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<p> A scan of online news articles reveals a consistent trend: Missing White women and children are more likely to garner media attention than missing minority women. The glorification of missing White women and children has been dubbed "missing White woman syndrome." This qualitative content analysis of online and traditional print journalism articles examines the differences in how the national media outlets portray missing White women compared to missing minority women. Triangulated analyses validate the existence of the "syndrome" and explore the nuances of ways in which missing girls and women are portrayed in print media. The implications for theory and professional practice in both journalism and criminal justice, as well as those for justice policy, are discussed.</p>

<p> Responses to sex offenders often involve collective campaigns that target political and criminal justice systems rather than individual offenders. Scholars have described these community responses as part of a broader moral panic, but that interpretation generally overlooks differences in the form of responses across places. This dissertation uses data from case studies of three California towns to examine how local political and legal contexts contribute to variation in community responses to violent sex offenders. I argue that communities' orientations to authority shape how they respond to perceived injustices. </p><p> I introduce my main arguments and overarching concepts in chapter one. Then, in chapter two, I explore why communities deploy moral authority in service of their collective goals. Moral authority is an endogenous source of community power, and moral claims emerge within formal institutional contexts that allow for and even encourage morally based arguments. Because these institutions limit the effectiveness of moral claims, communities sometimes turn to other mobilization strategies. Chapter three shows how an orientation to political authority as a source of entitlement contributed to one community rallying around political mobilization. I contrast this case with a second community in which an orientation to political authority as a source of alienation contributed to ambivalence toward political strategies. In chapter four, I argue that the third community's orientation to legal authority as a source of protection contributed to litigation as the centerpiece of their response. I compare this case to the second community in which legal authority was perceived as a source of control, which facilitated indifference toward legal mobilization. </p><p> This research contributes to a new perspective on participation in moral panic as a contemporary form of civic engagement. By illuminating the social processes underlying the relationships between communities and formal institutions, my findings have implications for understanding community responses to crime, legal and political mobilization, collective action, and social control within communities. More practically, this research can inform discussions about how community members should be involved in decision-making about sex offender reintegration.</p>

The modernization of the U.S. Naval fleet along with recent cuts in defense spending, have led to a number of vessels being decommissioned. This, coupled with the need for additional detention facilities, has led to the proposal contained herein, where decommissioned seafaring vessels, specifically aircraft carriers, instead of being broken up, are modified and adapted to serve as correctional facilities.

