Body-worn cameras and early intervention systems have become best practices for police departments. A wide body of empirical work has examined body-worn cameras, and there is a growing focus on early intervention systems. However, little research has examined how these mechanisms of accountability influence officer behavior when employed together. Further, little attention has explored whether the effects of body-worn cameras and early intervention systems are stable by officer gender and race, important and largely untested assumptions of each program. To address these gaps, the current study uses longitudinal, administrative data from the Phoenix Police Department to examine patrol officer misconduct between January 1, 2016, and December 31, 2020. Generalized estimating equation models predict seven alleged and sustained misconduct outcomes, including police crime, use of force, harassment/conduct unbecoming, obstruction of justice, neglect of duty, traffic-related, and an overall measure of misconduct. The findings revealed that body-worn camera implementation and activation and early intervention system implementation and referrals individually and in combination were associated with very few substantive changes in officer misconduct. Increases in body-worn camera activation were associated with reductions in sustained police crime (i.e., felonies and misdemeanors), while officers who received an early intervention system referral were more likely to be alleged of police crime in the future. These findings were stable by officer gender and race. Further, past work demonstrates that implementing accountability programs can lead officers to less self-initiated engagement with the public. The current study reaffirmed that body-worn cameras and early intervention systems have unintended effects on officers’ proactive behaviors with unique changes in arrests, citations, and self-initiated incidents across accountability program measures. Given the importance of addressing officer misconduct to build and maintain community trust, the rapid expansion of body-worn cameras and early intervention systems across the United States, and the cost of these systems, it is vital that police departments consider the accountability programs they implement and whether and how these programs influence officer behavior. The current study provides insight into this process in one police agency and offers policy implications and directions for future research.

Recently, videos of negative police interactions have gone viral on social media causing riots and protests nationwide. However, police scholars have spent little time exploring how these videos affect the legitimacy of this authority or why these videos are interfaced with—e.g., shared, liked, direct messaged, and quoted—on social media. The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which the content of police videos and the source of who is sharing them impacts the legitimacy of the police as well as the likelihood of social media interfacing. This study used a factorial vignette design with an online sample (N = 179) that presented one of six experimental vignettes describing a scenario in which the participant received a video of a police interaction via social media. Within each vignette, the officer behaved in a procedurally just or unjust way and the video was shared by either a local news source, best friend, or online friend. Participants were asked questions assessing the legitimacy of the officer, as well as the likelihood they would share, like, direct message, or quote the video on social media. Participants in the procedurally unjust condition perceived the officer as less legitimate and were more likely to share the video than those in the procedurally just condition. The manipulation of source had no significant effects. The results from this study indicate that police departments need to be sensitive to these videos that are being interfaced with on social media by striving for a strong and positive social media presence in order to aid in being deemed as a legitimate authority that represents the community.

The purpose of this study is to examine how sex influences the physical demandof weapons used in homicide. The study focuses on two research questions using data from Newark, New Jersey: (1) Does sex influence the use of a weapon that is more or less physically demanding to commit homicide? and (2) Does the sex dyad of the offender and victim influence using a weapon that is more or less physically demanding? The descriptive analysis shows significant relationships between the sex dyad of the offender and victim in homicide and the level of physical demand used to perpetrate homicide. The logistic multinomial regression analysis shows suspect sex and suspect and victim sex dyads significantly predict the physical demand of the weapons used to perpetrate homicide compared to those who utilized weapons of low physical demand. The results support the need to challenge traditional perspectives regarding the role of sex in criminal decision-making and seek to integrate more intersectional and gendered explanations into neoclassical theories of criminal behavior. Theoretical implications and future avenues of research are also discussed.

