In 2005, Florida enacted the Justifiable Use of Deadly Force legislation, known as Stand Your Ground (SYG) laws, in response to the Workman case. The aftermath of that case led to the expansion of the laws that removed the duty to retreat principle and allowed citizens to employ deadly force when imbued with fear. The SYG laws as written appeared to imply state-sanctioned violence, with an increase in homicides, coupled with racial disparities. This study employed a quantitative inquiry with a causal-comparative design to explore whether a relationship existed between racial socialization and fear of crime in SYG states compared to non-SYG states, using the lens of critical race theory, contact theory and policy learning theory. The study included 112 participants recruited through social media, they were ages 18 years and older, from Florida, Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia who had no connections to an SYG case. The data were analyzed using analysis of covariance and indicated statistical significance between the state of residency and an individual's decision to fight back when presented with a scenario similar to the Trayvon Martin case. The results also yielded a statistical significance between gender, ethnicity, and an individual'€™s decision to fight back in the SYG scenario. The findings of this study confirm that the state of residency may impact the decision to employ deadly force or fight back. However, other results are not consistent with previous research. This study provides legislatures with a means for reforming the SYG rhetoric, as well as decrease the public'€™s misconceptions about the SYG laws.

Using adaptation and queer theory, this essay discusses and analyzes how Henry James’ horror novella The Turn of the Screw has been adapted into a streaming show for Netflix. By showing how The Haunting of Bly Manor removes some of the ambiguity of the original text, this essay claims that the show does not fall victim to the “bury your gays” trope, as it has been accused of. Instead, this essay finds that while the show may not perpetuate this trope, it still maintains the idea that queer stories come with tragic backstories and trauma.

Thesis advisor: Arthur Lewbel / This dissertation consists of three related chapters. A unifying feature throughout all is a focus on the issues in the economics of crime, specifically in how different factors affect different types of index crimes. The first chapter, a collaboration with Abby Hong, examines the role of the stand-your-ground law in driving first-degree and second-degree murder rates. The second chapter, a collaboration with Benjamin Ferri, examines how the two ends of the income distribution impact emotional gain crime and financial gain crime. Both chapters one and two examine how different variables affect crime, and both have a theoretical part and an empirical part. The third chapter looks into measurement issues in crime. Specifically, it considers the impact of a change in data collection methods on the Uniform Crime Report (UCR). The first chapter, “Self-defense Regulations and Crime: Evidence from the Stand Your Ground Law,” provides a theoretical model of crime escalation when governments relax self-defense regulations. We then test the model with an empirical analysis of the “stand-your-ground” (SYG) laws’ impact on planned and unplanned murders. The game theoretical model shows that relaxing self-defense regulations can increase the arming of crime victims. It also increases the arming of offenders in crimes that lead to unplanned murders. If planned murder offenders are over-confident, then their level of arms increases as well. We then use a difference-in-differences (DiD) model to test these implications. We find that consistent with the model, SYG laws in the US increase the planned murder rate by 7.6% and the unplanned murder rate by 10.4%, on average. Also, the effect size increases over time, highlighting the persistence of the impact. The paper illustrates how interactions between victims and offenders result in unintended consequences of self-defense regulations. It also encourages policymakers to take into account criminal behavior when making policy decisions. The second chapter, “The Distinct Roles of Poverty and Higher Earnings in Motivating Crime,” develops a new model that articulates how Poverty (the lower tail of the earnings distribution) and Earnings (the upper tail) enter into equilibrium crime rates. In our model, individuals in Poverty have less to lose in the context of criminal punishment, so are less averse to committing crimes in general. The presence of high Earnings (therefore things worth stealing) heightens the expected gain to offenders per crime - but specifically in terms of financial gain, not emotional gain. We estimate our model on a comprehensive panel of U.S. Commuting Zones (1980-2016), deploying novel Shift-Share instruments to correct for reverse causality (of crime on the earnings distribution). Corroborating our hypothesis, we find that high Earnings plays a much larger role in driving crimes that yield financial gain to the offender (various forms of theft) than it does for crimes of emotional gain; while Poverty is a driving force equally across both types of crime. In each case, not accounting for reverse causality would underestimate both effects, often by more than double. The third and final chapter, “Crime Reporting Standards and Reported Crime,” This paper explores data discrepancies in the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) before and after the adoption and conversion of the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). The FBI starts publishing the UCR in 1930 to understand crime trends in the United States. The UCR is published under the Summary Reporting System (SRS) until the 1990s, when the NIBRS is developed to collect more detailed data. The NIBRS is then converted to “synthetic SRS” and concatenated to historical SRS data when it enters the UCR. It uses a staggered event study design based on the year in which the agency switches from the SRS to the NIBRS. I find two factors that contribute to a large and statistically significant increase in reported crime for agencies that adopt the NIBRS compared with agencies that have not: the data conversion process and a change in reporting practices. When I convert the NIBRS to synthetic SRS based on published criteria, I observe a smaller and statistically insignificant increase in assault cases. However, this alternative conversion process does not improve the difference-in-differences (DiD) effects for total crime, murder, robbery, burglary, and theft, highlighting the fact that data from the NIBRS is more complete and more timely. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

Denna studie undersöker hypertextuell skönlitteratur och dess inverkan på viktiga aspekter i läsutvecklingen hos lågstadieelever. Detta utförs genom en kvantitativ enkätundersökning i sex klasser i årskurs 3. Hälften av klasserna fick läsa en berättelse med hypertextuell progression medan de andra tre fick läsa berättelsen med en traditionellt linjär progressionsutformning och därefter svara på identiska enkäter. Lärarna i klasserna fick också svara på en enkät. Genom jämförelse mellan klassernas svar har texternas inverkan på läsförståelse, motivation och upplevd svårighetsgrad kunnat utläsas. Studien har funnit en signifikant ökning av läsmotivationen hos de elever som läst den hypertextuella berättelsen.

