Browsing by Subject "crime"

Now showing 1 - 10 of 11
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    Adolescent Health-Risk Behavior and Community Disorder
    (2013-11) Wiehe, Sarah E.; Kwan, Mei-Po; Wilson, Jeffrey S.; Fortenberry, J. Dennis
    Background Various forms of community disorder are associated with health outcomes but little is known about how dynamic context where an adolescent spends time relates to her health-related behaviors. Objective Assess whether exposure to contexts associated with crime (as a marker of community disorder) correlates with self-reported health-related behaviors among adolescent girls. Methods Girls (N = 52), aged 14–17, were recruited from a single geographic urban area and monitored for 1 week using a GPS-enabled cell phone. Adolescents completed an audio computer-assisted self-administered interview survey on substance use (cigarette, alcohol, or marijuana use) and sexual intercourse in the last 30 days. In addition to recorded home and school address, phones transmitted location data every 5 minutes (path points). Using ArcGIS, we defined community disorder as aggregated point-level Unified Crime Report data within a 200-meter Euclidian buffer from home, school and each path point. Using Stata, we analyzed how exposures to areas of higher crime prevalence differed among girls who reported each behavior or not. Results Participants lived and spent time in areas with variable crime prevalence within 200 meters of their home, school and path points. Significant differences in exposure occurred based on home location among girls who reported any substance use or not (p 0.04) and sexual intercourse or not (p 0.01). Differences in exposure by school and path points were only significant among girls reporting any substance use or not (p 0.03 and 0.02, respectively). Exposure also varied by school/non-school day as well as time of day. Conclusions Adolescent travel patterns are not random. Furthermore, the crime context where an adolescent spends time relates to her health-related behavior. These data may guide policy relating to crime control and inform time- and space-specific interventions to improve adolescent health.
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    At the Chariot House: a screenplay associated with Afraid of AIDS: AIDS Panic and Gay Discrimination through State of Indiana v. Herb Robbins
    (2024-07-31) Gackle, Dalton
    A screenplay centered around the State of Indiana v. Herb Robbins court case. The story includes representations of the murder of lawyer Donald Jackson by underaged sex worker Herb Robbins, the evidence collection by the police and journalists, and the trial.
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    Contextual Effects
    (American Cancer Society, 2020) Herzog, Patricia Snell; Lilly Family School of Philanthropy
    Social scientists since the original Chicago School researchers find that neighborhoods and other geographic areas exert effects on residents, both while they live in those areas and even long afterward. The context effects are net of the individuals composing them, meaning there are cumulative effects that cannot be explained by individual-level characteristics alone. Another way of describing this is to state that the sum is greater than its parts: neighborhoods and other geographic areas, such as counties, states, and nations, combine social resources in ways that can influence the kind of lives that people living in those areas have over time. Contextual effects have a long history in sociological studies, dating back at least to the early Chicago School, and affect several types of social outcomes, including economic, educational and developmental, health and psychological well-being, crime and delinquency, and community involvement. Future directions of contextual effects research will account for the objective and structural features of geographic areas, in conjunction with the subjective and perceptual aspects.
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    Crime, Politics, and Punishment: Criminological Research for Political Sociologists
    (2013-07) Stucky, Thomas D.
    As a sociologist studying the intersection of crime, punishment, and politics, it is often surprising to me how many aspects of political sociology and the study of crime and punishment overlap, and yet, there is often limited cross-fertilization of the two fields. For the sake of brevity in this discussion, I refer to those who study crime, deviance, law, criminal justice, and punishment as criminologists. My goal is to provide an extremely brief “primer” on criminology for political sociologists, in the hopes that a short reading of some issues and research in criminology may stimulate additional theorizing and research, as has so often happened when I have read political sociological work. To do this, I begin with a brief discussion of overlaps in political sociological and criminological perspectives. Following this, I highlight some examples of criminological research which incorporates politics, and would likely interest political sociologists, Then, I highlight a hot button issue in criminology – sex offenses – and suggest some ways that political sociologists could examine recent legislation on sex offenders and conclude with brief discussions of a few additional areas of overlap for the two disciplines.
