A STUDY COMPARING THE EYEWITNESS ACCURACY OF POLICE OFFICERS AND CITIZENS
Year of Dissertation:
2010
Police officers are not only responsible for administering lineups and interviews where citizens' eyewitness memories are tested, they are also called upon to make arrests, write reports, prepare warrants and testify in court based on their own memories. Do police make better eyewitnesses than citizens? This study hopes to partially answer that question while contributing to the body of eyewitness research on weapon focus effect (WFE) and the new area of inquiry on trying to understand witness accuracy for multiple perpetrator crimes. This study investigates the effects of WFE and the presence of multiple perpetrators on eyewitness memory in two separate experiments. Two groups, police officers and citizens, were tested and compared in each experiment. One of the reasons that have been theorized to explain the presence of WFE is that weapons might hold a certain amount of contextual relevance or novelty that draws the attention of the observer when the weapon is present in a scene. Since police officers are commonly exposed to weapons and receive training on de-escalation of multi-person conflicts, the current study attempted to determine whether citizens and police would perform in similar or dissimilar ways to situations which might inhibit the observation and encoding of crime scene elements into memory. Two experiments were conducted to measure the arousal level of participants and assess the accuracy of police and citizen identification decisions in situations that potentially divert attention from the perpetrator in a simulated crime. Experiment 1 examined the effects of the presence of a weapon and the "weapon focus effect." The results showed that police officers tested lower on certain factors associated with stress and arousal than citizens but both police and citizens made more errors when a weapon was inferred or present. This is the first time that the inferred weapon condition has been experimentally explored. In addition, police made fewer filler identifications when the lineup target was present than when absent. Experiment 2 tested whether the presence of two culprits instead of one culprit affected identification rates. Both police and citizens experienced an increase in two factors that are associated with stress and arousal. Additionally, both police and citizens' identification accuracy was lower in the presence of two culprits; no accuracy differences were found between the police and citizen group. The results will add to the body of literature in eyewitness identification and contribute to the understanding of how stress or anxiety may or may not affect identification accuracy. In addition, it is hoped that elements of the study will be useable in police training contexts to help understand and improve the way that eyewitness evidence is processed and used by law enforcement agencies.
Social Disorganization and the Public Level of Crime Control: A Spatial Analysis of Ecological Predictors of Homicide Rates in Bogota, Colombia
Year of Dissertation:
2012
Research in the social disorganization tradition has found community disadvantage to be one of the strongest and most consistent macro-level predictors of homicides in urban areas in the United States (Pratt & Cullen 2005). This dissertation empirically tests the applicability of ecological theories of crime to the spatial distribution of homicides in Bogota, Colombia, while proposing alternative measures of social disorganization that are analogous to those used in the American literature but that are more reflective of both social realities and data availability in Colombia. The study used data from several sources including official homicide figures from the National Institute of Forensic Medicine, socio-demographic characteristics from the 2005 census, location of police stations from the Metropolitan Police of Bogota, and presence of criminal groups and illegal markets from interviews with police precinct commanders. The research employed Principal Components Factor Analysis (PCFA) to create ecological constructs, and Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA) and Spatial Regression Analysis (SRA) to examine patterns of spatial dependence in the outcome and predictor variables. Results provide partial support for social disorganization theory to the extent that concentrated disadvantage, social isolation, and residential mobility positively predict homicide rates above and beyond the effect of the presence of criminal groups and other controls. Only one proxy measure of the public level of control (presence of police) was significant, but its effect was in the opposite direction to what was hypothesized. However, this effect disappeared in the final model once the temporal lag of homicide rates was introduced. The study makes several contributions to the literature including testing the external and construct validity of social disorganization and systemic model of control measures, proposing a mixed-methods approach to get a more nuanced understanding of the spatial distribution of homicide rates, and suggesting policy implications to reduce the effects of disadvantage as potentially effective strategies in preventing violent crime at the neighborhood level. In sum, the study provides some evidence in favor of the usefulness of social disorganization theories to understand violent crime in Latin American cities. Replications in the region will be needed to assess the generalizability of these findings.
Call of Duty: A question of Police Integrity
Year of Dissertation:
2011
Policing is a profession linked to ideals of integrity and honor. In spite of this, the profession has not been immune to corruption within its ranks. Most research in policing has concentrated on police corruption rather than police integrity. Research studies have examined the issue of corruption but they have encountered a multitude of measurement issues, making the direct study of corruption difficult.
The Gatekeeping Behind Meritocracy: Voices of NYC High School Students
Year of Dissertation:
2009
Survey and focus group sampling of students in high achieving schools compared to lower achieving schools were used to examine why there are fewer black men graduating from high schools in New York City as well as high schools around the country compared to other groups of students. Race is disaggregated in order to look at the difference in achievement rates for African American, black Hispanic, African, and Afro-Caribbean men. The findings support the contention that foreign-born blacks do better academically than native blacks.
