Nowhere is the tendency to typologize in criminological research more evident than in the area of white-collar crime research, which is often aimed at distinguishing white-collar criminals and their crimes from other types of criminals and their offenses. This study incorporates a test of the applicability of Gottfredson and Hirschi's self-control theory to white-collar crime--a form of criminal conduct to which the theory's critics assert it is inapplicable. For those who attribute more planning and sophistication to white-collar crime than to other forms of offending, explanations for white-collar offending that reference impulsivity and inattention to the consequences of action are decidedly unsatisfactory. Analyses of survey data, collected as part of the Tucson Youth Project, indicate that self-control is a significant predictor of workplace offending. From an operational standpoint, the relative merits of behavioral versus attitudinal measures of self-control were considered. These findings suggest that behavioral measures of self-control are better predictors of offending. Although possibly a measurement artifact, the findings also suggest that attitudinal self-control is only spuriously related to offending. The perceived need to distinguish white-collar crime stems from the dissimilarities between white-collar crime and "ordinary" street crime. These crimes are often separated along spatial lines, and their perpetrators are often separated along race and socioeconomic status lines. Testing the validity of these distinctions was another objective of this study. Analyses were performed to determine whether the patterns of association between offending and known correlates of offending are similar for both white-collar and non-white-collar crime. The results indicate that offending in the workplace and offending beyond the workplace are more similar than not. One important finding is that self-control explains less of the variation in white-collar offending than in non-white-collar offending. One plausible explanation for this finding is that criminal opportunity plays a relatively more important role in workplace deviance than in other contexts. The mechanisms by which organizations affect the behavior of individuals are, of course, still a matter of theoretical conjecture, and an important subject for future research.

The purpose of this study was to empirically assess the validity of legal assumptions regarding the use of physical punishment by Mexican parents with their children. Three legal assumptions were identified and tested in the studied Mexican legal framework: (1) parents always act in the best interest of their children; (2) non-severe physical punishment is an adequate and nonharmful strategy for rising children; and (3) parents discriminate between moderate/corrective punishment and severe child abuse. One hundred-fifty mothers living in the Northwestern Mexican State of Sonora were interviewed regarding their use of physical punishment with their children, their knowledge of the law regarding their and their children's' rights and duties, their perceptions of their legal obligations in regard to their disciplinary practices with their children, their disciplinary beliefs, their monitoring of their children, the frequency of maltreatment they received from their parents, their levels of depression/anxiety, their antisocial behaviors, and their alcohol consumption levels. In order to validate the legal assumptions, three structural models were specified and tested. The first model tested the assumption that physical punishment is used in the best interest of children. In this model, the perception of a legal prerogative to use physical punishment was found to increase violence against children. In contrast, parental knowledge of child and parental rights and obligations was inversely related to punitive disciplinary beliefs, while such beliefs were positively associated with child punishment and negatively associated with child monitoring. The second model estimated the effect of a history of mothers' vicitimization during childhood on their adult behavior. It was found that being maltreated as a child was associated positively with antisocial behavior and depression/anxiety, which in turn affected positively alcohol consumption and harsh parenting. The third model estimated the covariance between moderate punishment and severe punishment. Results showed that the correlation between them was higher than the factor loadings between each latent construct and their corresponding observed variables. This finding indicates that parents do not discriminate between moderate and severe punishment, invalidating the assumption that parents are aware of limits between what can be considered abuse and disciplinary punishment. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Based on an examination of 47 campus-police reports of sexual assaults at three Southwestern universities, this study identifies and documents the social conditions that frequently lead to and surround campus rape; by comparing these conditions with those found in several national studies, this researcher finds a number of consistencies in suspects' and victims' characteristics, location of the crime, date and time of occurrence, and substance abuse. In addition, this study documents elements of male domination and sex-role stereotyping, the influence of rape mythology, and a negotiation process in which victims engage before they conclude that they are victims and report the crime. The study also examines the way in which universities apply or do not apply their own codes of conduct to campus rape cases and the way in which the criminal-justice system manages such cases. Using the documentation in the 47 campus-police reports, this study finds patterns in the steps rape victims take, campus police procedures for presenting campus rapes to prosecutors, prosecutors' decision-making processes, and reasons given by prosecuting attorneys when they fail to prosecute student suspects. The pattern of failing to treat campus rape as a serious crime is consistent on university campuses and in the criminal justice system. The criminal-justice system seldom prosecutes, indicts, or sentences students suspected of rape, whereas those accused of other crimes are more frequently brought to justice. Likewise, university administrators impose only minimal, if any, sanctions against students identified as rapists. Finally, the study provides important information with which to understand the environment in which rape occurs and the gender biases on which both university administrations and the criminal-justice system base their assumptions, policies, programs, discipline, and justice. This information is presented so that those in academic and judicial authority can develop improved programs and strategies to prevent campus rape.

