The Criminal Justice Research Center has awarded its 2017 Graduate Student Travel Grants. This competition is open to any OSU graduate student who has submitted an abstract and will present their work at the 2017 American Society of Criminology’s Annual Meeting, to be held on November 15 - 18, 2017 in Philadelphia, PA at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown.
In order to prepare for the conference, the below selected grant winners will be presenting their ASC conference papers at the annual CJRC Graduate Student Research Symposium to be held on November 9, 2017 from 11:30 am – 1:30 pm in Townshend Hall, Room 245 .
Presenters
Lesley Schneider (11:30 - 11:50 am) Title: “The Racial Punishment Paradox: Why More Blacks Go to Prison Even When Judges Sentence More Equally”
Abstract: A mainstay of criminal sentencing research is that black defendants are, on average, treated more harshly than whites. But to what extent has this pattern changed over time, and how might we explain such variation? Further, do changes in the black-white disparity in sentencing map onto the trends in aggregate prison populations? We draw on 33 years of sentencing records (1981-2013; N>350,000) for the state of Minnesota to answer these questions. Our findings point to a ‘racial punishment paradox’: While the racial disparity in state imprisonment rates increased since 1980, the racial disparity in prison sentences decreased. We further investigate whether this incongruity between macro-level and case-level racial disparity is attributable to changes in arrest rates, drug laws, and racial disparities in sentence lengths.
Laura DeMarco (11:50 – 12:10 pm) Title: “Variation and Change in Criminal Record Policies for Public Housing”
Abstract: There is a widespread misconception that having a criminal record excludes individuals from public housing. While a series of federal policies in the 1980s and 1990s encouraged the use of criminal background checks for applicants, local Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) have a great deal of discretion in their admissions and occupancy criteria. This project aims to explore the variation and change in admissions policies and administrative plans at the local level. In particular, I ask how local PHAs responded to federal guidelines during the rise of mass incarceration. Which places adopted the most restrictive policies considering criminal records in the admissions process? Which places held on to less restrictive policies? Were federal efforts under the Obama administration successful in encouraging local agencies to give those with a criminal record a second chance? I will present preliminary results from a randomly selected sample of PHAs across the United States to answer these questions.
Courtney DeRoche (12:10-12:30 pm) Title: “Predicting Punitiveness: Exposure to Violence and Victims’ Attitudes in Darfur”
Abstract: Transitional justice literature has predominantly concentrated on the effects of transitional justice mechanisms on victimized populations after the mechanisms have been implemented. Little is known, however, about victims’ attitudes before the implementation of such processes. As such, we ask: is greater exposure to violence associated with more punitive attitudes? To answer this question, we analyze survey data from 1,490 externally displaced Darfuri genocide victims living in refugee camps across eastern Chad. Specifically, we examine whether two measures of exposure to violence—personal and familial victimization—predict support of the death penalty for the five main actors in the genocide: government officials, army commanders, government soldiers, Janjaweed commanders, and Janjaweed soldiers. We find that high exposure to either form of violence is associated with higher odds of preferring the death penalty for government officials, army commanders, and Janjaweed commanders. Surprisingly, there is no relationship between exposure to violence and preference for the death penalty for government soldiers, who are the lower ranking “foot-soldiers” who have carried out the majority of the violence in villages across Darfur. Victims’ punitive attitudes thus differ by the perpetrator’s level of authority, and victims are more likely to have more punitive attitudes with regard to those seen as responsible for the violence. We close by emphasizing the importance of incorporating victim’s attitudes into post-conflict transitional justice decisions, as a consideration of victims’ attitudes may influence the effectiveness of reconciliation efforts.
Scott Duxbury (12:30 – 12:50 pm) Title: “Structural Determinants of Police Use of Deadly Force”
Abstract: Police killings are a social problem. While the legitimate use of force is a necessary feature of police safety and public well-being, the illegitimate use of force can oppress groups by enacting latent prejudices, deterring groups from reporting crimes, and cultivating police distrust. Since police disproportionately use deadly force on Black men, some scholars have argued that police killings are a form of social control in response to perceived racial threat. However, this research focuses primarily on structural determinants of police use of deadly force, leaving the ideological mechanisms which connect population changes to individual actions unexamined. Our project examines attitudinal and ideological correlates of internal state violence. Specifically, we examine the effects of racial threat, fear of crime, and punitive attitudes on police killings. Our data are cross-sectional time series data of counties and states in election years. We use negative binomial multilevel models with random slopes to the incidence rate of police killings and police killings against Blacks in a given county on a given year. Our primary research focus seeks to uncover whether fear of crime and punitive attitudes mediate the effect of racial threat on police killings of Blacks. Positive results will have implications for minority threat theory, which is often critiqued for providing little causal explanation for its empirical predictions, studies on race and policing, and cultural approaches to the sociology of punishment.
Laura Frizzell (12:50 – 1:10 pm) Title: “Sexuality and Crime: A Contextual Exploration”
Abstract: The recent integration and centering of sexuality in criminological research has elicited important findings regarding individuals’ sexual identities and their trajectory from offending through the criminal justice system. In particular, researchers have found that sexual minorities may have higher propensities toward criminal and delinquent activities as compared to same-gender heterosexual peers, especially for women. However, insufficient research has explored the mechanisms behind these disparate propensities. Under the framework of general strain theory, I investigate potential contextual factors that may increase daily strain for sexual minorities and consequently their propensity to commit crime, including rural residency (compared to urban or suburban) and Southern residency (as compared to other regions of the country). Additionally, for adolescents, I investigate whether the number and proportion of sexual minorities within their school predicts delinquency. I use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to predict the frequency of delinquent acts. I find that, while context matters in predicting this frequency, individual factors remain the strongest predictors of delinquency for heterosexual and sexual minority individuals alike.
Sade Lindsay (1:10 – 1:30 pm) Title: “Racial Framing, Moral Crusades, and Drug Epidemics”
Abstract: Researchers focusing on media and political discourse during drug epidemics afflicting racial minorities find that politicians create moral crusades to impose social control upon these communities. Given the historical significance of race in the U.S., these studies are important in exhibiting how racially charged moral crusades largely result in punitive statutes. However, scholars are inattentive to how politicians and the media frame moral crusades during drug epidemics afflicting whites. In this study, I use the 1980s crack cocaine epidemic and the current heroin and opiate epidemic to analyze how the media and politicians frame white drugs epidemics compared to Black drug epidemics. Using a dataset of 400 news articles, I conduct a qualitative content analysis and find politicians and the media frame white and Black drug epidemics differently. They frame the heroin epidemic as a public health concern by humanizing heroin addicts and advocating for collective action. In contrast, they frame the crack epidemic as a public safety concern emphasizing social control and crime prevention over treatment and rehabilitation. Lastly, I find that racialized rhetoric is utilized to facilitate these different approaches. These findings have implications for racial inequality in both criminal justice and public health.
