Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11875/18
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Browsing Electronic Theses and Dissertations by Department "Criminal Justice and Criminology"
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Item A Grounded Theory Analysis of Cases Pursued by the Securities and Exchange Commission(2021-07-19) Caines, Matthew; Gerber, JurgIn the midst of the Great Depression in the 1930s, the government took considerable actions in an attempt to control the questionable and troubling practices of business to help prevent a similar crisis from ever burdening the nation again. What it created was the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), which today continues to bear primary responsibility for the administration of securities laws and enforcement actions against violators. Moreover, the SEC has increasingly gained enforcement capacities over its lifespan. Today, it can not only impose professional bars on violators, but also force them to forfeit any ill-gotten gains and even pay monetary fines through civil and administrative proceedings. While not conventionally thought of as criminal, these white-collar offenses can have a tremendous and harmful impact on their victims and the larger market. This research used a grounded theory approach to explore themes across the way the SEC handles the violators it detects and pursues in these proceedings, while also examining a small number of cases that were dealt with in the criminal courts. Publicly available litigation releases available through the agency’s website were used. Overall, the SEC was observed to operate in a generally predictable and equitable manner in which most of those who are charged are ultimately sanctioned in some way. Particularly interesting interactions were observed between entities and sanctioning outcomes. A secondary objective was to compare the handling of cases by the SEC under the administrations of two presidents from different parties, George W. Bush, a Republican, and Barrack Obama, a Democrat. The two periods exhibited a good deal of similarity, but also unexpectedly showed that more severe monetary penalties were imposed during the Bush administration. The thesis concludes with a discussion of limitations and policy implications.Item A Legal Analysis of Health Care for Incarcerated Women in the United States(2020-12-01) Lamberton, Chelsi; Vaughn, Michael SWhile decarceration has become fashionable, American penology remains in the throes of a penal harm movement, which posits that offenders should receive harsh punishment to deter them and others from future offending. Penal harm aims to enhance offenders’ punishment during their incarceration by making conditions in jails and prisons as painful and difficult as possible. Penal harm practices include, limiting inmates’ access to basic comforts such as coffee and tasty food, enhancing humiliations through chain gangs and wearing pink uniforms, and not supplying adequate health care. Given that the majority of incarcerated persons will eventually return to society, correctional health care plays an important role in public and community health. Inmates are the only population in the United States who are guaranteed a right to health care, which is important considering their health is poorer than the general population because they often do not have resources to receive medical treatment in the free-world. Research suggests, however, that the penal harm perspective influences correctional health care practices, lowering the quality of care inmates receive while incarcerated. As the population of incarcerated women rises in the United States, researchers are focusing on how correctional facilities meet their gendered needs and challenges. Female inmates have poorer overall health compared to male inmates and unique health problems, such as the need for reproductive health services, pregnancy-related needs, and menstrual hygiene concerns. Furthermore, incarcerated women have historically received lower quality health care and limited resources compared to their male counterparts, which limits their ability to seek treatment and to petition for legal remedies when that treatment is inadequate. The purpose of this thesis is to provide a legal discussion on the availability and quality of health services for women incarcerated in the United States to determine how penal harm influences the care they receive. This thesis uses a qualitative, inductive, doctrinal methodology to analyze United States Court of Appeals and United States District Court lawsuits brought by female offenders pursuant to Title 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, claiming violations of their Eighth Amendment rights to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.Item A longitudinal examination of the influence of sex and race on sentencing outcomes in Florida’s rural and urban counties(2019-11-06) Alvarado, Micaela M.; Toman, Elisa L.Understanding the multifaceted factors considered during sentencing is a complex process. An emerging body of literature evaluates whether the level of urbanization has impacts on sentencing outcomes across the United States. Separately, scholars studying the dynamics of sentencing have focused on the consequences of an offender’s race and sex. Studies find that Black and Latinx offenders, especially young males, are more likely to receive harsher sentences compared to their white counterparts. However, relatively little is known regarding whether identified sentencing disparities based on race and sex emerge across types of counties (i.e., rural vs. urban) and whether such patterns have changed over time. Understanding the multifaceted factors that influence