Indigenous Peoples (Native American, American Indian, and Alaska Native) have experienced high rates of violence and victimization since colonization – which continues to present day. However, little is known regarding the victimization experiences of Indigenous college students. Furthermore, universities are struggling to recruit and retain Indigenous college students, evident by their low enrollment and matriculation rates. One possible reason for this could be universities' inability to support Indigenous students, especially those who have experienced victimization. Yet, there is little empirical knowledge regarding how universities can best support these Indigenous students. To address these gaps, the current dissertation takes a holistic approach to understanding Indigenous individuals’ needs within the university context. Drawing upon Indigenous student survey and interview data, in addition to faculty and staff interview data, this dissertation explores the victimization experiences of Indigenous college students, their service utilization, informal help-seeking behaviors, barriers to seeking help, and ways to improve university services. Overall, findings reveal that Indigenous college students in this sample experience high rates of victimization. Additionally, having culturally relevant services, culturally competent service providers, and being able to practice their culture is necessary to best support Indigenous college students. Recommendations for universities are presented to improve the campus environment for Indigenous college students.

The influence prison staff have on experiences of incarcerated individuals is important for maintaining professional and respectful interactions. These interactions maintain the legitimacy of the institution and in turn influence responses to staff by incarcerated persons. However, correctional scholars often suggest that interactions with staff are typically not positive and ultimately contribute to the negative experiences reported by those incarcerated. Additionally, it is important to recognize that experiences may be racialized as different racial identities come with varying experiences, stigmas, and expectations. These realities leave the challenge of identifying ways to improve these interactions and subsequently the overall experience of incarceration. Acknowledging the positive interactions with staff that may go unnoticed within prisons can inform on better practices for fostering positive, professional staff-incarcerated relations. To address these positive aspects, this study thematically analyzes the responses of 200 incarcerated women to the question “tell me about your best experience with a member of staff in this prison.” Major themes were then condensed into ‘instrumental’ or ‘relational’ groups based on their connotations in order to conduct a multinomial logistic regression to predict likelihood of reporting a certain type of support based on racial identity. Results of this study contribute to an area of research that centers the humanity and complexity of interactions between staff and incarcerated women. Findings of this study have important implications for the practices that prison staff could be leveraging as means of improving the experience of incarceration.

Do the circumstances of sexual assault situations shape how individuals view a victims’ blameworthiness and risk? To examine this, data were collected on college students' perceptions of a victims’ blameworthiness and a victims’ perceived amount of risk specifically looking at how these views differ across scenarios portraying varying rape myths. College students (n=395) from Arizona State University were recruited via professors to participate in the survey. In the analysis, chi-square tests were run and zero-inflated ordered probit logistic regressions (ZIOP) with clustered standard errors predicting risk and blame perceptions across scenarios were conducted. The results show that the college students’ perceptions of risk and victim blameworthiness did vary across the rape myths that were shown within the scenarios. The chi-square tests demonstrated that for all three of the risk and blame questions, respondents’ answers on the outcome were dependent on the scenario. The ZIOP demonstrated that overall, the respondents were unwilling to assign risk and blame to the victims in the scenarios, however, when they assigned risk and blame answers varied across the different scenarios. This indicates that the rape myths portrayed in each scenario changed how individuals rated a victim’s perceived blameworthiness and risk. This has implications for the continuation of exposure to sexual assault awareness training and courses.