In recent years such innovative programs as arbitration, restitution, diversion, victim assistance and compensation have exploded throughout the United States. To date diversion has been the program model with the greates degree of proliferation. / The State of Florida, for example, initiated the Juvenile Alternative Services Project (JASP) in three pilot districts in 1979. The pilot project was aimed at diverting juvenile offenders from judicial processing thereby limiting system penetration. It was anticipated that assignment to community service alternatives would result in a more effective juvenile correction system and fewer subsequent law violations. / Evaluation of diversion programs is most often addressed by one of two approaches: fixed-goal or unintended outcome. Fixed-goal assesses the realization of stated goals; unintended outcome seeks to identify collateral effects of diversion programs. Evaluations of diversion programs, therefore, characteristically focus on determining negative or positive results. What a program does or does not do, and for whom, is absent from current diversion evaluation practice. / The purpose of this study is to implement the multi-goal approach as a diversion program evaluation technique. The conceptual approach of this study is retrospective-empirical analysis; it utilizes data from the JASP evaluation for the purpose of demonstrating the additional program information provided by the multi-goal approach. This study provides the first evidence of the feasibility and utility of the multi-goal approach and provides a starting point for evaluators who choose to try the multi-goal evaluation technique. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, Section: A, page: 1878. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1984.

A time-series analysis of the deterrent effect of criminal sanctions (execution and incarceration) on homicide in the state of Florida is presented in this study. Four alternative deterrence models of the possible negative relationship between sanction and homicide were examined. / Both the Federal Bureau of Investigation's homicide rate and the Florida Vital Statistics homicide rate were used as measures of the dependent variable. Furthermore, two operational definitions for each certainty of sanction (execution and incarceration) were used in the analysis. The first measure of the certainty of sanction was the ratio of the number of sanctions to the number of homicides. In order to avoid the problem of ratio bias due to the presence of a common term (number of homicides) in the homicide rate and the first measure of the certainty of sanction, the actual number of each sanction was used as the second measure of the certainty of sanction. / Although there was some evidence of the deterrent effect of execution and incarceration on the homicide indicated by the finding of the negatively significant relationship between sanction and homicide rate, the relationship was not consistent when different measures of the certainty of sanction or different measures of the homicide rate were substituted. Socioeconomic and demographic variables, especially the nonwhite population rate, have been found to be better determinants of both homicide rate variables. / Finally, it was found that the best analysis, using the Vital Statistics homicide rate and the actual number of executions or the actual number of incarcerations as the measure of the certainty of sanction, did not support any deterrent hypothesis at all. This is because none of the analyses in each of the four deterrence models found any significant negative relationship between the Vital Statistics homicide rate and each of the sanction variables. In fact a counter deterrent effect or brutalization effect has been detected. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-11, Section: A, page: 3502. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.

In its sixty years of existence, the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) has become one of the most important law enforcement organizations in the world. Within Interpol, African member states predominate. As of April 1983, forty-four African countries have subscribed to membership in Interpol. This constitutes 32 percent of all 136 Interpol member countries. / This study attempted to answer the following questions: (1) Does the participation of African nation-states in Interpol jeopardize or endanger their national sovereignty? (2) Does Interpol disseminate personal or political information about African nationals neither accused or suspected of criminal activity? (3) Do Africans and African governments view their involvement in Interpol as being an asset or a liability? / Data were gathered by (1) visiting Interpol National Central Bureaus (NCBs) in various countries and examining records and files; (2) interviewing staff members in NCBs; (3) reviewing Interpol operating policies and procedures; and (4) administering a questionnaire to African students attending American universities, Interpol-affiliated African police officials, and non-Interpol-affiliated police officials. / The results revealed (1) that African Interpol member states do not believe their membership in Interpol represents a threat to their national sovereignty, (2) no evidence that Interpol has ever disseminated personal or political information about African nationals neither accused nor suspected of criminal activity, and (3) that Africans and African governments view their involvement in Interpol as an asset. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-11, Section: A, page: 3501. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.

The varying purposes of prison labor and labor-oriented programs are discussed in light of positive and classical criminological theories relating employment/unemployment, income, and crime. Labor programs, based on the punitive classical model, have utilized labor as punishment, assuming a reduction in recidivism would result; applications of positive theories have assumed that more substantial post-release employment, achieved by prison labor programs through habituation, anti-idleness, skill enhancement, or bonding, would also result in a reduction in recidivism. / Through the development of critical explanations of the relationship between the state, punishment, and labor, it is argued that effective labor programs would not be achieved due to competing, and more important, concerns of the state under capitalism. In addition, programs geared to change at the individual level would fail to address more important structural concerns, resulting in no substantial change in unemployment or crime rates. Hypotheses are developed to test alternate assumptions of the classical, positive, and critical models. / Using two years of follow-up data on 1210 ex-offenders released from the Florida Department of Corrections, the relationship between post-release employment and rearrest, as well as the impact of prison labor programs on these two indicators were studied. Results showed primarily weak, non-significant, negative relationships between employment level and crime, caused by the extremely low variance in employment status of ex-offenders and by surprisingly lower recidivism rates for unemployed than for underemployed offenders. No prison labor to labor-oriented program was found to significantly effect recidivism rates. While participants in two programs, community work release and vocational education, had higher post-release employment levels than non-participants, the weak impact of these programs failed to result in any reduction in recidivism rates. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 45-08, Section: A, page: 2660. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1984.