sentencing are important for at least three reasons. First, this type of research helps to inform recent sentencing reforms aimed at targeting inequalities within the criminal processing system. Second, prominent criminological theories suggest county-by-county variation in sentencing disparities by demographic characteristics, yet research is only beginning to examine this possibility. Third, examining longitudinal trends in sentencing constitutes a vital step in better understanding the factors that influence judicial decision making. This thesis builds on prior research by asking two specific research questions (1) do individuals from urban counties receive harsher sentences than individuals from rural counties? and (2) does an offender’s race, sex, and county of residence influence sentencing severity? Trends over time will be examined as well. Toward this goal, this thesis will utilize data from the state of Florida that contain all felony conviction sentencing events that occurred between 1994 and 2011 (N = 1,945,816). These data contain information on individual demographic characteristics, prior criminal history, and detailed information regarding the current offense. Also included in the data are the counties in which the sentencing occurred. Logistic regression will be utilized to answer these research questions. Findings from this study will have implications for theory, research, and policy.Item A MULTI-GROUP CONFIRMATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS OF THE REACTIVE- PROACTIVE AGGRESSION QUESTIONNAIRE IN A SAMPLE OF YOUNG ADULTS(2016-11-17) Cooke, Eric Meyers; Armstrong, Todd; Boisvert, Danielle; Zhang, YanAggression has long-term negative effects on humanity as a whole. Because of this, aggression has become an important topic of study across many disciplines. Originally conceptualized as being either non-impulsive or impulsive, aggression has become dichotomized as being reactive or proactive. Each form of aggression has been linked to a variety of genetic, psychological, physiological, and neurobiological correlates. Because research continues to grow in these fields surrounding proactive and reactive aggression, it is important to make sure that measurement tools are assessing aggression appropriately across a variety of groups. One such tool that has emerged recently is the Reactive-Proactive Aggression Questionnaire (RPQ; Raine et al., 2006). Though a number of studies exist testing the validity of the RPQ in adolescent and child populations. No such studies exist examining the factor structure and measurement invariance of proactive and reactive aggression in young adult male and females from different ethnicities. The current study assesses factor structure and measurement invariance in multiple groups of young North American adults. Results show that a two- factor, proactive-reactive, structure fits the current data overall. However, measurement invariance is not achieved across the majority of these groups. Meaning that interpretation of reactive and proactive scores is not the same across gender and ethnicity. Limitations and future directions are discussed.Item A Systematic Review of Evaluations of Law Enforcement Training Relating to Developmental and Intellectual Disabilities(2021-10-07) Nguyen, Jacqueline P; Oliver, Willard MThere are millions of people in the United States living with a disability. Law enforcement officers, due to the unique responsibilities of their profession, are more likely to come into contact with people who have disabilities. An officer’s knowledge of how to effectively interact and communicate with people with disabilities is crucial to providing service. Training is used to provide officers with these skills. In order to determine if training is addressing the specific needs of intellectually and developmentally disabled people, evaluations must be conducted. This thesis provides a systematic review of academic evaluations of police training focused on intellectually and developmentally disabled individuals. After screening eighteen databases and assessing fifteen articles against preset eligibility criterion only nine articles were included in the final analysis. These nine articles evaluated trainings focused on a variety of intellectual and developmental disabilities. All but one study reported statistically significant findings in areas such as attitude, knowledge, and identification. Despite the promising findings, many of the studies had methodological limitations including small sample sizes, lack of psychometric properties, and testing only short-term outcomes. Overall, academic research evaluating police training focused on intellectually and developmentally disabled individuals is scarce and there are improvements which need to be made in order to determine best practices.Item Age-Graded Thrill Seeking, Companionship, and Informal Social Control among the Clients of Street Prostitutes(2016-11-16) Smith, MaryThe majority of empirical attention concerning the sex trade has focused on sex workers and explaining victimization among prostituted women. While this victim centered approach has led to the development and adoption of various treatment initiatives for prostituted women (e.g. prostitution courts), there is limited understanding of the other party involved in the crime: men who purchase sex. In particular, little is known about the relationship between age, salient life events, and buyers’ motivations for seeking out women prostituted via the outdoor sex market. This is particularly interesting given that past research has shown that sex buyers do not follow the standard age-crime curve of offending; rather, purchasing sex often occurs intermittently throughout the life course and is shaped by the key determinants of informal social control. Using data from a multi-city survey of men who purchase sex, this dissertation begins to fill this gap in the literature by examining how age and life experiences influence sex buyers’ motivations and preferences throughout the life-course. The implications of these findings for future research and policy are also discussed.Item An Analysis of State Hate Crime Legislation: Do Legislative History Documents Hold the Key to Hate Crime Law Reform?(2021-11-22) Bills, Matthew Allan; Orrick, Erin AHate crime legislation in the United States is a relatively recent phenomenon, with California passing the first hate crime law in the country in 1978. Since, nearly every state has adopted some form of hate crime legislation. Many have amended those laws in subsequent years. Prior scholarship has investigated how state hate crime laws were adopted in the U.S., examining the potential influence of Internal Determinants (state-specific characteristics/focus) and Regional Diffusion (actions/attributes of other states). These studies found that the hate crime law adoption process is a complex blend of these two types of factors. Prior work, though, has not examined legislative history documents to determine their potential usefulness for adding to our understanding of states’ hate crime law adoption processes. This dissertation provides a content analysis of legislative history documents accompanying hate crime laws in nine states and Washington, DC. Focus is placed solely on laws that establish protected classes and penalty enhancements, as they form the foundation for all other hate crime statutes a state has. Analyses determine the presence of Internal Determinants and Regional Diffusion in states’ legislative history documents. Most legislative history documents are solely bill drafts and records of legislative actions taking place. Other portions of these documents, though, shed light on the role Internal Determinants and Regional Diffusion play in most of the selected states’ hate crime law adoption processes. A general approach emerged for the states in the sample. Much can continue to be learned from legislative history documents accompanying states’ hate crime laws. Advocacy efforts and states themselves should focus their attention on how other states adopted their hate crime laws when looking to expand their own legislation.Item An Examination of Perceptual Challenges Faced by Female Police Officers(2016-07-26) Brinser, Kadee Lynn; Hoover, Larry T; Zhang, Yan; Gerber, JurgThis study examined the culture of female police officers by evaluating perceptual challenges associated with their role. The purpose of this study was to provide a better understanding of the dynamics of female police officers in a traditional male-dominated occupation. Primary data analyses was obtained through telephone questionnaires (n=15) conducted between March and April 2016 and online surveys (n=110) completed between November 2015 and January 2016 with a sample of female police officers who are employed in the state of Texas. Findings show that current organizational challenges are physical limitations, family, policing is a “man’s job”, approval from male police officers, society, intra-gender relationships, promotion process, and administration. Personal challenges, such as family life, are also current challenges for female police officers. The results establish that gender inequality not only exists in policing, but challenges have remained relatively stable overtime. However, sexual harassment and tokenism is not as prevalent as found to be in previous literature.Item An Examination of Scales to Understand Correctional Officer Experiences(2018-11-14) Carpenter, Channing R.; Butler, H. DanielThe experiences of correctional officers have historically been overshadowed by inmates’ experiences while incarcerated. However, there has been an increase in research examining the experiences of correctional officers. A systematic review of 71 studies examining correctional officer experiences revealed that job stress, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment are the most common experiences. To date, few studies have investigated the differences across measures used to predict various correctional officer experiences. In this exploratory study, I examined whether the most frequently used scales and items measuring correctional officer job stress, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment are related to the outcomes of interest (e.g., adverse work experiences, commitment and retention, punitive orientation). The scales examined in this study have been deemed valid and reliable, nevertheless former research has not examined whether certain scales are related to certain effects. Despite considerable changes in the prison environment over time, questions remain whether scales developed in the 1980s and 1990s are associated with the outcomes of interest. This review established that the most commonly used scales include Cullen and colleagues’ (1983) job stress scale, Brayfield & Rothe’s (1951) job satisfaction scale, and Mowday and colleagues’ (1982) organizational commitment scale to measure the predictors of interest as these experiences relate to the outcomes of interest. Limitations, policy implications, and future research will be discussed.Item An Inquiry into the Impact of Immigrant Generation on Offending and Victimization Trajectories(2022-05-01T05:00:00.000Z) Guerra, Chris; Orrick, Erin A; Connolly, Eric J; Ramos, JavierAs scholarship continues to explore immigrant involvement in crime, immigrant-focused, criminological inquiries at the individual-level have only begun to gather traction. While the bulk of available evidence suggests earlier immigrant generations fare better on antisocial outcomes, deliberate study into immigrant generational status and its association with both criminal offending and victimization are few and far between. Using a mixture of open and restricted traditional and monthly calendar data from the Pathways to Desistance study, this study examines how immigrant generations—five in total ranging from first-generation to 3.5-generation—impact criminal offending and violent victimization trajectories from adolescence to early adulthood. Moreover, the current study examines and controls for time-invariant and time-variant factors relevant to assimilationist theories, developmental and life-course perspectives, and the victim-offender overlap. The results suggest immigrant generation had little impact on aggressive criminal offending and offending and victimization trajectories examined jointly; however, early immigrant generations were more likely to predict membership to some higher violent victimization trajectories. These findings may reflect how immigrant resiliencies against offending and victimization outcomes engage with the criminal justice experiences of the sample to further disadvantage individuals closer to the immigrant designation.Item Assessing Risk in Women who have Sexually Offended: The Role of Psychopathy(2022-05-01T05:00:00.000Z) Le, Nhi N. H.; Miller, Holly A; Narvey, Chelsey S; Toman, Elisa L; Marshall, Ethan A.The aim of this thesis was to examine whether current risk assessment tools predicted recidivism in a group of women who sexually offended. To date, psychopathy is one of the best predictors for aggression and antisocial behavior. Past research has examined the utility of The Psychopathy Checklist – Revised (PCL-R) in justice-involved men, including men who sexually offended, and has exhibited solid support. However, results for justice-involved women were mixed. This study aims to fill the gap in research by examining the utility of the PCL-R in a sample of 242 women incarcerated, and subsequently released, in Texas for an index sexual offense. Logistic regressions were used to examine whether PCL-R scores could predict overall recidivism, general recidivism, or violent recidivism. Results indicated the PCL-R was a significant predictor for overall and general recidivism, but not violent. Additionally, age and total prior arrests were considered significant control variables when predicting recidivism. Only one woman in the sample sexually recidivated. The findings provide modest support for the utility of the PCL-R in the risk assessment of females who have sexually offended. Because there are no validated risk assessments for females who have sexually offended, current results will help guide assessment of this group of offenders.Item Attitudes toward Substance Use Disorder among Incarcerated Individuals: A Thematic Analysis(2023-08-01T05:00:00.000Z) Ogonnaya, Shalom Nkwachi; Rudes, Danielle S; Vaughn, Michael S; Craig, Miltonette OSubstance use disorder (SUD) remains an epidemic especially among the prison population. Evidence has established that attitudes toward SUD remain influential in the success or otherwise of treating SUD both in the official apparatus of the criminal justice system and in community settings. Negative attitudes toward SUD may adversely affect individuals’ willingness to seek and remain in treatment programs. However, limited research examines attitudes of incarcerated individuals involved in substance use within U.S prisons. This is concerning given that the prison population features a disproportionate number of individuals with SUD as compared with the general population. To fill this knowledge gap, this thesis used interview data collected from individuals incarcerated in maximum security prisons in New York (n=87) and one jail in Texas (n=24). In all, 200 participants (N=111) were included in the study. Analysis of interview data using a thematic approach revealed that attitudes toward SUD among incarcerated individuals are categorized into three major themes namely: avoidance, empathy, and acceptance. Findings from the study implicate the need for greater awareness and sensitization about SUD in carceral spaces, expansion of treatment programs and services of SUD treatment, systematic sorting of carceral residents and creation of peer support group among incarcerated persons.Item Attitudinal Differences between Female and Male Police Cadets/Officers in Taiwan: The Nexus between Gender, Immigration, and Crime(2020-06-29) Nielson, Kyler; Gerber, JurgImmigration is an increasingly salient issue throughout the world as the number of foreign residents continues to rise in many countries. In Taiwan, the foreign population has consistently increased in recent years. Immigrants in Taiwan are marginalized and are often subject to negative stereotypes from the media and public. As members of the public, police cadets/officers may be affected by such sentiments, but they should also maintain a neutral perspective and ensure equal treatment in various criminal justice processes. In particular, attitudes may differ based on cadet/officer gender. Males and females may have unique experiences in policing and inherent attitudinal differences. Overall, cadet/officer attitudes toward immigrants and immigration were positive, however, differences were observed between certain sociodemographic groups. In particular, generational and gender differences are examined. Policy implications, generally, and for Taiwan, in particular, are discussed.Item Beyond the Device: Examining Body Worn Camera Programs and Policies in Texas(2022-05-01T05:00:00.000Z) Rockwell, Alexis Rain; Ingram, Jason R; Wells, William M; Oliver, Willard MThe purpose of