Most crime prevention practices assume offenders will desist from crime if the opportunity to offend is made more difficult. In practice, this means more alarms and guards, and higher awareness about protecting yourself from crime. The legal costs of offending have become greater as punishments have become more punitive. A rational choice theory of crime predicts that individuals weigh costs and benefits of crime to maximize their own self-interest. When the costs outweigh the benefits of crime, the individual will not offend. In spite of this prevention approach, crime continues. Where rational choice explains why offenders desist from crime, self-control explains the individual's ability to engage in that decisionmaking process. Low self-control is characterized by being impulsive, risk-seeking, self-interested, physical, temperamental, and lazy. Singly and combined, these tendencies are more likely to create behavior that neglects future consequences in favor of current satisfaction. Where rational choice and self-control theories are similar is in using opportunity as a gateway for criminal conduct. Both see opportunity as an objective feature of the environment. The current work questions this assumption. Instead, it is hypothesized that perceptions of opportunity are subjective, tending to vary according to a person's level of self-control. An experiment was done with 132 students on computers, where opportunities to earn money in 1.00 increments were encountered over a five-step process. The maximum payoff was 5.00. Tasks became more frustrating at each step, though no task would be considered "difficult". Those with low self-control were expected to lack persistence toward the 5.00 goal, taking the easier, smaller, payoff earlier in the process. At the experimental prompt, subjects were told they could proceed to the 5.00 payoff, but would have to give back 1.00 to classmates unable to attend. Those in the control group were told they could continue for

The purpose of this study was to (1) determine the number of Spousal Rapes reported to law enforcement agencies of the Tucson Metropolitan Area during 1990, (2) measure expert perceptions regarding the occurrence of Spousal Rape in the Tucson Metropolitan Area during 1990, (3) compare official reports and expert perceptions regarding the occurrence of Spousal Rape, and (4) determine what experts believe to cause under-reporting, if found. The population for this study consisted of 30 experts working with victims of spousal rape. These experts were from 4 categories: human service workers, therapists, attorneys, and researchers. Thirteen spousal rape reports were received by law enforcement agencies in the Tucson Metropolitan Area. Experts believed that spousal rape occurrence was 10-2500 times higher than the number reported. Most reasons for under-reported that were shared by experts pertained to low public awareness regarding the causes for spousal rape. Also presented are conclusions, recommendations, and implications.

The purpose of this thesis was to determine if there was a significant relationship between the services provided First American juveniles in the Pima County Juvenile Court system as compared to others. In addition this thesis also provides an overview of the history of the Juvenile Justice system as well as the current practices in Pima County Juvenile Court.

