How Robberies Succeed or Fail

2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Nassauer

Objective: This article analyzes how convenience store robberies work and why some take an unexpected turn and fail. It examines the situational dynamics of crime by studying behavioral and emotional dynamics between clerks and perpetrators during robberies comparatively. The focus is on perpetrators’ displays of threats and clerks’ seemingly irrational acts of noncompliance and resistance. Method: The sample is comprised of 20 successful and failed robberies in the United States between 2010 and 2016. By qualitatively analyzing closed-circuit television (CCTV) recordings, the study assesses what happens during such crimes. Analyzing footage uploaded to online video platforms such as YouTube, the study uses growing databases so far unexplored by sociological and criminological research. Findings suggest that successful store robberies follow specific situational rituals in which actors display adequate behaviors and emotions. Rituals are broken if perpetrators or victims act out of character and display, even unintentionally, unexpected behaviors or emotions. Conclusion: This exploratory study suggests that microlevel factors play a crucial role in what manifests as a robbery versus attempted robbery. Further, it highlights challenges and advantages of analyzing CCTV recordings uploaded online when studying crime caught on camera.

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Thomas W Lauer ◽  
Albert J. Meehan

Since 9/11 and particularly since the massacre at Virginia Tech University in 2007, many universities in the United States have begun installation of Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) systems on their campuses. What sorts of claims are being made about the use of these systems and what justifications are there for installing them? How might the pervasive use of monitoring technology affect traditional values associated with university life such as freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, privacy, and the freedom to explore? What policies are in place to ensure that whatever benefits associated with these systems justify both tangible and intangible costs?Our analysis is partially derived from a study of university policies in the United States concerning the installation and operation of CCTV systems with the aim of gaining insight into these questions. In addition, we used a coding instrument for analyzing the corpus of policies in order to understand how the policies addressed such issues as: rationale or justification for CCTV usage, relevant personnel roles, public awareness, accountability measures, information security and data handling, routine operations of usage, and any relevant limiting measures. One aspect of our study is to interpret the corpus of policies through the lens of Nissenbaum’s contextual integrity framework which is concerned with examining the effects of new technological practices (such as the installation of CCTV systems) on one’s expectation of privacy.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew P J Ashby

Criminology produces policy-relevant research and criminologists often seek to influence practice, but most criminological research is confined to expensive subscription journals. This disadvantages researchers in the global south, policy makers and practitioners who have the skills to use research findings but do not have journal subscriptions. Open access seeks to increase availability of research, but take-up among criminologists has been low. This study used a sample of 12,541 articles published in criminology journals between 2017 and 2019 to estimate the proportion of articles available via different types of open access. Overall 22% of research was available to non-subscribers, about half that found in other disciplines, even though authors had the right to make articles open without payment in at least 95% of cases. Open access was even less common in many leading journals and among researchers in the United States. Open access has the potential to increase access to research for those outside academia, but few scholars exercise their existing rights to distribute freely the submitted or accepted versions of their articles online. Policies to incentivise authors to make research open access where possible are needed unlock the benefits of greater access to criminological research.


Author(s):  
Shefali Juneja Lakhina ◽  
Elaina J. Sutley ◽  
Jay Wilson

AbstractIn recent years there has been an increasing emphasis on achieving convergence in disaster research, policy, and programs to reduce disaster losses and enhance social well-being. However, there remain considerable gaps in understanding “how do we actually do convergence?” In this article, we present three case studies from across geographies—New South Wales in Australia, and North Carolina and Oregon in the United States; and sectors of work—community, environmental, and urban resilience, to critically examine what convergence entails and how it can enable diverse disciplines, people, and institutions to reduce vulnerability to systemic risks in the twenty-first century. We identify key successes, challenges, and barriers to convergence. We build on current discussions around the need for convergence research to be problem-focused and solutions-based, by also considering the need to approach convergence as ethic, method, and outcome. We reflect on how convergence can be approached as an ethic that motivates a higher order alignment on “why” we come together; as a method that foregrounds “how” we come together in inclusive ways; and as an outcome that highlights “what” must be done to successfully translate research findings into the policy and public domains.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 441-441
Author(s):  
Joseph Blankholm

Abstract There are more than 1,400 nonbeliever communities in the United States and well over a dozen organizations that advocate for secular people on the national level. Together, these local and national groups comprise a social movement that includes atheists, agnostics, humanists, freethinkers, and other kinds of nonbelievers. Despite the fact that retired people over 60 dedicate most of the money and energy needed to run these groups, the increasingly vast literature on secular people and secularism has paid them almost no attention. Relying on more than one hundred interviews (including dozens with people over 60), several years of ethnographic research, and a survey of organized nonbelievers, this paper demonstrates the crucial role that people over 60 play in the American secular movement today. It also considers the reasons older adults are so important to these groups, the challenges they face in trying to recruit younger members and combat stereotypes about aging leadership, and generational differences that structure how various types of nonbeliever groups look and feel. This paper reframes scholarly understandings of very secular Americans by focusing on people over 60 and charts a new path in secular studies.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Finch ◽  
Norm O'Reilly ◽  
David Legg ◽  
Nadège Levallet ◽  
Emma Fody

