STRAIN EXPERIENCED IN PRISON AND ITS IMPACT ON PERCEPTION OF THE PRISON ENVIRONMENT AND THE RATE OF RECIDIVISM

Agnew's General Strain Theory (GST) is unique in that it emphasizes individual relationships and focuses on negative relationship at the individual level. It claims that if people are not treated the way they want to be treated, then that will generate negative emotions, which would in turn lead to crime. Originally designed to explain adolescent delinquency and adolescent drug use, majority of empirical work testing GST has been done on juvenile populations. Using a sample of incarcerated adult males, this study examines the relationship between strain experienced while incarcerated and the inmates' perception of the prison environment, as well as its impact on recidivism. The present study uses secondary data from the "Experimental Study of the Maryland Correctional Boot Camp for Adults." OLS indicates that there is a weak relationship between strain and perception of the prison environment; while a logistic regression reveals no relationship between strain and recidivism

Saving a Seat for a Sister: A Grounded Theory Approach Exploring the Journey of Women Reaching Top Policing Executive Positions

The world of women in law enforcement is a thought-provoking one that has received increasing attention both in academia as well as in practice over the past few decades. Even more intriguing, and despite advances in the profession, is the low number of women in executive leadership positions in law enforcement. There is a vast underrepresentation of women in top executive leadership positions across the 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States. The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of the complex journey of women to top executive policing leadership positions. Embracing a positive psychology approach, the study used grounded theory in combination with situational analysis to answer one overarching question: What have been the experiences of women leaders in policing as they have progressed in the profession to executive rank? This allowed for a comprehensive exploration of the micro, or individual level factors, alongside the meso or macro factors, encompassing larger group interactions, social structures, and institutions, that from the women’s perception had been critical in their leadership experiences. The study offers a theoretical model—A Web of Intersections—as a framework for understanding the complex journey of women, and the social processes and multiple intersections they have learned to navigate that can in combination, help them to advance to top executive policing leadership positions. The women in this study are agentic and not simply following the lead. They are active, deliberate, and intentional participants in their own journeys, making critical and strategic decisions that can gain entry to policy decision-making that can result in sustainable change. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA: Antioch University Repository and Archive, http://aura.antioch.edu/ and OhioLINK ETD Center, https://etd.ohiolink.edu

A Multi-Method Investigation of Officer Decision-Making and Force Used or Avoided in Arrest Situations

This study employs both quantitative and qualitative methodologies to analyze the data collected, including the use of improved, cross-classified, multilevel modeling techniques to better identify factors that contribute to the decisions by officers to use or not use force

LVMPD Gang Violence Reduction

To combat the increase in gang member involved violence, the LVMPD has developed a three-prong crime reduction strategy that includes the following components: 1) focused deterrence, 2) hotspots, and 3) place-based interventions. The first component – focused deterrence – includes the uses of offender notification meetings to direct intensive enforcement and deterrence messaging on identified gang members (see Braga and Weisburd, 2012). The second component – hotspots – involves the deployment of saturation patrols to specific locations identified as hotspots with persistent violence problems that generate a disproportionate amount of crime (see Braga, Papachristos, and Hureau, 2014). The third component – place-network investigations – targets the criminogenic place networks at crime hot spots using situational crime prevention to alleviate the conditions at these locations, which contribute to why they have stable levels of violence over extended periods of time (see Clarke, 1995). To evaluate the impact of these various components on incidents of violent crime, a mixed method approach will be used. The first component will be evaluated using a randomized controlled trial (RCT) design to determine the influence of offender notification meetings on levels of re-arrest of gang members, as well as the impact on overall violence. The second component will also be evaluated using a RCT design to assess reductions in violent crime in treatment hot spots (i.e., street segments). A quasi-experimental design and additional qualitative techniques will assess the effectiveness of the situational crime prevention strategies

Implementing and Evaluating Place Network Investigations (PNI) Violence Reduction Strategies in Six Jurisdictions

The purpose of this project is to implement and evaluate Place Network Investigations (PNI), a promising violence reduction strategy in six police jurisdictions (Baton Rouge, LA; Denver, CO; Harris County, TX; Las Vegas, NV; Tucson, AZ; and Philadelphia, PA). In addition to providing local technical assistance and training for participating agencies, this project is designed to build the evidence base for violence reduction strategies through process and outcome evaluations. We will specifically evaluate how these programs are implemented to develop tools to assist other agencies in implementing PNI strategies. This process evaluation will include an assessment of agency resources, help identify potential partnerships between the police agency and other city and county services, and guide the creation of a multiagency PNI Intervention Board to direct PNI resources and efforts. We will assess the impact of PNI on violent crime involving the use of a firearm (e.g., homicides, robberies, aggravated assaults) in target locations using an outcome evaluation

Understanding Domestic Violence Patterns: A Problem Analysis Conducted for the Tulsa, Oklahoma Police Department

This study documents a problem analysis based on a series of statistical analyses conducted on five-years of domestic violence data reported to the Tulsa, OK Police Department (2013-2017) and victimization data gathered by the Family Service Center in Tulsa

Examining Burglary and Robbery Case Clearance Rates for the Knoxville (TN) Police Department

This study documents a multi-faceted examination of incidents of residential burglary and individual robbery reported to the KPD from 2013 to 2017, including descriptive statistics and multivariate analyses. The goals of this research are four-fold: (1) describe trends in reported residential burglary/individual robbery incidents over time, (2) describe case characteristics in reported residential burglary/individual robbery incidents, (3) identify case-level characteristics of residential burglary/individual robbery incidents that predict case clearance rates, and (4) identify neighborhood-level characteristics that predict case clearance

NYPD Implicit Bias Training Evaluation

The IACP/UC Center partnered with the John F. Finn Institute for Public Safety to evaluate an implicit bias training for the New York City Police Department (NYPD). The goal of this research was to better understand how implicit bias training influences officer attitudes, knowledge, skills and enforcement disparities. This randomized experiment sought to determine the effectiveness of the training in raising officers’ awareness of and knowledge about unconscious bias, providing officers skills to manage their unconscious biases, and reducing the disparities in enforcement actions against different racial and ethnic groups. The Final Report for this study is posted and available for public download