acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1988. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-08, Section: A, page: 2365. / Major Professor: William W. Rogers. / A study of violent crime in antebellum Florida (1821-1960) was carried out within the framework of several major aspects of the territory and state's criminal justice system. Such aspects considered were contemporary opinions on the causes of crime, violent crime against person, domestic violence, violence among soldiers and settlers, the duties and responsibilities of lawmen, catching criminals, crimes against property, jails and escapes, and the summary execution of criminals who organized themselves into gangs. The characteristic of honor as it relates to Southern violence was also considered.

This study focuses on the job definitions held by police patrol personnel. The demographic and experiential variables that influence the development of job definitions in policing are examined. The substantive meanings of these definitions are also identified. The ecology of the patrol function and the highly differentiated nature of the police environment encourage the development of individualized job definitions. / The research centers on the differences in patrol officer job definitions held by supervisors and selected officer groups. Differences in job definitions can adversely impact the capacity of the organization to communicate expected behaviors to the employees through mechanisms such as performance appraisal. The appraisal process is particularly important in policing because these organizations tend to hire at entry level and to promote from within their ranks. The effects of differences in job definitions on perceptions of appraisal fairness, perceptions of supervisory adequacy, and appraisal scores are explored. / The job definitions are derived from the factor analysis of the ratings of the importance of generally used performance appraisal categories. It is determined that officers generally perceive a lower level of supervision than supervisors; lower levels of perceived supervision lead to lower levels of perceived appraisal fairness. Very few relationships between officer group membership and appraisal outcomes are identified, and differences in job definitions mediate only the positive relationship identified between tenure and performance appraisal scores. / Police job definitions are generally idiosyncratic. However, some consensus exists between the officers and supervisors on those dimensions of the job that were identified through the factor analysis procedure. These dimensions accounted for only slightly more than 50% of the variance in the ratings. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-03, Section: A, page: 0945. / Major Professor: Richard Chackerian. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

During the past ten years, the literature in the area of wife abuse has proliferated. However, a substantial portion of the current marital violence literature is either popular of theoretical in nature. As such, the existing literature on wife abuse fails to reflect the empirical data needed to support theoretical explanations of the phenomenon. This study attempts to partially fill this gap by providing empirical data on the victim's decision-making process. / The current state of the marital violence literature reveals that many battered women remain in or return to their abusive partners in spite of the frequency and severity of the abuse. The immediate question is why do battered women remain in or return to the abusive relationship. This study attempts to answer this question by an analysis of economic and psychological factors. The study addresses the research question of what specific factors are predictive of the immediate decision-making process of battered women within a shelter. / Exchange theory and learned helplessness theory were the guiding theoretical frameworks for the empirical factors of economic dependence and psychological dependence respectively. The empirical analysis bearing on these research questions is based on secondary data collected from the Religious Community Services Spouse Abuse Shelter of Clearwater, Florida. The study group consisted of 426 battered women who were processed through the shelter from January, 1983 to March, 1986. / Using stepwise multiple regression, the findings indicate that the decision of battered women to return to their abusive partners is influenced by both economic and psychological factors. The implications of the major empirical results for exchange theory, learned helplessness theory, and the development of research and practical strategies designed to reduce both the difficulties confronted by researchers conducting studies in this area and by battered women who attempt to extricate themselves from abusive partners are discussed. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 48-12, Section: A, page: 3202. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1987.

The fight to establish victim rights in Florida began with a handful of dedicated practitioners, victims and survivors. They battled burnout, apathy, rejection and less than adequate funding. Power struggles arose between personalities, egos, the institutionalized governmental agencies, and funding sources. This dissertation chronicles the creation of the Florida Network of Victim Witness Services (FNVWS) as an agent of social reform, and documents the organization's evolution. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-08, Section: A, page: 3084. / Major Professor: Leroy C. Gould. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

