Browsing by Author "William R. Smith, Committee Member"

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    Determinants of Drug Testing Policies in Law Enforcement Agencies: Building and Testing a Theory of Public Sector Drug Testing
    (2003-04-30) Brunet, James Robert; William R. Smith, Committee Member; Dennis M. Daley, Committee Member; Deborah L. Weisel, Committee Member; Michael L. Vasu, Committee Chair
    Drug testing has become an increasingly important part of our social lives, especially in the workplace. This is particularly the case in the public sector where military personnel, police officers, transportation workers, and those seeking government employ routinely submit to government mandated drug screens. The genesis of large-scale drug testing of public workers is often traced back to President Reagan's 1986 call for a 'drug-free federal workplace' (Executive Order 12564). State and local governments, particularly law enforcement agencies, followed the federal example and rapidly implemented drug testing policies. A large majority of local law enforcement agencies (approximately 77 percent) now test all job applicants, up from 25 percent in 1990. The purpose of this investigation is to identify the historical, political, and legal preconditions that led to the widespread adoption of workplace drug testing in the public sector. This knowledge provides the theoretical platform for an empirical study of the factors that lead police departments to adopt different drug testing policies. For safety sensitive positions, courts have granted government employers wide discretion in selecting from a menu of employee drug testing strategies. Random and mandatory screening of current and prospective public safety workers is permissible as long as certain due process procedures are followed. With such a wide range of options available, what leads one agency to adopt a more rigorous approach such as universal testing while another agency abstains from testing workers altogether? An emerging literature that conceives of drug testing as a mechanism of social control provides the theoretical base for this inquiry. An analysis of a random sample of law enforcement agencies (n=1,988) finds evidence that social distance within police organizations (size of the sworn workforce, racial diversity), the social status of officers (starting salary), and the influence of third parties (collective bargaining) play significant roles in shaping a department's drug testing policy. The policy, administrative, and research issues emerging from the analysis are also discussed.
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    Disadvantaged Neighborhoods and Anger: Implications for Community-Level Theories of Crime and Delinquency
    (2009-04-07) Burns, Padraic Joseph; Virginia Aldige, Committee Member; Stacy De Coster, Committee Chair; William R. Smith, Committee Member
    This paper is a partial and exploratory test of Bernard’s (1990) theory of angry aggression within disadvantaged communities as well as Agnew’s (1999) community-level strain theory. These theories posit that disadvantage and other structural characteristics of neighborhoods lead to environmental stressors, which ultimately may increase anger among individuals who externalize attributions of blame. To date, no study has assessed whether structural characteristics of neighborhoods are related to increased individual anger. Using Ross and Britt’s (1995) survey of Community, Crime, and Health: Illinois Residents, I assess Bernard’s (1990) and Agnew’s (1999) theoretical arguments. The findings show that only one structural indicator measured at the census tract level, urban location, is related to the individual outcome of anger. However, the stressors assessed in this study are positively related to anger, particularly among individuals who externalize blame. There are two main implications of these findings. (1) Community crime models should include measures of emotions such as anger, as community processes have psychological impacts on individuals that may motivate them to commit criminal acts. (2) The structural indicators identified by Bernard (1990) and Agnew (1999) require reevaluation, as only urban location was shown to be related to anger.
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    Illuminating Individual-Level Sources of Crime for African Americans and Whites: An Examination of Four Theories
    (2006-11-17) Latimore, Traronda; William R. Smith, Committee Member; Ronald Czaja, Committee Member; Charles R. Tittle, Committee Chair; Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, Committee Member; Catherine Zimmer, Committee Member; Melvin Thomas, Committee Member
    This research addresses two important theoretical questions in the sociological study of race and crime: (1) If racial differences exist between African Americans and Whites, can self-control, general strain, social bonding, and social learning theories account for the differences? (i.e., the "racial gap" issue) and (2) Are the processes specified by these theories the same for African Americans and Whites? (i.e., the "racial generality" issue). Using data from randomly selected African American and White adults who live in Wake County, North Carolina, several answers to these questions are suggested. Concerning the "racial gap" issue, this study finds no significant differences in offending between African Americans and Whites. Concerning the "racial generality" issue, the results offer considerable insight into the individual-level sources of crime for both groups. Collectively, the findings offer limited support for social bonding theory and mixed support for self-control, general strain, and social learning theories. The implications of these results, particularly as they pertain to criminological theory and social policy, are also discussed.
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    Multilevel Model of Racial Disparity in Traffic Enforcement
    (2003-11-14) Mason, Helen Marcinda; Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, Committee Co-Chair; Patricia L. McCall, Committee Member; William R. Smith, Committee Member; Matthew T. Zingraff, Committee Co-Chair
    Individual officer characteristics, attributes of the organization, and the racial threat thesis are all explored as possible contributors to the racial distribution of citations. Using Hierarchal Linear Modeling (HLM), the findings of the analyses suggest that less experienced officers and those officers working in patrol districts where members are more highly trained issue more African American citations than more experienced officers and officers working in patrol districts where members are less trained. The findings also indicate that the effect of length of service on the outcome measure varies by the officer's race. The racial threat analyses suggest that there is racial disparity in the issuance of citations and that the extent of the disparity steadily increases as the representation of African Americans in the driving population increases. The implications of this dissertation's findings for future research on the racial distribution of traffic enforcement outcomes are discussed.