this paper is twofold. The first purpose is to examine the quantitative aspects of police department body-worn camera utilization as of November 2020. The second part is to conduct a policy content analysis of body-worn camera policies from police departments in the state of Texas. The current dissertation utilized both survey data from 740 police departments on their adoption and utilization of bodyworn cameras across the state of Texas, and 218 body-worn camera policies from a sample of those 740 agencies. The dissertation used a mixed-methods approach to better capture a complete picture of the current state of body-worn camera programs in Texas. The results for the descriptive analyses from the quantitative portion show most police agencies who responded (85%) employ body-worn cameras to their officers. Of those agencies, 95% employ cameras to over 75% of their officers. The results for the remaining quantitative analyses point towards the need for additional policy analyses. The qualitative analyses showed BWC policy contents and their specific wordings and how they varied between multiple agency types and sizes. The conclusions and implications showed the importance of increased standardization of body-worn camera policies, of specific wording within policies and how they depict discretionary points, and of the examination of multiple agency types and sizes within police policy analyses.Item Bystander Intervention and Same-Sex Intimate Partner Violence: College Students' Decisions To Intervene(2017-06-29) Jin, Hae Rim; Franklin, CortneyThe bystander intervention approach has gained popularity on American university campuses with its promising effects of engaging college students in identifying and safely intervening in risky situations, such as intimate partner violence (IPV). Despite advances in the bystander intervention literature, there is a dearth of research examining intervention behaviors in same-sex IPV scenarios. Indeed, victimization experiences among sexual minorities have been historically overlooked in criminal justice and victim service organizations. The present study addresses this shortcoming in the bystander literature by using survey questionnaire responses from a convenience sample of 570 undergraduate students enrolled at a mid-sized public university in the southern United States. The current study examined the role of ambivalent sexism, IPV myth adherence, prior IPV victimization, homophobia, personality extroversion, and bystander efficacy on student intentions to directly and indirectly intervene in an IPV scenario, in which the sexual orientations of the victim and perpetrator are manipulated, while controlling for IPV vignette conditions.Item Centering the Silenced: Examining Post-Sexual Assault Help-Seeking Experiences and the Forensic Medical Response to Black Women(2022-05-01T05:00:00.000Z) Kelley, Shamika M.; Toman, Elisa L; Gonzalez, Cassandra M; Clevenger, Shelly L; Breaux, Mary MSexual assault victimization has been shown to have lasting mental and physical effects. Yet, many victims do not report to police or seek help for these crimes. Existing research has identified various reasons for victims’ not seeking help. Much of this research, however, combines all women’s experiences, which often centers whiteness and leaves Black women at the margins. Few studies have examined Black women’s victimization and help-seeking pathways. Further, much of the existing Black woman centered research uses retrospective interview data to provide valuable insights. This project extends existing bodies of knowledge by centering Black women, situating their experiences within a Black feminist framework, and evaluating their experiences in “real-time.” This study also expands narrative victimology by using victims’ narratives from sexual assault exam reports to evaluate Black women as they seek help to understand their experiences and highlight forensic medical responses. Importantly, this study combines a Black feminist perspective with narrative victimology to propose critical narrative victimology, which extends these works by contextualizing Black women’s victimization narratives and help-seeking experiences. Findings suggest that as Black women seek medical help, they consider culture-specific and real rape factors during the police reporting decision. In addition to forensic medical examinations, forensic nurse examiners identified risks for infection, ineffective coping, and safety among the women. Follow-up responses to Black women from forensic nurses often included providing the women with information and resources and connecting them with advocacy help. This dissertation work also proposes a typology of Black women’s sexual victimization and help-seeking purposes. Key findings, implications, and policy recommendations are discussed.Item Change begins with a crisis: Desistance among drug-involved offenders(2019-06-21) Angulski, Kate; Gerber, JurgIn order to best explain criminality, researchers need to be able to explain the full criminal career. This entails explaining onset, duration and patterning, and termination. The latter, termination, is the study of the process of desistance, which has received less attention than other aspects of the criminal career. However, because most individuals start on the side of conformity, and will eventually return, the study of desistance is much-warranted. The purpose of this study was to examine desistance among a specific sub-set of the offending population, drug-involved offenders. Drug-involved offenders have a high likelihood of developing long criminal careers and the prevalence of drugs and alcohol in the criminal justice system is one of the most pressing criminal justice issues. The goal of this study