Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1975, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Bachelor of Arts, Wittenberg University, 2023, Political Science

For a comprehensive understanding of attitudes toward the death penalty, it is crucial to examine the historical backdrop of racial inequality in the criminal justice system. By delving into the history of incarceration and influential policies from the abolition of slavery to the present day, this study seeks to uncover the potential connections between these policies and death penalty attitudes. Utilizing data from the Pew Research Center, bivariate and multivariate analyses were conducted to investigate the interplay among various variables, including race, partisanship, religion, age, and gender. The results revealed significant associations between all independent variables and attitudes toward the death penalty. Females exhibited a negative relationship, indicating a lower likelihood of supporting capital punishment compared to males. Religious denomination displayed a statistically significant relationship across all three categories, with Protestants, Catholics, and Mormons more inclined to support the death penalty. Party affiliation exhibited a statistically negative relationship, indicating that Democrats were less likely to support capital punishment compared to Independents and Republicans. Notably, race was found to be negatively associated with the death penalty, suggesting that black individuals are less likely to support it compared to their white counterparts. This finding can be attributed to the historical mistreatment and discriminatory practices faced by African Americans within the criminal justice system. Given the pervasive inequalities experienced by African Americans throughout history due to governmental policies, it is unsurprising to observe a substantial disparity in death penalty attitudes between African Americans and white individuals.

Committee: Staci Rhine (Advisor); Scott Rosenberg (Committee Member); Rob Baker (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; African Americans; Criminology; Ethnic Studies; Political Science; Sociology

MS, University of Cincinnati, 2020, Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services: Information Technology-Distance Learning

In 2017, Twitter acknowledged the presence of bots – automated or fake accounts, controlled by either foreign governments or U.S. citizens posing as fake online personas. These accounts targeted and interacted with users using certain politically inclined keywords and posting massive amounts of false and misleading information. Consequently, bots posing as Americans were loud voices that led to a divisive social and political climate. Simultaneously, distrust in mainstream news sources was plummeting causing more people to use social media as their main source of information. While tools exist that can determine if a given Twitter account is an authentic user or bot, they are not the most accessible products. Many require searching for an individual screen name on a separate web page, or advanced programming skills to analyze lists of users. This study examined this gap and determined the system and information requirements to develop a browser plugin that can detect bots, and the political leaning of a user's social media feed. By examining both open-source projects and public API's, this work was able to narrow down the requirements while providing the guidelines to build such a plugin.

Committee: Shane Halse Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Jess Kropczynski Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Information Technology

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2009, Rural Sociology

Concern about the treatment of farm animals is of growing public debate in the mainstream media. Yet, few empirical analyses are available examining the social bases of farm animal concern. Social scientists have given ample consideration to the social correlates of public concern to related issues of human equity and other forms of animal use (such as animal testing). Meanwhile, a second debate in the literature questions the extent to which human compassion is finite, with opponents of animal welfare claiming that humans who are concerned about animals are less able to feel concern for humans. Using Bourdieu's theory of social practice as a theoretical framework for this thesis, I identify religion and political affiliation as two fields of social interaction that have the potential to influence attitudes toward farm animals. Data for this thesis come from 2007 Survey of Food, Farming and the Environment: Focus on Farm Animal Welfare. A state-level sample of Ohioans (N=943) as well as a national-level sample (N=463) are included in the analysis. My analysis finds support for the relationship between religion and farm animal concern, with religiosity bearing a particularly robust relationship to farm animal attitudes. The analysis also finds political affiliation related to farm animal concern, with liberal affiliations and political values positively related to farm animal concern. Finally, I test the extent to which concern for animals and humans are related. Analysis reveals that human compassion is not mutually exclusive and that concern for animals and humans bear a strong, positive relationship to each other.

Committee: Linda Lobao PhD (Advisor); Jeff Sharp PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Sociology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2005, Psychology

The recent history of attitudes toward criminals seems to show a sharp increase in public and legislative punitiveness, with very serious consequences especially for juveniles and sex offenders. This study investigated how these attitudes vary with established factors as well as new or understudied variables, such as perpetrator age and type of offense. Significant effects were found for profession of participants, offender age, participant age, and belief in the effectiveness of rehabilitation. Although punishment attitudes, treatment attitudes, and attributions of responsibility varied with these factors, hypotheses regarding adolescence and sex offenders received only partial support. Studies of punitive attitudes toward offenders have largely relied on simple theoretical models. A more complex model of the genesis of punitive attitudes was fit to the data using structural equation modeling techniques, but fit was poor. Results are discussed in terms of past literature and the concepts of stereotypes, prejudice, and demonizing of outgroups in general, and perpetrators specifically.

Committee: Steven Beck (Advisor) Subjects: