The focus of recent research in environmental criminology has been upon the physical and geographical nature of the crime site and how this "environment" might be altered to prevent future crimes. Most of these studies have examined property offenses such as burglary and vandalism. Few studies have focused solely upon the crime of robbery and its relationship with environmental factors. / The number of studies which have analyzed convenience store robbery from the "opportunity and target" perspective of crime prevention are extremely limited in both scope and application. They have either dealt with a single chain of convenience stores, have depended upon offender surveys or have been limited to a single municipality. / This study was designed to provide a more rigorous testing of the opportunity target model by examining the relationships between convenience store robberies and selected environmental factors on a statewide basis. The stores surveyed were taken from a random sample of all convenience stores operating within the State of Florida. / Data analyses were conducted at both the state and district levels using standard statistical techniques including: descriptive measures, crosstabulations, correlations, analysis of variance, multiple regression, discriminant analysis, and factor analysis. / The findings revealed that selection of convenience stores as robbery targets does not occur at random. Convenience stores with a low incidence of robberies differ significantly on a stated set of environmental variables from convenience stores with a higher incidence of robberies. The strength of the relationships within the research model was found to vary within the State of Florida with support for the model displaying substantially greater strength at the district level than at the state level. / The findings not only provide support for the "opportunity and target" perspective of crime prevention but also produced interesting insights regarding robbery prevention techniques for convenience stores. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-06, Section: A, page: 1583. / Major Professor: Frederic L. Faust. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1988.

In an attempt to assess the influence of demographic, employment, prior criminal history, probation sentence and probation adjustment variables on probation outcome, this study investigated probation terminations of 266 felony adult probationers whose cases had been terminated between January 1, 1980 and December 31, 1989 by completion of probation, revocation, or absconding. Probation outcome, the dependent variable was measured as success or failure. / Hypotheses, predicting significant relationships between key variables including race, sex, prior criminal history, marital status and employment status, were tested for statistical significance and strength. Chi-Square was used to determine the statistical significance; lambda and tau-b were used to show the strength of the relationships. All of the predicted relationships were in the right direction; with the exception of variables race and age, all of the relationships were statistically significant. / Small correlation coefficients indicated weak relationships between the dependent variable and the independent variables. / In the multivariate analysis, logit regression was used to determine the "best" predictors of probation outcome. Four models were estimated with the first model containing twelve variables. As each model was estimated, statistically insignificant variables were deleted. The final model contained the five variables which were statistically significant and cited as the "best" predictors of probation outcome. These variables included sex, work status, marital status, prior felonies, and conviction offense. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-03, Section: A, page: 1085. / Major Professor: Gordon Waldo. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

This study addressed the contradictory results obtained in previous research regarding the relationship between professionalism and police job performance. Earlier studies have used parochial definitions of police job performance, whereas the present research used the following comprehensive measures that have both historical and theoretical significance for police professionalism: (a) self-initiated activity, (b) control of conflict, (c) rule of law, (d) police-citizen relationship, (e) public safety and trust or commendation, (f) work attitude, (g) problem solving and decision making, and (h) task performance (non-stress and stress). / The study sample was 112 police officers who performed patrol duties from 1983 to 1986 at Panhandle Police Department, Florida. Professionalism was assessed by number of years of education and the occupational technique (training and incentive money) adopted by the department. Performance was measured by the rating of officers' performance by the supervisiors. / Pearson product moment correlation coefficients, and Mallow's Cp within the framework of BMDP 9R were computed for multiple regressions. / The research (a) failed to support the initial hypotheses that professionalism was related to self-initiated activity, control of conflict, rule of law, relationship with citizens, commendation, work attitude, problem solving and decision making, and task performance--non-stress and stress. (b) Professionalism is not associated with high performance ratings. These findings raise questions about the presumed impact of professionalism on law enforcement. / This research considered professionalism, as an area of sociological investigation, as primarily concerned with stratification of occupational groups, like policing, geared toward the improvement of performance. Thus, the exchange--structural and power perspectives were used as this study's theoretical framework. The theoretical models helped only in variable conceptualization, not explanation. / On the other hand, the significance of the study lies in its pioneering effort to utilize comprehensive measures to study police professionalism. The findings question the wisdom of equating professionalism and performance. Further refinement of theory and instrumentation for evaluating performance measured are recommended for futher study. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-07, Section: A, page: 1969. / Major Professor: Thomas G. Blomberg. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1988.

Constructing criminals: the creation of identity within criminal mafias This thesis seeks to demonstrate that there has been a change in the social and cultural aspects of established organised criminal sub-cultures by observing the changes that have taken place in how identity is constructed. The literature is comparatively lacking in emphasis when compared to information about specific criminal activities and the threat of the organisations. This study finds that the social and cultural dimensions of established organised criminal sub-cultures can be equally important and indicative of changes in those organisations. This thesis analyses the change in how established organised criminal sub-cultures, or mafias, have perceived and used identity over the last twenty years and asks whether this can be indicative of a change in the social and cultural model of these organisations. The study is comparative and will focus on how identity in four distinct mafias from across the world - the Russian mafiya, Sicilian mafia, the Japanese yakuza and the Chinese triads - is constructed and how this has changed. The Russian mafiya was the first of the established organised criminal sub-cultures to demonstrate this change whereby identity was used in a different way from its criminal underworld roots. The study also analyses the literature available from gang studies to ask whether the recognised focus upon identity can be interpreted with reference to the established organised criminal sub-cultures. This thesis considers that a criminal identity is constructed through a variety of customs and behaviours including mythology and legend, language and oral traditions and the visual image that a group portrays. A contextual approach is proposed, whereby organisations create and negotiate criminal identities at different scales, by which a street level identity might be more distinctive.

This thesis is a study of the sociological significance of crime and punishment discourse in early-nineteenth-century broadsides. Broadsides were a form of street literature and, for almost 300 years until the late nineteenth century, were a forerunner to our modern tabloid newspapers. As such, they were published on a wide range of topics, but by far the most prevalent were those covering violent crime, especially murder, and the public execution of criminals. The publication of this genre of broadside reached a peak in the first half of the nineteenth century and its popular appeal was greatest among the labouring poor. This has led several scholars to propose two prominent, yet contrasting, arguments: namely, that this ‘gallows literature’ should be read as either evidence of attempts at ideological social control or merely as a form of debased, sensationalistic entertainment. However, this thesis proposes that broadsides actually reveal ordinary people’s thoughts and feelings about crime and criminal justice and, as such, reflect common moralities and mentalities. By presenting a detailed discourse analysis of 650 broadsides printed all over Britain between the years 1800-1850, this thesis provides an alternative interpretation as to the form, function and meaning of their narratives of crime. This interpretation is based upon the social theories of Emile Durkheim, who recognised the higher utility of crime and punishment as being one of social integration and the preservation of moral boundaries. The central argument of this thesis, therefore, is that broadsides relating to crime and punishment were a form of moral communication for the masses and that they are examples of how the working class once attempted to bolster a sense of stability and community, during the transitional years of the early nineteenth century, by effectively representing both a consolidation and celebration of their core values and beliefs.

<p> Parties to a legal action of child abuse can be prosecuted criminally as well as charged with allegations within the jurisdiction of juvenile/dependency court. This can lead to seemingly conflicting goals regarding contact and visitation between the two parties (victim and defendant; child and parent). In essence, restraining orders or visitation orders from one court can contradict the case goals of another court. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to (a) determine if there is a pattern of inconsistent goals in cases of concurrent jurisdictional child-abuse cases, (b) evaluate the effect of conflicting court orders on each jurisdiction&rsquo;s cases, and (c) examine the ability of these courts to process cases in a timely manner in light of both courts&rsquo; goals and concerns. Previous to this study, scholarly literature surrounding no-contact orders was limited to domestic violence and criminal contexts. There is no current scholarly research addressing the treatment of no-contact orders in concurrent jurisdiction cases. This study utilized standardized surveys, one-on-one interviews, and observations to evaluate and examine the areas of inquiry. Participants were chosen for their extensive knowledge and professional duties regarding both the juvenile/dependency and criminal court systems. The results of this research indicate that many participants considered these two jurisdictions to maintain contradictory goals, which is particularly problematic in contact/no-contact orders. Participants found the issue of restraining orders in this context to manifest in unfairness, confusion, and delay. A myriad of recommendations are offered in an effort to assist this county, as well as others, in its promotion of fairness to court participants and parties of these concurrent cases.</p><p>

<p> This dissertation examines integral, challenging contemporary poetry and fiction, and its relationship to notions of the criminal in multiple guises. The present focus on &ldquo;criminal&rdquo; excavates not only its literal meaning&mdash;the nature of crime, and its specific relation to penal law&mdash;but also brings to light how the &ldquo;criminal&rdquo; affects the construction of fiction and poetry, and the lives of various individuals (speakers) within the chosen texts. Intricately tied with the criminal are practices that transgress, and this study will also locate specific creations where poets and novelists construct transgressions that challenge contemporary ideas of narrative and poetic modes. This study argues that expanding the term &ldquo;criminal&rdquo; opens up not only the current field of &ldquo;criminal studies,&rdquo; but also examines contemporary poetry and prose. This dissertation argues that a new formulation of the criminal proliferates practices of subjectivities that are forced upon individuals and taken for granted, and that the &ldquo;criminal&rdquo; is intricately tied to works that transgress and experiment. </p><p> The criminal, at its most basic, involves the nature of crime; it relates to the penal law; guilty; characteristic of a criminal. Most studies of &ldquo;criminality&rdquo; fall under the term &ldquo;prison literature,&rdquo; which focuses on individuals who have been incarcerated, and subsequently chronicled their lives in writing. Other studies and novels focus specifically on the struggle of individuals in prison. These texts take incarceration as their primary focus. This dissertation looks to make a distinct break between &ldquo;prison&rdquo; writing and &ldquo;criminal&rdquo; writing, moving the focus from incarceration to other social boundaries; however, &ldquo;prison&rdquo; and &ldquo;criminal&rdquo; are two terms that often intersect and overlap. &ldquo;Criminal&rdquo; writing does not take incarceration as its jumping off point, though incarceration may play a role; instead, the &ldquo;criminal&rdquo; is a spatial way of being in the world that either marks one off from contemporary society, or borders on notions which denote one as outsider. This project looks to expand the field from literatures focusing primarily on incarceration to studies depicting acts of transgression and deviance that may not necessarily land an individual behind bars, but mark one as separate from societal norms, as an outsider. This study envisions the &ldquo;criminal&rdquo; as branching out from its basic definition to include a variety of ways individuals &ldquo;transgress&rdquo; from their present predicament. This includes but is not limited to illegal acts one partakes in but is not caught, and acts that jeopardize one&rsquo;s place in society. As such, the &ldquo;criminal&rdquo; is opaque, nebulous, harder to pin down; it works from the periphery, the margins, interstitial spaces; whereas &ldquo;prison&rdquo; writing already denotes the given fact that one is or has been incarcerated, calling to mind a fixed location and trajectory. </p><p> Both poetry and fiction illustrate this branching out in similar and disparate ways, and the focus on both showcases the plurality and broad reach of these genres. The central objects of study will be a range of contemporary American poetry and fiction: James Baldwin&rsquo;s <b>Giovanni&rsquo;s Room</b> (1956); Rosmarie Waldrop&rsquo;s <i>Driven to Abstraction </i> (2010); Joanna Scott&rsquo;s <i>Arrogance</i> (1990); and C.D. Wright&rsquo;s <i>One Big Self: An Investigation</i> (2007). These texts give voice to the myriad, opaque notions of the &ldquo;criminal,&rdquo; while at the same time blurring the lines of how poetry and prose function; each text, as well, marks off distinct breaks in the artists&rsquo; bodies of work. These texts transgress on multiple levels, in turn, mirroring and mimicking the slippery, proliferating term&mdash;&ldquo;criminal.&rdquo;</p><p>

This dissertation addresses the challenge of liberal democracies to deal with fundamental conflicts in society about, for example, political representation and natural resources, and the subsequent transfer of such conflicts into the criminal justice arena when actors fail to deal with competing demands in the political arena. In an exploration of tensions between law and justice, and the competing conceptions of "crime" and "harm," this work analyzes criminalization processes in three contentious episodes: the Chilean-Mapuche territorial conflict, the Spanish-Basque separatist conflict, and the eco-conflict in the United States. Although prosecutors invariably asserted their independence and the democratic mandate to "simply" enforce the law, this dissertation describes the gradual politicization of criminal proceedings as opposing actors implicated in the political struggle move into the criminal justice arena and make it subject to and the space of claim-making. This study not only challenges the belief that criminal law can be applied in an independent and neutral manner. Taking a constructivist perspective on the prosecutorial narrative and analyzing how mobilization and discursive action of "victims" and "prisoner supporters" aim to push or challenge criminal prosecutions, it describes in detail the ways in which such conflictive and interpretive processes fundamentally alter the logic and development of criminal prosecutions.

The three papers included in this dissertation are based on data from a larger cross-sectional survey study which explores the causes and patterns of sexual aggression by adolescent males incarcerated in residential treatment. The sample of interest included 504 male adolescents who were adjudicated delinquent and sanctioned to residential treatment for the commission of sexual and non-sexual crimes. Paper 1 includes a descriptive snapshot of the individual and family characteristics, childhood experiences, child maltreatment histories, childhood exposure to nudity and sexual activity, sexual crime characteristics, as well as non-sexual crime characteristics of juvenile sex offenders in residential treatment. Paper 2 focuses on the family characteristics and childhood experiences that predict group membership in juvenile sex offender and juvenile delinquent groups. Finally, paper 3 explores those factors associated with the severity of sexual crime as well as the frequency of general delinquency among juvenile sex offenders in residential treatment.

<p> The goal of this research is to assist in predictive modeling for radicalization into violent extremist ideologies. This research also shapes the theory of radicalization and establishes perimeters of micro subject areas that are included in the theory. The research examined domestic terrorists convicted in U.S. court systems who espoused violent extremist ideologies. U.S. citizens by birth, resident aliens, and naturalized citizens were included in the research data to determine whether a particular group is more susceptible to radicalization than others. Additionally, what group is carrying out more domestic terrorism attacks? The case study analysis is of 200 individuals who fit this profile. The development of a predictive modeling pathway was the result of the research. Additionally, examination of current policy with counter-radicalization programs overseas resulted in recommendations for future research and best practices for implementation into a unified U.S. counter-radicalization strategy. </p><p>