Int J Offender Ther Comp Criminol
February 2021
Correctional staff are a necessary and valuable resource for correctional institutions, in both Western and Nonwestern nations; however, studies of correctional staff in Nonwestern nations, particularly those in Africa, are lacking. Improving the job satisfaction and organizational commitment of these staff are imperative, as both of these job attitudes have been linked to many salient beneficial outcomes. Most of the existing empirical research on correctional staff organizational justice explores only the effects of procedural and distributive justice and ignores interpersonal justice.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAthletes are cited as common perpetrators of sexual victimization and are at greater risk of becoming offenders compared with nonathletes. Demographic, lifestyle, and social characteristics of 624 nonathletes and 101 athletes from 21 U.S.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Offender Ther Comp Criminol
December 2017
The primary focus of sex offender research has been on the efficacy and collateral consequences of sex offender registration and notification (SORN) and residence restrictions. Past scholarship has found these laws to cause numerous re-entry barriers for sex offenders. Such barriers have affected sex offenders' ability to find and maintain housing, employment, and social support.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Offender Ther Comp Criminol
February 2017
Current sex offending legislation and public opinion present an image of sexual offenders as specialized predators who are likely to exhibit continued sexually deviant behavior over the life-course. Although sex offending continuity and post-release recidivism has been independently assessed in prior research, the potential link between sex offending continuity and post-release recidivism has yet to be investigated. Using data collected at two different time points from a sample of sex offenders who served a prison sentence for an adult sex offense, the present study examines the prevalence of sex offending continuity, and its potential linkages with subsequent sex and general recidivism as well as identifying risk factors related to these outcomes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study examined the utility of social disorganization theory as an explanation for child sexual abuse with a focus on differentiating single and multiple victim cases. Drawing on 1,172 child sexual abuse cases (including 159 cases with multiple victims) in Orange County, Florida, from 2004 to 2006, the present study considered case characteristics and elements of social disorganization as potential predictors of child sexual abuse cases involving single and multiple victims. We found that social disorganization theory does not successfully predict the locations of multiple victim child sexual abuse incidents and is not useful for distinguishing between child sexual abuse incidents with single or multiple victims.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDespite much research and policy development, it remains true that less than one half of all reported sexual assaults are cleared by arrest (Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI], 2011). Compounding this issue, many sexual assaults are not cleared by an arrest, but rather by being classified as "unfounded" by law enforcement (Soulliere, 1994, 2005; Tellis & Spohn, 2008). Grounded in the social disorganization perspective, this article examines the relationships between case-related and extralegal community-level characteristics and use of the designation of unfounded by the police.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFToday, the amount of stress the correctional staff endures at work is an important issue. Research has addressed this issue, but has yielded no consensus as to a properly calibrated measure of perceptions of work stress for correctional staff. Using data from a non-random sample of correctional staff (n = 228), the Rasch model was used to assess whether a specific measure of work stress would fit the model.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study considers a biosocial explanation of why johns, the purchasers of commercial sex exchanges, are almost exclusively male. Trivers's theory of parental investment and sexual selection predicts that differential parental investment by biological sex will lead to divergent sex-based reproductive instincts. The sex bearing the larger parental investment will tend to be choosier whereas the sex bearing the lesser investment will tend to be relatively indiscriminate and competitive for access to sexual resources.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe purpose of this article is to explore factors contributing to perceptions about electronic monitoring policies governing sex offenders. Guided by Tannenbaum's theory of attribution and Shaw and McKay's theory of social disorganization, the authors examine the influence of demographic characteristics, victimization experiences, and neighborhood characteristics on perceptions about policies regarding the electronic monitoring of sex offenders. Ordinary least squares regression and logistic regression analyses of stratified telephone survey data reveal that factors associated with favorable views on the use of global positioning satellite monitoring for registered sex offenders appear to stem primarily from individuals' demographic characteristics.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Offender Ther Comp Criminol
December 2011
The relationship between religiosity and crime has been the subject of much empirical debate and testing over the past 40 years. Some investigators have argued that observed relationships between religion and crime may be spurious because of self-control, arousal, or social control factors. The present study offers the first investigation of religiosity, self-control, and deviant behavior in the prison context.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe goals of the present study were to examine the recidivism rates of two matched samples of sexual offenders, those released prior to and after sex offender registration and notification (SORN) in New Jersey. The pre-SORN group (1990-1994) included 247 offenders, while the post-SORN group (1996-2000) included 248 offenders. The longitudinal analysis demonstrated that for sex offenders released from prison both prior to and after implementation of SORN, there are clearly two distinguishable groups of sex offenders in relation to patterns of recidivism.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Offender Ther Comp Criminol
November 2010
The relationship between religiosity and crime has been the subject of much empirical debate and testing over the past 40 years. Some investigators have argued that observed relationships between religion and crime may be spurious because of self-control, arousal, or social control factors. The present study offers the first investigation of religiosity, self-control, and deviant behavior in the prison context.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlthough research has established an offending/victimization overlap and that offenders and victims share similar characteristics, much less work has examined the longitudinal sequencing of victimization and offending in the same developmental period and whether key risk/protective factors significantly distinguish both offenders and victims.This study uses longitudinal data from a large sample of adolescents to examine these issues and does so using a novel methodological approach, the trajectory methodology, which allows for the examination of covariation between offending and victimization. Results indicate that there is a considerable degree of overlap between victims of physical violence and offenders over time and that certain covariates including school commitment, parental monitoring, low self-control, and sex significantly discriminate victim and offender groups.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study examines how registered sex offenders (RSOs) experience, respond to, and attribute stress regarding sex offender registration and notification process and policies. In addition, the frequency and reasons for Internet access is assessed, with a focus on how new legislation in New Jersey (P.L.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe collateral consequences of sex offender registration and notification (SORN) have been well established, although little evidence has supported the efficacy of SORN. Based on the belief that family members provide some of the most consistent, important, and intense forms of support for criminal offenders in general and registered sex offenders (RSOs) more specifically, the experiences of sanctions, losses, and stresses of these individuals is examined. Using survey responses from 584 individuals known to visit online support and advocacy groups for RSOs and their loved ones, this study identifies the stress levels and stressors experienced by this population.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBecause anonymous sexual relations between two men are widely considered deviant many men seeking such activities look to erotic oases-natural environments appropriated for covert, often furtive sexual purposes. Previous research on erotic oases has focused on characteristics of involved men and processes of locating, negotiating with, and consummating sexual relations with others. This study draws on one major Web site listing of "cruising places" in the United States to identify common locations for erotic oases.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFToday, the number of prisons and the prison population is rising. One of the key challenges accompanying these changes is how prison and staff can handle this increasing number of inmates. One of the issues involved is what products, goods, and services are deemed suitable for inmates.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFStudies concerning inmate-on-inmate sexual assaults within male correctional facilities are sparse in the sociological and correctional literatures. Only a few studies have specifically examined the characteristics of male inmate sexual assault targets. The current research sought to address this gap by providing an examination of factors related to victimization likelihood.
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