Using data for 193 United States Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas in 1970 and 1972, an attempt was made to explain the sources of variance in the official rates of homicide, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, larceny and auto theft. It was hypothesized that variance in crime rates was a function of the capacity to control conduct among metropolitan areas. Capacity to control was said to reside in the degree of organization, the extent of participation and the amount of resources devoted to formal control in a metropolitan area. Income inequality, overcrowding and population mobility were used as indicators of metropolitan organization. Marriage rates, voting rates and money deposited in savings accounts were used as positive indicators of participation; divorce rates were used as a negative indicator. Employment in education and employment in law enforcement were used as indicators of resources devoted to formal control. Region, median income, the rate of black residents, the rate of poor families, the rate of unemployed and population size were used as control variables. Multiple regression analyses using ordinary least squares and two-stage least squares solutions were performed to test the hypotheses and to compare the findings to those of earlier researchers. A total of 150 relationships were examined and of those, 44 were in accord with hypothesis. Income inequality, overcrowding, population mobility, police strength, the rate of blacks, the rate of unemployed and population size were found to be the most important predictors of the crime rates. The results were interpreted as providing limited support for the control perspective upon which the study was based. The strain perspective was also supported. Only the relationship between race and the crime rates could be construed as supportive of the cultural deviance perspective. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-07, Section: A, page: 2252. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.

Evidence relevant to the hypothesis that androgens alter nervous system functioning in ways that enhance human tendencies to engage in criminal behavior was the focus of the dissertation. Among the major lines of evidence were the following: (1) Restricting the inquiry initially only to criminal acts which victimize fellow social group members (victimful offenses), evidence reviewed that age and sex variables appear to be related to victimful offenses (or their nonlegal equivalent) in quite consistent ways in all human societies ever studied. (2) Notably similar victimizing behavior has been documented in many other species, and variability in such behavior seems to be highly influenced by androgenic effects upon the nervous systems of the animals involved. (3) The most important brain part which appears to be perinatally and pubertally androgenized in such ways as to increase the probability of victimizing behavior is the reticular activating system (and its supporting autonomic nervous tissue). The effects of androgens on this arousal control mechanism are subtle and complex, but they generally seem to consist of causing an organism to be less sensitive to whatever impact it is having upon it's environment. (4) The other two general brain portions which appear to have their functioning altered by androgens in ways which increase the probability of victimizing behavior are the "emotion control" portion and the "higher thought" portion. Overall, androgenization of the emotion control portion appears to make seizuring more likely in the face of emotionally provocative environmental stimuli. Androgenization of the higher thought centers seems to render organisms somewhat more inclined toward spatial-wholistic styles of thought, rather than logical (and, in humans, linguistic) styles of thought. (5) Considered together, it is concluded that these three / apparent effects of androgens on the nervous system make mammals generally more likely to victimize fellow social group members. In the case of humans, one of the major effects is an increased probability of victimful criminal behavior (or its nonlegal equivalent). / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-10, Section: A, page: 3169. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.

The Quaker era in American corrections is traditionally characterized in criminological literature as the brief experiment with substitution of imprisonment for the sanguinary corporal and capital punishments of England and the other colonies by William Penn in 1682, and as the subsequent rebirth of the philosophy by Philadelphia Quakers between 1790-1840. / The premise underlying this research is that the origin and evolution of American correctional philosophy cannot be fully and accurately understood from any perspective that limits the Quaker influence to early periods of American history. The study elaborates the direct and indirect influence of a Quaker social reform movement which began in Europe in 1670 and continues today as a vital and viable force behind correctional public policy in the United States. Although the strength and impact of the Quaker social reform movement, the "holy experiment," as William Penn termed it, has waxed and waned over the past three centuries, the efforts of the Society of Friends to attain social justice in correctional reform has been a continuous social reform movement. / The present research interprets the Quaker correctional reforms in America as a single social movement which evolved in distinct stages over a period of three hundred years. The theoretical frame of reference is a social contextual perspective, which considers the events in the social, political and economic context of the time. / The evolution of the American correctional philosophy can be seen as a single, extended social movement which began with the Quaker persecution in Europe and the subsequent migration to America; evolved into an utopian effort to establish a new and better means of dealing with the criminal; and, further developed into a reform effort, diffusing the gospel of the "penitentiary" and the new "prison discipline." Its basic philosophy remained for the next one hundred years the foundation of American correctional policy, only to be reexamined in the mid-twentieth century and found wanting by the same reformers who established it, and the struggle for reform began again. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-03, Section: A, page: 1068. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1986.