ABSTRACT The legalization of marijuana is increasing in the United States. With more dispensaries opening, it is essential to look at these businesses' impacts on neighborhood crime rates. Alcohol outlets are known as crime attractors/crime generators, and their presence in a neighborhood is also significant to look at when investigating violent crime rates. It is crucial then to take both marijuana and alcohol outlets together to determine the effects these facilities have on aggravated assault and robbery in a neighborhood. To assess the impact of marijuana outlets, on-premises alcohol outlets, and off-premises alcohol outlets in Los Angeles, California, on aggravated assaults and robberies, this thesis uses Los Angeles business, crime, and census data. The study addresses the following research questions: (1) Does an additional marijuana outlet in a neighborhood increase aggravated assaults and robberies? (2) Does the presence of on- and off-premises alcohol outlets increase aggravated assault and robbery? (3) Does the presence of multiple types of risky businesses increase violent crime? The current study finds an increase in aggravated assaults and robberies when marijuana outlets and on- and off-premises outlets are located in a neighborhood. The only non-significant finding is when all three outlet types were present; marijuana outlets are the only outlet type not associated with an increase in robbery. These findings suggest that limits should be placed on the number of risky retailers in a neighborhood and provides policy implications directed toward reducing violent crime near marijuana and alcohol outlets. KEYWORDS alcohol outlets, marijuana outlets, aggravated assault, robbery

Perceptions of neighborhood disorder have been studied by researchers in many ways since social disorganization theory was first introduced in the 1930s. However, few studies have focused explicitly on nonresident perceptions of neighborhood disorder. Further still, investigations regarding how race/ethnicity and gender may influence this population’s responses are also lacking in the present literature. This study intends to close some of the gap in this area of research.This study uses qualitative analysis to focus on Hispanic and Caucasian nonresidents’ responses to a single photographic stimulus. This study focuses on the following: (1) perception of neighborhood disorder, (2) gender-specific neighborhood perceptions of disorder, (3) inclusion of race-identifying words, specifically in terms of frequency among Hispanic respondents, and (4) prevalence of negative adjective use. Previous research has discovered that nonresidents have associated race with neighborhood disorder despite the absence of people in the surveying/data collection methods. By further investigating this topic, this research aims to analyze the responses more closely regarding the response affect (i.e., positive, neutral, and negative) with negative adjectives and race-identifying words. The findings from this study may encourage future investigation into implicit and explicit biases focused on the possible unconscious connection of race/ethnicity and neighborhood disorder in individual perceptions.

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.

Dispatchers are the first point of contact for most citizens seeking police services, as well as the lifeline for officers in the field. Their ability to navigate high-stress situations and obtain information from callers is essential to the successful distribution of police resources. Though central to policing, research on dispatchers is quite limited, including the techniques they use to keep callers and officers calm. De-escalation is also underexplored in policing, but recent evaluations of de-escalation training have shown some promise for applications in the field, and reductions in use of force and citizen injuries. Until this project, the nexus of dispatching and de-escalation has not been explored in a way that provides insight from experts in the field who use a subset of skills and techniques to resolve volatile calls and radio transmissions. Using survey responses and semi-structured interviews with peer-nominated Top Dispatch De-Escalators in Tempe, Arizona, this exploratory, mixed-methods study is the first to provide a nuanced perspective of the ways dispatchers de-escalate elevated callers and officers in the field to resolve incidents peacefully. Results from the general survey indicate that dispatchers act professionally when interacting with citizens, care about callers, and treat them with respect. Communication, staying calm, and patience were ranked as the most important deescalationtactics used in dispatching, with compromise being the lowest. Themes gathered from interviews with Top Dispatch De-Escalators shed light on the qualities embodied by an exceptional de-escalator, including listening and communication skills, transparency, and the ability to regulate emotion. Results also provide insight into the barriers that may prevent de-escalation, and recommendations for police agencies looking to bridge the gap that exists between dispatchers, other department personnel, and the community. Findings shed light on the mental health-de-escalation nexus that exists, and the importance of improving conditions for dispatchers which has direct implications for one’s ability to deescalate. This study is the first to examine front-end de-escalation that occurs on the dispatcher side, revealing a missing link in the overall understanding of de-escalation and highlighting the crucial role of dispatch in reducing the potential for violence between community members and police.

This study looked at the relationship between rape myth acceptance and gender, sexual orientation, and participant recruitment method. The study used a sample collected from both ASU students and Amazon MTurk. Using both ANOVAs and Means, the study was able to show that the relationships between rape myth acceptance varies across both gender and sexual orientation. As well as advocate for the use of a community sample in rape myth research. This research is able to provide statistically significant evidence for these relationships and is one of the first studies on the relationship between rape myth acceptance and sexual orientation.