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Canada has seen an uneven temporal and geographical decline in homicide rates since the mid 1970s. In addition, Canada has simultaneously seen a proportionate increase in unsolved homicides. These two trends at first appear incongruent; however, there are a multitude of factors which influence both homicide rate fluctuations and declining clearance rates. This dissertation examines these two separate yet related phenomena in three manuscripts. In the first manuscript homicide clearance is examined at the case level in order to discern which event level features have the strongest affect on clearance outcomes. It compares the differential effects of geo-temporal influences, victim characteristics and offence details on clearance probabilities. Outcomes indicate that offence characteristics play a strong role in clearance probabilities; however, they do not completely explain the temporal decline and the geographical differences. The second manuscript examines homicide clearance rates at the regional level over three decades as a means to better understand how workload, offence and structural issues affect changing levels of homicide clearance. It also examines how certain features interact in their affect on clearance rates. Results indicate that workload factors influence homicide clearance rates, but that they interact with both structural factors and the proportion of young male victims. The final manuscript investigates regional level homicide rates over three decades with the purpose of determining the way in which changes in the size of the young male demographic influence interpersonal violence rate changes, as well as the way in which this segment of the population interacts with socio-economic factors in its influence on these rates. Results indicate that changing demographics have a strong influence on homicide rates, but that the young male segment also interacts with socio-economic influences. Overall, this dissertation adds to both homicide and homicide clearance literatures in Canada by examining multiple influences over time and space which have not previously been researched. / Au Canada, le taux d'homicides depuis le milieu des années 1970 est globalement en baisse, mais variable selon l'espace et le temps. Simultanément à ce déclin, on constate au Canada une augmentation des cas d'homicides non résolus. Ces deux tendances apparaissent incongrues au premier abord, mais il existe une multitude de facteurs qui influence aussi bien la fluctuation que le déclin du taux des cas d'homicides résolus. Cette thèse examine ces deux phénomènes inter-reliés à travers trois articles. Dans le premier, une étude de cas est réalisée afin de déterminer quels sont les facteurs qui ont le plus d'impacts sur la résolution d'homicides. Les différents effets de l'influence spatio-temporelle, les caractéristiques des victimes et le détail des délits seront comparés. Les résultats indiquent que les caractéristiques des délits jouent un rôle important au niveau des probabilités de résolution d'enquête. Toutefois, elles n'expliquent qu'en partie le déclin du taux d'homicides à travers le temps, ainsi que les différences entre les régions. Le second article présente une analyse du taux des cas d'homicides résolus au niveau régional sur trois décennies afin de permettre une meilleure compréhension du rôle de la charge de travail, du type de délit et des facteurs structurels sur les taux de cas d'homicides résolus à travers l'espace et le temps. Un examen de l'interrelation entre certains de ces facteurs sera aussi présenté. Les résultats indiquent que les facteurs liés à la charge de travail influencent les taux de cas d'homicides résolus, mais qu'ils interagissent de pair avec certains facteurs structurels, ainsi que la proportion de jeunes hommes parmi les victimes. Pour ce qui est du troisième article, une analyse des taux d'homicides au niveau régional sur plus de trois décennies est présentée. Le premier objectif est de déterminer la nature du lien entre l'évolution démographique du nombre de jeunes hommes, ainsi que l'évolution des taux de violences enregistrés dans l'espace et le temps. Le deuxième objectif est ensuite de déterminer de quelle manière ce segment de la population (jeunes hommes) interagit avec les facteurs socio-économiques influençant les taux de violences enregistrés. Les résultats indiquent que les changements démographiques ont une forte influence sur le taux d'homicides et que le segment de la population des jeunes hommes est lui-même influencé par les facteurs socio-économiques en place à travers l'espace et le temps. Globalement, cette thèse contribue par un apport scientifique tant au niveau des études sur les homicides, qu'à celui des cas d'homicides résolus au Canada, grâce à la considération de facteurs multiples dans l'espace et le temps, une approche qui n'a jamais été utilisée jusqu'à présent.

Since as long as one can remember, child protection and juvenile delinquency have been included in the same field. And today's centers for readaptation do indeed accommodate, as did the institutions for minors of the 19th century, both the problem children in need of protection and the juvenile offenders. Such institutions always had the same mandate: to lock up recalcitrant youth in order to better discipline them. Now, the evolution of the legal system has been such that the rights of young offenders are much better protected, at least formally, then those of the minors in need of protection.

This study deals with the French action civile, whereby the victim of a criminal offence may participate, as civil party, in the criminal proceedings brought against the offender, and there claim reparation from such offender if he can prove that he has suffered loss or damage directly resulting from the offence. This procedure differs from what obtains in the common-law jurisdictions, where a crime victim's participation in the criminal trial is limited to being a witness for the prosecution, and can only bring an action for damages before the civil courts. / In addition to examining the requirements for the admissibility of the action civile, the study elicits certain procedural and evidentiary issues, such as the burden and standard of proof, the Civilian approach to tortious liability, res judicata, the problem of judicial interpretation of code provisions by a common-law jurisdiction and the respective merits that justify the civil party action. These issues occasionally provide the background for a critical and comparative analysis in relation to common-law procedural practice. / The study also seeks to demonstrate the need for greater victim participation in the criminal process and, thereby, attempts to defeat the generally-held view in common-law jurisdictions that the victim's place is the witness box. In this way, it may be a helpful source of reference for a common-law - Civil law mixed system, like Cameroon's, that is going through a legal harmonisation process, and other common-law jurisdictions that may want to adopt the civil party procedure.