This critical examination of existing criminal laws and regulatory schemes governing the manufacture, sale and possession of narcotic substances seeks to analyze and consider the implications of complex recent pharmacological findings regarding endorphins, the endogenous opiate-like chemicals. Focusing primarily upon current federal laws, the writer finds them to be of problematic utility and when viewed in the context of the new psychopharmacological evidence not rational in a legal sense. Selected bodies of literature from the social, medical, and legal disciplines are reviewed in order to seek plausible, if presently theoretical, answers to pertinent questions raised by the recent scientific data. After presenting an overview of the existing laws and the most relevant pharmacological data the writer proceeds to develop the bases for his thesis that existing laws are inconsistent with the implications of the combination of psychopharmacological discoveries with criminal law and judicial practice. Further, the consequences of that inconsistency are discussed, including issues of constitutionality and due process under contemporary statutory structures. In the legislative-oriented component of the dissertation, an attempt is made to propose the enactment of new federal law(s), in order to avoid a legal impasse with regard to criminal controls on narcotic substances that may be precipitated once synthetic endorphin-like chemicals are generally available. A new category of "drug" substance under applicable food and drug law and criminal statutes is proposed, the pharmacological recognition of which may have significant impact upon domain assumptions in criminology and upon criminal legislation and judicial practice. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-03, Section: A, page: 1069. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1986.

A host of studies have examined the religiosity-deviance relationship in a variety of ways. Various measures of religiosity and deviance have been utilized in many different settings to determine the relationship between religious commitment and deviance. These studies essentially attempted to discover the degree to which religiosity acts as a social control mechanism in preventing delinquency and criminal activity. / The present research takes two areas that have been neglected in the religiosity-deviance literature as points of departure. The first area by-passed by scholars in the study of religious commitment as a means of rehabilitation. The second area overlooked by researchers is the study of religious commitment among prison inmates. Social control theory provides the theoretical rationale in which these two neglected areas are examined. / Several methodological shortcomings in the religiosity-deviance literature are addressed in the present research through the construction of religiosity indexes and the use of path analysis. This is done in an effort to more accurately measure religiosity. / This study examines data collected on the inmate population (n=782) released from 1978 through 1982 at the Apalachee Correctional Institution (ACI), in Chattahoochee, Florida. Religious variables, religiosity indexes, and institutional adjustment indexes, represent the three sets of variables scrutinized in the analysis in order to determine the impact of religiosity upon institutional adjustment of prison inmates. / The findings indicate that those inmates exhibiting the greatest degree of religious commitment are no more likely to attend institutional church services or activities than inmates exhibiting little or no religious commitment. More importantly, religiosity of prison inmates does not have a statistically significant impact upon their institutional adjustment. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 46-01, Section: A, page: 0269. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1984.

By a 1978 legislation, the State of Florida legislated to commit itself to the alternative education concept. Having recognized that the regular school program was not satisfying the academic needs of certain students, thereby leading to apathy, disruptiveness, truancy, poor scholarship, failure and delinquency, the Legislature urged that school districts establish alternative education programs as positive educational remedies. / This study proposed to provide an empirical assessment of the outcome of Florida's experiment with alternative education. / To avoid bias in findings associated with the use of aggregate data alone, two levels of measurement were performed. At the macro-level, statewide education data were examined. At the micro-level, case study and participant observation were conducted at a North Florida alternative school. Other schools were visited, and interviews conducted with school authorities, legislators and state agency personnel. Questionnaires were administered to students at the alternative school. / The analysis of the statewide data showed general program ineffectiveness. The alternative school study showed appreciable improvements in student affective and behavioral growth, in attitude toward school and in scholarship, and high academic and occupational aspirations, despite low standard-test performance. / Methodologically, the study showed that aggregate data obliterate differences between programs, fail to identify successful programs, and the reasons for success or failure. Substantively, it showed that school districts may have inadequately implemented the program, although individual programs, committed to the alternative education philosophy and praxis, may have been successful in its implementation and outcome. These findings suggest that efforts to reform institutions without changing the system are unlikely to succeed, and that evaluators should be sensitive to the dynamics and complexities of policy development and implementation. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 48-03, Section: A, page: 0751. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1987.