The nature of humans and human interaction has always fascinated me, and due to the extreme complexity of our constantly changing and evolving society, never before has there been such a dire need to understand ourselves and to realize the consequences of our actions on a universal scale; never before has society been so at war and in love with mind-games, which are both disgusting and beautiful at the same time; people have come to depend on the very thing they despise the most. These are themes I am trying to explore in my original play, After Butter. For my Honors in the Major Thesis, I researched and explored the craft of playwriting in an effort to improve my original play, After Butter. As a writer, I wanted to have the experience of creating an original work from concept to public performance. I wanted to do this project because no classes in the theatrical playwriting discipline are offered in my major. My play is a realistic, comedic, modem-day adaptation of our own world. I explore themes such as: the awakening of the consciousness; the interconnectedness of man and nature; genuine strength conquers all; the Axiom of Causality; redemption; the right thing isn't always the easiest; truth never dies; materialism; and, finally, the game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, which represents an action's consequences. Outside the university setting, I would like to have my play performed by professional theatre companies in an effort to get audiences to connect with the characters and situations so the play becomes important to them on a personal level, therefore priming the play for a future on the big screen.

In 2005, Florida became the first state to pass the heavily National Rifle Association, NRA, supported "Stand Your Ground" law. The most notable components of the law were abolishing the duty to retreat for someone who is not engaged in lawful activity and is in a place where he has the right to be, granting civil and criminal immunity to those using lawful force, and presuming that a person who is attacked in his dwelling, residence, and occupied vehicle has a reasonable fear of death or great bodily harm. The law was subject to a substantial amount of criticism because it was a significant departure from Florida's more than a century old common law principles regarding self-defense. Possibly due to Florida not having any precedents for these cases, Florida courts would have conflicting decisions in these matters and law enforcement agencies would enforce the law differently in similar incidents. Regardless of the issues faced by Florida, over twenty states would adopt their own versions. A significant number of these states are in the Southeastern region of the United States and are neighbors to Florida or border Florida's neighbors, such as Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Louisiana. Because of this interesting pattern, the study examines the idea of southern culture playing a role in the passage of "Stand Your Ground" via the "Culture of Honor" theory and the researcher decided to use these jurisdictions and Florida as this study's sample. The researcher also wanted to include these jurisdictions because the existing "Stand Your Ground" literature mainly focuses on Florida and the researcher wanted to add something new to the discussion. The intent of this study to examine Florida's influence on the other jurisdictions, note any commonalties between the statutes of the jurisdictions, compare justifiable homicide statistics for the jurisdictions that provided such data, predict the future of these laws, and explore the "Culture of Honor" Theory as a possible explanation for "Stand Your Ground" laws in the states discussed. The study accomplished these goals by examining how each jurisdiction handled self-defense before "Stand Your Ground," looking at the motives behind the jurisdictions adopting "Stand Your Ground," comparing justifiable homicides in the four jurisdictions that provided them in the years immediate preceding the passage of "Stand Your Ground" to the subsequent years, and looking at amendments and proposals that were presented after the passage of "Stand Your Ground." The results uncovered that all the jurisdictions, except for Georgia and Tennessee, show a very strong Florida influence based on their similarities to Florida's law and legislators in the jurisdictions clearly mentioning Florida as their inspiration for proposing their own versions. In the jurisdictions that provided justifiable homicides, all showed an increase in the number of justifiable homicides after the passage of "Stand Your Ground." The jurisdictions in this study have also shown a strong resistance to any amendments or the complete repeal of this law. Therefore, any drastic amendment or the complete repeal seems unlikely in the future. The "Culture of Honor" Theory does explain why a few of the jurisdictions in the study adopted "Stand Your Ground" but Florida and the NRA's influence explain why others chose this course of action.

Know Your Customer compliance costs have never been higher for banks in Europe. This thesis looks at the application of blockchain technology to reduce Know Your Customer compliance costs. The work within aims to utilise the strengths of blockchain technology in order to reduce the costs of compliance for banks. This is done through collaboration with industry partners, resulting in a system designed to meet banks’ needs. The contributions of this work are: 1) A system which enables data sharing between banks, enabling 2) reduc tion of costs by at least 45%, and 3) reducing or eliminating over reliance on third parties, 4) an exploration of how to price data within the system is made in order to help banks further reduce their costs, 5) reduction of chain size by reducing the size of contract creation transactions in Ethereum by 90% for standard users, lastly, 6) to better understand the functionality and purpose of smart contracts. The system is the first of its kind to remove the requirement of third party storage solutions, and is the first to explore pricing aspects in detail.

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