success. The responses to piracy, heroin and ivory trafficking are considered at the hand of five paradigms, originally applied to counter-piracy responses by Prof. Christian Bueger. Each paradigm problematizes different aspects of each crime and discusses the resulting responses. The paradigms are categorized as the security, legal, economic, development and humanitarian paradigms. The findings suggest that global crime governance efforts are perhaps more at home at sea than on land and that different crimes mobilize responding actors to enter the maritime domain for different reasons. In addition to threatening national interests, states and other entities responding to maritime crimes are equally influenced by other factors, including corruption, modus operandi, strategic interests, international legal frameworks and human rights concerns. These factors also influence their chosen responses. Significantly, the research found that the private actors integral to counter-piracy are absent in the response to heroin and ivory trafficking, leaving a lacuna which, if not filled, will continue to facilitate the use of the oceans for illicit means. It is concluded that although counter-piracy holds many valuable lessons for global crime governance at sea, a response mimicking counter-piracy is unlikely to form in efforts to counter other forms of transnational organized crimes in the Western Indian Ocean.

That work is important for the mental health of men and women appears obvious. Social scientists have argued, with limited empirical support, that employment provides both economic and "extra-economic" benefits--the latter category including such benefits as social status, social contact, and psychologically rewarding activity. While it seems obvious that jobs in the middle and upper status range are sources of various "extra-economic" benefits, this is less obvious at the lower margins where jobs are less socially desirable. The analyses described here examine the economic and extra-economic benefits of employment among one prominent portion of the marginal labor force--ex-felons. Each year about 100,000 state prison inmates are set free to fend for themselves. Their low levels of education and job skills, coupled with their status as ex-convicts, make them undesirable employees and this is evident in the difficulties they have finding and sustaining work after release. Drawing on data from TARP, a field experiment involving about 2000 ex-felons released in Texas and Georgia in 1976, a non-recursive model of the functions of employment was formulated and tested. Using three stage least squares, employment was found to reduce emotional stress among ex-felons by providing both economic and "extra-economic" benefits. Furthermore, there was some feedback effect in that emotional stress was found to reduce subsequent work activity, in turn further aggrevating the stressful circumstances faced by the TARP ex-felons.

Our sociological understanding of crime and anti-crime initiatives is generally derived from studies of poor and middle class urban neighborhoods fending off the ills of urban existence. In contrast, this dissertation examines community-based responses to crime in an east coast vacation community. Gardner Village1, through its economic struggles, history of racial tension, open drug-dealing markets, and handful of violent incidents, attained a reputation as crime-ridden. To remedy this reputation, revive a once-thriving tourism industry, and "make our community a safer place to live," local residents formed a set of anticrime groups. Drawing on three years of ethnographic research, I explore the local, structural, and cultural factors that support the birth and continued existence of community groups aimed at combating crime. Findings reveal the processes through which residents use mainstream rhetoric about crime and criminals to understand a local problem, how they resist challenges to their punitive and fearful view, and how these patterns ultimately translate into the reproduction and extension of dominant cultural sensibilities about crime and support for crime control policies that expunge and punish segments of the population perceived to be problematic. 1The name of the research site and the names of all informants have been changed to preserve confidentiality.