PurposeAs an industry, sport business (SB) has seen significant growth since the early 2000s. Concurrently, the number of postsecondary sport management programs has also expanded dramatically. However, there remain concerns about whether these programs are meeting the demands of both employers and graduates. To address these concerns, this study examines the credential and competency demands of the SB labor market in the United States.Design/methodology/approachResearchers conducted an analysis using a broad sample of employment postings (N = 613) for SB positions from two different years, 2008 and 2018.FindingsResults support that a complex set of SB qualifications exist, and the credentials and competencies included in SB employment postings have evolved over the past decade.Originality/valueA noteworthy finding is that meta-skills are found to be particularly important for employability, including items such as communication, emotional intelligence and analytical thinking and adaptability.


Author(s):  
Hina Khalid ◽  
David S.T. Matkin ◽  
Ricardo S. Morse

This article explores collaborative capital budgeting in U.S. local governments. To date, the capital budgeting literature has focused on practices within individual governments. This leaves a gap in our understanding because a large portion of capital planning, acquisition, and maintenance occurs through collaboration between two or more local governments. Drawing on the capital budgeting and collaborative public management literature, and on illustrative cases of collaborative capital budgeting in the United States, an inductive approach is used to: (1) identify and categorize the different objectives that motivate local officials to pursue collaborative agreements, (2) examine common patterns in the types of assets involved in collaboration, and (3) discover common institutional arrangements in collaboration agreements. The research findings demonstrate significant heterogeneity in the objectives, patterns, and institutions of collaborative capital budgeting.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Gondwe ◽  
Evan Rowe ◽  
Evariste Some

This exploratory study contributes to the literature on numeracy in digital journalism studies by theoretically incorporating the audience/news consumers. While most studies have focused on journalists’ perception and role in the use of numeracy, this study examines how audience perceive stories with numerical values. Through an experimental design, and by comparing the United States, Zambia, and Tanzania, the study was able to demonstrate that news stories with numerical values diminished audience/readers’ affective consumption. In other words, news stories with numerical values were negatively associated with audience appeal. However, individuals with a lower understanding of probabilistic and numerical concepts seemed to trust news stories with numbers more than those with a higher level of numeracy. This was especially true in Zambia and Tanzania where most participants recorded lower numeracy levels. The overall sample in all the three countries seemed to favor news stories with less or no numeracy.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-87
Author(s):  
Susan Wiksten

This article reports on empirical research findings from a case study of teacher education in Finland and the United States. A sociological perspective was deployed for investigating how the concept of sustainability was addressed in two teacher education programs. One of the programs was located in Finland and the other in the US. The study was carried out in 2015 and 2016. Seventeen semi-structured, open-ended, audio-recorded interviews form the core of the research materials. A thematic analysis of interviews was conducted for identifying articulations related to sustainability in subject-matter specialized teacher preparation. Findings from this study contribute to research on teacher preparation. Notably, by articulating how context-specific culture and social norms contribute to local models of teacher education. Findings from this study indicate that teacher training practices in Finland have encouraged students to articulate sustainability in relation to critical thinking, whereas in the US, sustainability has been articulated in relation to social justice. The key point supported by the evidence is that sustainability was by teachers and teacher educators conceptualized as being about the popularization of knowledge about ecology and biodiversity. The kind of communication that was by teachers and teacher educators described as effective for popularizing knowledge about scientific phenomena were forms of teaching that expanded on content-specific knowledge by connecting it to ethical and civic frameworks of the societies in which students live.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luisa Massarani ◽  
Luiz Felipe Fernandes Neves

The search for an effective solution to control the COVID-19 pandemic has mobilized an unprecedented effort by science to develop a vaccine against the disease, in which pharmaceutical companies and scientific institutions from several countries participate. The world closely monitors research in this area, especially through media coverage, which plays a key role in the dissemination of trustful information and in the public’s understanding of science and health. On the other hand, anti-vaccine movements dispute space in this communication environment, which raises concerns of the authorities regarding the willingness of the population to get vaccinated. In this exploratory study, we used computer-assisted content analysis techniques, with WordStat software, to identify the most addressed terms, semantic clusters, actors, institutions, and countries in the texts and titles of 716 articles on the COVID-19 vaccine, published by The New York Times (US), The Guardian (United Kingdom), and Folha de São Paulo (Brazil), from January to October 2020. We sought to analyze similarities and differences of countries that stood out by the science denialism stance of their government leaders, reflecting on the severity of the pandemic in these places. Our results indicate that each newspaper emphasized the potential vaccines developed by laboratories in their countries or that have established partnerships with national institutions, but with a more politicized approach in Brazil and a little more technical-scientific approach in the United States and the United Kingdom. In external issues, the newspapers characterized the search for the discovery of a vaccine as a race in which nations and blocs historically marked by economic, political, and ideological disputes are competing, such as the United States, Europe, China, and Russia. The results lead us to reflect on the responsibility of the media to not only inform correctly but also not to create stigmas related to the origin of the vaccine and combat misinformation.


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