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    The Other Side of the Track: Curriculum Tracking and the Pathway to Delinquency
    (2003-04-30) Febbo-Hunt, Maria; Catherine Zimmer, Committee Chair; L. Richard Della Fave, Committee Member; Rodney L. Engen, Committee Member; William R. Smith, Committee Member
    This dissertation examines whether school track location contributes to involvement in juvenile delinquency. First, I hypothesized both a direct and an indirect effect of track location on involvement in juvenile delinquency. Second, I hypothesized grade point average (GPA) would be negatively related to involvement in delinquency. Lastly, I hypothesized peer exposure would affect involvement in delinquency. Specifically, youth located in a non-academic track, with lower grades, and higher levels of negative peer exposure will be more likely to engage in delinquency. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 and employing Poisson and Negative Binomial regression techniques, I found the following. There are no significant direct effects of tracking on delinquency for the multivariate models. Further analyses show there are indirect, negative effects, via GPA, of being in the general/college-prep and the combination track versus the vocational track on rates of committing additional types of property offending. Youth in the general/college-prep track earn higher grades relative to students in the vocational track, who, in turn, have lower rates of engaging in additional property offenses. For the remaining three delinquency models, there appear to be no indirect effects of tracking via grade point average. For status, violent and overall offending, exposure to negative peers results in higher rates of committing additional types of offending. For property offending, there is only an indirect effect of negative peers on offending. What does this study have to say about schooling and delinquency? First, academic achievement matters with respect to involvement in delinquency. Second, there is evidence that track location has an indirect effect on the commission of additional types of property offenses. Combined other research findings illustrating other undesirable outcomes of tracking, we must ask, "Is this structuring of students worth the cost relative to the pedagogical benefits?" Further research is warranted to fully answer this question, thus I advocate bringing tracking 'back in' to comprehensive studies of juvenile delinquency.
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    Race, Class and Trust: Perceptions of the Police in North Carolina
    (2006-07-26) Warren, Patricia Yvonne; Melvin Thomas, Committee Member; Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, Committee Chair; William R. Smith, Committee Member; Matthew Zingraff, Committee Member
    The purpose of this research is to re-examine factors that affect perceptions of the police. Previous research has consistently argued that African Americans are more likely to question police legitimacy (Reis 1971; Bayley & Mendelsohn 1969; Weitzer 1999; Weitzer & Tuch 2004; Sampson & Bartusch 1998). Much of this research has emphasized the importance of race, social class, and community context. However, there has been little effort in this research to situate these findings in a theoretical context. Therefore, this research used two theoretical frameworks — identity theory and cognitive bias theory - to explain the race gap in perceptions of the police. Two outcomes were estimated to assess the race gap in perceptions of the police behavior — perceptions of police treatment and perceptions of police fairness. The first set of models captured how racial and class identity impact perceptions of police treatment. In essence these models assessed what are the race and class differences in perceptions of disrespect by the police. They also examined the extent to which perceptions of disrespect are tied to identities or a more generic process. The next, set of models examined the importance of race and class identities and their impact on perceptions of police fairness. These models were estimated in order to assess what factors people use to make assessments about police fairness. African American citizens, respondents who have heard negative stories about police behavior, those who believe police engage in racial profiling and those respondents with more long-standing distrust of social institutions in society are less likely to trust the police and they are also more likely to perceive disrespect by the police. It is also the case that personally experiencing disrespect by the police, hearing negative stories about police behavior, belief in police profiling and distrust of the other governmental institutions explains a large portion of the race gap in perceptions of the police.
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    Race, Place, Cops and Stops: Local Context, Racial Profiling, and Social Control in North Carolina.
    (2003-07-30) Miller, James Kirk; Matthew T. Zingraff, Committee Chair; Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, Committee Member; Patricia L. McCall, Committee Member; William R. Smith, Committee Member
    The importance of race in explaining criminal justice processes and outcomes has been a research focus of sociologists interested in social control. In spite of conventional wisdom to the contrary, the expected negative effects of racial minority status on social control outcomes have been somewhat elusive in empirical tests. The practice of racial profiling, defined as the use of race by police in decision-making and especially traffic stops, is at the forefront of contemporary public concern about policing, racial discrimination, and public safety. The dissertation begins to address the open questions about racial profiling by developing and testing a multilevel conceptual model of police traffic stops. The conceptual model focuses on four distinct sources of police decision-making and behavior: suspect or driver characteristics, legal or driving behaviors, organizational characteristics of the police, and community contextual characteristics. The research incorporates survey data collected in 200 and 2001 on 1445 licensed Black and 1475 licensed white drivers in North Carolina with 1990 and 2000 census data and criminal justice data spanning the 1997-2000 time period. The survey data contain measures of driver characteristics and driving practices along with geographic markers which allow the individual level data to be linked with community data sources. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) techniques are used to separately model driver reported traffic stops by local police agencies and by the North Carolina State Highway patrol (NCSHP). Key aspects of the conceptual models are confirmed by HLM models of local police stops which suggest that driver characteristics which compose social threat are important to increases in the risk of experiencing a traffic stop. Driver race, gender, and age are important predictors of increases in traffic stop risk, while many driving factors do not appear to be related to the risk of a traffic encounter with local police. In contrast, models of NCSHP stops suggest that stop risk is increased for those who self-report higher level of illegal driving behaviors. Driver race and gender are not related to stop risk by the NCSHP. Evidence for contextual effects is mixed. Implications for current and future police research are discussed.