This dissertation is an exploration into the attitudes of National Thai police cadets toward police corruption in Thailand. The dependent variable of the study is the cadets' stated willingness to engage in police corruption. The main objective of this dissertation is to assess factors associated with the likelihood of cadets engaging in police corruption in the future. The methodology employed in the study is survey research. Data for the study have been collected by questionnaires distributed to all members of the National Thai Police Academy (1189 cadets) during the period June-July 1990. / Hypotheses based on four different perspectives on police corruption:--the police subculture perspective, the police cynicism perspective, the deterrence perspective, and the normative perspective were proposed to explain police corruption. It was hypothesized that both exposure to police subculture and police cynicism should be positively associated with the cadets' likelihood of engaging in corruption, and deterrence and norm (belief in the wrongfulness of such behavior) should have negative relationships with police corruption. / According to the results of a multiple regression analysis, two perspectives, the police cynicism perspective and the normative perspective, provided significant explanatory variables predicting willingness to engage in police corruption. Police cynicism showed a positive relationship with cadets' stated likelihood of engaging in police corruption. The normative perspective also proved to be significant to the understanding of attitudes toward corruption. The results of the study indicated an inverse association between conception of wrongfulness and the likelihood of engaging in police corruption. The study's results did not support the police subculture perspective. Police subculture did not show a positive relationship with cadets' stated willingness of engaging in police corruption. The deterrence perspective also failed to gain empirical support as an explanation of police corruption. None of the four deterrence variables showed significant negative relationships with police corruption as expected. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-06, Section: A, page: 2279. / Major Professor: Leroy C. Gould. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

This study concerns the Criteria-Based Content Analysis (CBCA), an interview technique developed to determine the truthfulness of child sexual abuse allegations. The technique uses a set of 18 verbal criteria which indicate truthfulness. The technique was developed in Europe and has been shown to be effective in distinguishing between fabricated and truthful statements. But, the population that the technique was based on was limited to white Europeans. Since cultural and racial differences have been noticed in non-verbal cues to deception, it was suspected that the verbal cues may similarly be affected. Therefore, it was hypothesized that the CBCA would not be useful when applied to the statements of black speakers as well as those of white speakers. / The results first demonstrated that the technique, as it is currently applied, is not effective in distinguishing between truthful and fabricated statements of any speaker. The fact that this study was the only one in which written transcripts were exclusively evaluated may have contributed to that result. Non-verbal factors must have contributed to the positive results of past research. Moreover, strictly applying the technique in the conventional way results in severely elevated false positive ratings. / Second, by applying a discriminant function's linear combination of the criteria instead of the sum of the criteria in each statement, it was shown that the criteria were useful in making the truthfulness discriminations. It was also revealed that the linear combinations of criteria for whites and blacks differ. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-07, Section: A, page: 2616. / Major Professor: John C. Brigham. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

Police scholars attribute the presence of police corruption to a variety of factors including individual characteristics, organizational correlates, and systemic conditions. Most research investigating the determinants of police corruption focuses upon urban police agencies in developed nations, primarily the United States. Only recently has attention turned to less developed nations. In addition, current research addresses only the Rotten Apple and Rotten Barrel hypotheses; none have tested the Rotten Orchard hypothesis of police corruption comparatively. / This study reports the findings of research on police perceptions of corruption in three developing Caribbean nations. A conceptual model is created based upon current developed nation literature specifying the relationships between individual and organizational factors and police corruption as measured through a self-administered survey. The comparison is made among three divergent nations, and thus a third level of analysis is included: governmental corruption. The findings suggest determinants of police corruption are similar in some respects and different in others between developing and developed nations.

Policing is a profession linked to ideals of integrity and honor. In spite of this, the profession has not been immune to corruption within its ranks. Most research in policing has concentrated on police corruption rather than police integrity. Research studies have examined the issue of corruption but they have encountered a multitude of measurement issues, making the direct study of corruption difficult. / The goal of this research study was to replicate the seminal Klockars, Ivkovich, Harver & Haberfeld (2000) study examining police integrity within the United States. There has been a lack of research dedicated to the study of police integrity within the United States since the Klockars, et al. (2000) data was collected. This study aims to further understand the dynamics of integrity issues within the United States with the intension of offering policy recommendations to help reduce and eliminate their prevalence in American police departments.