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    The Effect of Foreclosures on Crime in Indianapolis, 2003-2008
    (2012-09) Stucky, Thomas D.; Ottensmann, John R.; Payton, Seth B.
    Objective Until recently, few studies have examined the relationship between home foreclosures and crime. Foreclosures are one major source of neighborhood instability and can be expected to affect crime from several theoretical perspectives. Some recent research has found conflicting results on whether foreclosures cause crime. Method This study examines whether foreclosures are a robust predictor of crime and whether the effect of foreclosures on crime varies across neighborhood contexts. We estimate fixed-effects negative binomial models using geocoded Indianapolis foreclosure and crime data for 2003–2008 to predict crime counts in 1,000 feet × 1,000 feet square grid cells. Result Foreclosures exhibit consistent positive effects on indices of overall, property, and violent UCR-reported (where UCR is Uniform Crime Report) offenses in a cell and rape, aggravated assault, and burglary counts. In addition, foreclosures had greater effects on reported UCR crimes in stable neighborhoods, especially those with more owner-occupied homes. Conclusion Foreclosures were a robust predictor of crime in the current study.
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    Evidentiary Issues and Digital Evidence
    (2016) Boyne, Shawn; Robert H. McKinley School of Law
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    Exploring the Conditional Effects of Bus Stops on Crime
    (2014-03) Stucky, Thomas D.; Smith, Sarah L.
    Public transportation is a major element of social life in most cities, and the most common mode of public transportation is busing. This study examines whether bus stops are a robust predictor of crime, net of other factors, and whether the effect of bus stops on crime is conditioned by socioeconomic and land use factors. We use geocoded Indianapolis crime and bus stop data for 2010 to predict crime counts in 500-feet × 500-feet square grid cells, using negative binomial models. Net of other factors, bus stops are associated with variation in counts of Uniform Crime Reports reported rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and larceny in a cell. In addition, the effect of bus stops on crime was conditioned by land use characteristics. In particular, the effect of bus stops on crime was greater in commercial and industrial areas, but dampened in areas with high-density residential housing.
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    Intra and Inter-Neighborhood Income Inequality and Crime
    (2015-01) Stucky, Thomas D.; Payton, Seth B.; Ottensmann, John R.
    One important factor in many macro-level theories of crime is income inequality. Although research generally shows that low levels of neighborhood income are associated with crime, research studies have been less clear on whether income inequality is a robust, independent predictor of crime, particularly in small area studies, and few studies have explicitly considered income inequality between neighborhoods, and those that do typically focus on homicide. The current study examines whether within and between neighborhood income inequality is associated with variation in violent and property crime. We employ geocoded Uniform Crime Report data from the Indianapolis police department and economic and demographic characteristics of the population from the American Community Survey for 2005–2009. Consistent with prior research, lower levels of income were associated with higher violent and property crime counts. Within-tract income inequality was also associated with higher Uniform Crime Reports violent and property crimes in most models. Results also showed that the ratio of tract income levels to neighboring tracts is associated with variation in crime. Thus, both local and nearby income inequality affect crime. Implications for theory and policy are discussed.
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    Land Use and Crime
    (Oxford, 2017) Stucky, Thomas D.
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    Marc Allan oral history to go with Afraid of AIDS: AIDS Panic and Gay Discrimination through State of Indiana v. Herb Robbins
    (2018-10-24) Gackle, Dalton; Allan, Marc
    An oral history with journalist Marc Allan, mostly about his recollection of the murder and court case for State of Indiana v. Herb Robbins. Underaged sex worker Herb Robbins murdered lawyer Donald Jackson and his defense in court was a fear of catching HIV/AIDS.