In this thesis I examine the historical development of criminological thought and theory. I argue that criminology's history generally follows the structure of history advanced by Thomas Kuhn in his The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. As such, I argue that the history of criminological development is a history of successive periods, punctuated by periods of crisis. Specifically, criminology's historical development is characterized by four successive periods, which are as follows: (1) a pre-paradigm period in which at least three different paradigms exist, in competition for dominance in the field; (2) a paradigm period characterized by the dominance and universal acceptance of positivism by the scientific community of criminologists; (3) a period of crisis in which critical criminology, an alternative paradigm, successfully challenged the positivist paradigm and pushed the discipline into a state of crisis; and (4) a period characterized by, on the one hand, the triumph of the positivist paradigm over its challengers, and on the other hand, by a period in which alternative paradigms, confined to the fringes, nevertheless incessantly challenge the foundations and first principles of the positivism paradigm. My one caveat is that we view the fourth historical period of criminology as a stage rather than what Kuhn terms a paradigm. Stage is a term invoked in order to extend the limits of Kuhn's model and to develop it further. / Dans cette thèse, j'examine le développement historique de la pensée et de la théorie criminologique. Je soutiens que l'histoire de la criminologie suit généralement la structure de l'histoire avancée par Thomas Kuhn dans son livre La Structure des Révolutions Scientifiques. Je soutiens que l'histoire du développement criminologique est une histoire de périodes successives, ponctuée par des périodes de crise. Plus précisément, nous pouvons identifier quatre périodes successives le développement historique de la criminologie: (1) une période de pré-paradigme dans lequel au moins trois paradigmes différents sont en concurrence pour la domination dans le domaine; (2) une période de paradigme caractérisé par la domination et l'acceptation universelle du positivisme par la communauté scientifique des criminologues; (3) une période de crise dans laquelle la criminologie critique, en tant que paradigme alternatif, a remis en question le paradigme positiviste et poussé la discipline dans un état de crise, et (4) une période caractérisée par, d'une part, le triomphe du paradigme positiviste sur ses concurrents, et d'autre part, par une période durant laquelle des paradigmes alternatifs, confinés a la périphérie, mais ne cessant néanmoins de remettre en question les fondements et les principes premiers du paradigme du positivisme. La problématique que j'identifie est de dire nous voyons la quatrième période historique de la criminologie comme une étape au lieu de la voir comme ce que Kuhn a appelé un paradigme. Le terme 'étape' est invoqué afin d'étendre les limites du modèle de Kuhn et de le développer davantage.

The street child drama being played out on South African streets continues the process of victimisation begun in the families and communities. Deprivation, poverty, and disorganisation are just some of the characteristics evident in the families and communities of street children . The decision to opt for street life in exchange for the grinding poverty and hardships of family and community life, is a stark illustration of children who have no other options, but a life on the streets. The process of becoming a street child ends with the runaway episode and opens new vistas of victimisation for street children .on the streets. One process ends therefore, and another one begins. It is argued in this study that street children are doubly victimised. Victimisation in the streets sets in motion the process of engaging , in deviant careers, which engenders further victimisation . Three themes are evident in the present study, these are causation, victimisation and deviance. From the discussion of these themes it is possible to construct a social profile of street children, before and after street life . Chapter one introduces the subject for study by discussing the background to the study, rationale behind it, aims, theoretical assumptions and definitions of relevant constructs . Chapter two reviews the literature on street children with specific reference to the causation, victimisation and deviance themes. Chapter three provides a methodological account of the research procedure. Chapters four and five present the findings from the empirical study. The perceptions of street children and service providers are discussed within a symbolic interactionistic perspective and highlight the victimisation and deviance themes in the study. Chapter six contains the recommendations and conclusions. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Durban-Westville, 1995.