was to identify the internal, external and drug-related variables that were associated with desistance. As part of the Texas Study of Trajectories, Associations, and Reentry, or the LoneStar Project, data were collected from 802 male offenders. Independent variables were gathered before release and 9 months after release (wave 3) in order to examine if predictors of desistance appear before release or after offenders spend a significant time in the community. Results from survival analyses indicated that the best predictors of desistance were the static factors of age and criminal history, although marriage, peers, and drug-related variables did play a role, albeit less consistent one. A discussion of the results, policy implications, and limitations are presented.Item CHIEF CONCERNS: IDENTIFYING THE PERSONAL AND WORK-RELATED FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH JOB SATISFACTION, BURNOUT, AND TURNOVER INTENTIONS AMONG POLICE CHIEFS(2017-04-18) Brady, Patrick Quinn; King, William R.; Wells, William M.; Hoover, LarryThe President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing has identified officer safety and wellness as a key pillar to improving police practices. Yet in order to improve the health and wellness of officers, the issue needs to be relevant to key decision-makers: police chiefs. Existing literature on stress and policing, however, has focused primarily on frontline officers and midlevel managers. As a result, less is known about the factors shaping the well-being of police chiefs. This is problematic considering the demanding duties and responsibilities of police chiefs. Additionally, the wellbeing of police chiefs can have a substantial influence over the attitudes and behaviors of their subordinates. The purpose of this study was two-fold. The first goal was to establish baseline estimates of job satisfaction, burnout, and turnover intention among police chiefs. The second goal of the study was to identify and isolate the key personal, operational, and organizational characteristics associated with job satisfaction, burnout – both exhaustion and disengagement, and turnover intentions to explore the personal, operational, and organizational characteristics associated with job satisfaction, burnout, and turnover intentions among police chiefs. Data were collected from 315 Texas police chiefs from varying types and sizes of police departments. Findings indicated that chiefs were, on average, relatively satisfied with their jobs and reported low to moderate levels of exhaustion, disengagement, and intentions to leave their department. Additionally, operational and organizational factors, such as work-family conflict and organizational commitment, accounted for more of the variance in job satisfaction, burnout, and turnover than personal characteristics of police chiefs. Findings, policy implications, and avenues of future research are discussed.Item Community Type in Context: Expectations of Guardianship and Victimization Experiences on a College Campus(2021-07-21) Bostrom, Sarah R.; Randa, RyanThe principles of guardianship can be traced through the communities and crime literature. While guardianship originates from the opportunities’ perspective and specifically from Routine Activities, it can be viewed as informal social controls at the community level. This study examines the impact of community type on expectations for guardianship. It also investigates the potential impact of these guardianship expectations on victimization on a college campus. This study uses original survey data. The sampling method consisted of two stages. In the first stage, courses were randomly selected for inclusion in the sample. In the second stage, the survey was made available to students in the learning management system course page with the consent of the instructor. The students completed a separate consent form. Data was collected in two waves in March/April and June/July of 2020. The final sample was 766 undergraduate students from a midsized southern university. The student response rate was 53% for both waves of data collection. This is a strong response rate for an online survey with data collection occurring during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Community type does influence expected guardianship with respondents from extremely rural communities having significantly lower expectations of guardianship than respondents from large urban cities. Expected guardianship does not significantly impact the odds of on-campus victimization. Exposure does not mediate this relationship although respondents with higher expected guardianship have significantly reduced exposure. Finally, neither fear of crime on campus nor just world belief significantly moderated the relationship between expected guardianship and victimization.Item Cooperation, Arrest, and Filing Charges: An Examination of Victim, Police, and Prosecutor Decision Making in Adolescent Sexual Assault CasesMeeker, Katherine A; O'Neal, Eryn N.Sexual assault case processing has received increased attention from scholars, with promising implications for the criminal justice system. Despite the recent increase in attention, there remains a dearth of literature on adolescent sexual assault case processing. Indeed, few studies have examined adolescent assault case processing, with those limited studies resulting in inconsistent findings. The present thesis addresses this gap in sexual assault case processing literature by utilizing 289 adolescent sexual assault case files from Los Angeles County to assess the decision-making factors that influence adolescent victim cooperation, arrest, and initial charge filing. Theoretical, empirical, policy, and practice implications are discussed.