<p> The following dissertation examines the role of ecological structures in juvenile justice systems, specifically during risk assessment, prosecution, and sanctioning. This analysis of system behavior considers religious establishments, public housing, and liquor stores as the ecological indicators and views them as stigmatizing. Quantitatively, the following examination sought to (a) determine associations between social ecology and risk assessments, prosecutions, and residential sanctioning, and to (b) determine if juvenile probation officers and judges are more stringent and judgmental toward delinquents from neighborhoods that have greater concentrations of religious establishments, public housing, and liquor stores. All adjudicated juvenile delinquents whose cases have been decided by the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice in calendar years 2006, 2007 and 2008 were included in the analysis. Secondary data from the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, the Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco Bureau of Licenses, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, American Church List and the United States Census were used to address the research questions. </p><p> The databases were used to support the researcher's overall tenet that certain areas are perceived as disorganized, which leads to stricter expressions of risk assessment, prosecutions, and residential sanctions. It is hypothesized that, (1) risk assessment levels are higher in areas with more religious establishments, public housing, and liquor stores; (2) zip codes with more prosecutions will consequently be those with more of the stigmatized ecological structures; and (3) an increase in religious establishments, public housing, and liquor stores will generate an increase in residential sanctions. </p><p> It was expected that the relationship between the independent and dependent variables would be significant, over and beyond demographic and legal factors. In the analysis, area demographics of population density; and juvenile demographics of age, race, ethnicity, and gender, along with current and prior legal history, were controlled for to determine the predictive value of the independent variables of religious establishments, public housing, and liquor stores on the dependent variables of risk assessment, prosecutions, and residential sanctions. Prior to statistical analysis, the data was merged and aggregated by zip code to reflect area composition, resulting in a dataset of 298 zip codes and 21 variables. To examine these relationships, analyses were done on a bi-variate and multi-variate level. Multi-variate analysis was performed using hierarchical regression. Three models were designed, considering demographics, and then adding legal variables, followed by ecological structures, to make the complete model. </p>

<p> Community policing is a philosophy that promotes mutual partnerships between the police and community members to address public safety issues (Traina, 2010). When community policing is successful, it can reduce crime by allowing the police and public to share ideas and programs (Somerville, 2009). Traditional law enforcement is largely a reactive process with its primary focus on emergency response rather than seeking solutions to prevent or reduce crime (Sun &amp; Triplett, 2008). The general problem has been the existence of police-citizen communication barriers that hinder the prevention, reduction, and solving of crimes. The specific problem is that police-citizen communications/relations have prevented the understanding, use, and effectiveness of community policing efforts (Schneider, Rowell, &amp; Bezdikian, 2003). As the Bureau of Justice Statistics (2003) stated, 37% of residents in 12 cities reported seeing police interacting with neighborhood members, and only 24% of respondents observed police implementing crime-prevention and community participation activities. The purpose of this nonexperimental, quantitative research study was to analyze the difference, if any, between police and citizens&rsquo; perceptions of community policing styles and effectiveness in Clark County, Nevada. The results of this study revealed a generalized need for improving the understanding, use, and efficiency of community policing programs.</p>

<p> The reduction in crime rates that occurred in large cities across the United States (US) over the course of the past two decades has been the subject of much speculation and research. However, there have been no definitive empirical studies that conclusively determine the causes for this phenomenon. The goal of this study is to identify the impact of certain factors to the reduction of crime in large US cities that occurred over the past two decades by examining data over a thirty-year period (1980-2009). The identification of contributing factors may allow government officials, both on a local and national level, to focus their efforts on the implementation of policies that, based on empirical study, are likely to reduce crime. </p><p> This study focuses on <i>Observable Crime</i>, which is operationalized as robberies and larcenies reported in the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) Part II Offenses that were <i>likely to be visible to the police</i>. Those crimes likely to be visible police are determined to be all robberies that were not committed in residences and larcenies that were committed in public areas excluding stores. Law enforcement strategies that were examined in this study include Quality of Life (QOL) Enforcement and Police Presence, which is operationalized as arrests for drug offenses as reported in UCR Part II Arrests and Police Officers per 100,000 residents as reported in the UCR, respectively. The findings of this research supports the hypothesis that Quality of Life Enforcement significant in reducing crime in the twelve largest US cities from 1980-2009.</p>

<p> This study describes police officers&rsquo; perspectives of Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training. Ethnographic interviews were used to gather data, and Transformational Learning Theory guided this study. Implications of CIT training indicate that CIT officers are a part of a subculture within police culture, and respond differently to mental health calls differently than their non-CIT counterparts. Outcomes of these different response styles include decreased criminalization, decreased injury to officers/consumers, decreased use of force, and increased confidence in responding to mental health calls for officers who are CIT trained. Implications of this study are discussed in relation to sustainability of partnerships between law enforcement officers and mental health professionals.</p>