POLICE DISCRETION: AN ANALYSIS OF NON-DOMESTIC ASSAULT CALLS FOR SERVICE
Year of Dissertation:
2009
This study is based on an analysis of dispositions of non-domestic low-level assault and fight calls for service in three large municipal police departments (Boston, St. Paul and Nassau County, N.Y.). Accessing data from each of the departments' computer-aided dispatch (CAD) systems it compares the dispositions of these calls for service (CFS) by agency. Dispositions were classified for the purpose of indicating whether calls were closed with "no further action" or "further action" (arrest or report). Utilizing census tract data it also provides agency comparisons based on race and income.
Factors of Pretrial Release Conditions within a Misdemeanor and Felony Court: An Analysis of Six Models
Year of Dissertation:
2009
The purpose of this study was to identify the predictors of pretrial release (defined as release on recognizance and bail), custodial status and failure to appear among felony and misdemeanor defendants within a California Superior Court. Analyses were derived from a sample of defendants (N=1076) who were considered for release through the Court's pretrial service agency. The findings supported the earlier literature in that defendants who had a failure to appear history, probation history (felony court only) or were charged with a current violent crime were significantly less likely to be released on recognizance. Female defendants were more likely to be granted recognizance release in the felony and misdemeanor courts than male defendants. The study also found that race was a significant indicator of pretrial release status. Hispanic defendants were significantly more likely to be released on own recognizance than other defendants in the misdemeanor court, whereas Black defendants were more likely to return for court appearances after they were released.
Antistalking legislation, recidivism and the mentally disordered stalker
Year of Dissertation:
2011
In December of 1999, New York became the last of the fifty States to formally approve anti-stalking legislation, with the goal of facilitating early intervention in potentially dangerous situations. Prior to the passage of the Clinic Access and Anti-stalking Law of 1999, local law enforcement was only able to prosecute stalking behavior through the use of legal prohibitions against other pursuit behaviors such as harassment and menacing. This study examines the effect of the Clinic Access and Anti-Stalking Law on stalking recidivism, using a population of 217 mentally disordered individuals arrested for stalking (n = 68) or other pursuit behaviors (n = 149) in the five years immediately following the passage of the legislation, and referred for evaluation to the Bellevue Hospital Center Forensic Psychiatry Clinic. Additional data was obtained from the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services. Logistic regression analysis was unable to demonstrate that individuals charged with stalking were less likely to repeat stalking behavior than individuals charged with other pursuit behaviors. The study further attempted to explore stalking recidivism as a function of the prior relationship between the stalker and the victim, the level of violence in the stalking episode, and the stalker's diagnosed mental disorder. However, what appeared to be more important to the prevention of future recidivism was the sentence imposed on the stalker subsequent to arrest and conviction.
Reentry: African American Men's And Women's Experiences of Intimate Partner Violence
Year of Dissertation:
2012
Numerous studies have examined the challenges of formerly incarcerated African Americans during reentry. A major challenge that many encounter is negotiating social relationships, especially with intimate partners following periods of incarceration. For many African American men and women during reentry, intimate partner violence becomes a problem. The majority of men and women released from prison remain under correctional supervision after returning to society and perpetrating intimate partner violence is a violation of conditions of probation and parole supervision. Consequently, the inability of African American men and women to adjust and reintegrate successfully can increase their likelihood of recidivating and returning to prison. Yet, there is little scholarship in this area, particularly concerning the specific causes, effects, and implications of intimate partner violence in the lives of black men and women returning to their communities from prison. This research addresses this gap in knowledge.
Risky Businesses: A Micro-Level Spatiotemporal Analysis of Crime, Place, & Business Establishment Type
Author:
Christopher Herrmann
Year of Dissertation:
2012
Risky Businesses: A Micro-Level Spatiotemporal Analysis of Crime, Place, & Business Establishment Type by Christopher R. Herrmann
Judicial instructions and the juror's ability to disregard inadmissible evidence: Can varying the timing and content of judicial instructions influence juror decision-making?
Year of Dissertation:
2011
During the course of a trial, a judge will instruct the jury on how they are to act and reach decisions. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of different judicial instructions on a juror's ability to evaluate testimony. The research looked at how instructions can interact with a juror's ability to disregard a piece of evidence ruled inadmissible for different reasons. The design was a 3x5 complete factorial design. The stimulus material was a murder trial summary with weak evidence against the defendant, with the key piece of testimony being a hair found on the victim that matches the defendant. This evidence was objected to and admitted or not admitted into evidence depending on the condition. The hypotheses test how a juror's decision-making process is influenced by a combination of judicial instructions, including one designed to raise suspicion, the ruling - admitted or not admitted, and the reason behind the ruling.