Criminology Student Research

The program draws its students from a variety of academic backgrounds, including sociology, psychology, political science, and criminal justice.  In addition, some students enter with professional experience, although not necessarily in the area in which they plan to concentrate.  Others enter the graduate program directly upon completing their undergraduate work.  This diversity contributes to a stimulating learning environment and a wide range of research topics.

Students augment their research competence and professional credentials by collaborating with faculty on research projects, conference presentations, and scholarly publications. Below are some recent publications by current and former students in our program.

Current Students

  • Gladfelter, AndrewBrendan Lantz, and R. Barry Ruback. Forthcoming. “The Complexity of Hate Crime and Bias Activity: Variation across Contexts and Types of Bias.”  Justice Quarterly
  • Howard-Tripp, Alyssa, Corina Graif, and Sarah Fry. Forthcoming. “Public Housing”. Invited chapter in The American Middle Class: An Economic Encyclopedia of Progress and Poverty, edited by Robert Rycroft. Greenwood: Santa Barbara, CA.
  • Jacobsen, Wade C. and Cecily R. Hardaway. Forthcoming. “Heterogeneity in Research on African American Boys and Men: Focusing on Resilience, Social Networks, and Community Violence.” In Boys and Men in African American Families, edited by L Burton, D Burton, S M McHale, V King, and J Van Hook. New York: Springer.
  • Knoth, Lauren and R. Barry Ruback. Forthcoming. “Reporting Crimes to the Police Depends on Relationship Networks: Effects of Ties among Victims, Advisors, and Offenders.”  Journal of Interpersonal Violence
  • Lantz, Brendan and R. Barry Ruback. Forthcoming.  “A Networked Boost: Burglary Co-offending and Repeat Victimization.”  Crime and Delinquency.
  • Lantz, Brendan and R. Barry Ruback. Forthcoming. “The Relationship between Co-offending, Age and Experience using a Sample of Adult Burglary Offenders.”  Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology.
  • Ruback, R. Barry, Cynthia Kempinen, Leigh Tinik, and Lauren Knoth.  Forthcoming.  “Communicating Risk Information at Criminal Sentencing in Pennsylvania: An Experimental Analysis.”  Federal Probation.
  • Staff, Jeremy, Nayan Ramirez, and Kelsey Cundiff. “The Vanishing Teenage Worker in the United States.” Forthcoming in Young People’s Development and the Great Recession: Uncertain Transitions and Precarious Futures, edited by Ingrid Schoon and John Bynner. Cambridge University Press.
  • Staff, Jeremy, Jennifer L. Maggs, Kelsey Cundiff, and Rebecca Evans-Polce. 2016. “Childhood Cigarette and Alcohol Use: Negative Links with Adjustment.” Addictive Behaviors 62:122-128.
  • Ulmer, Jeffery T. and Julia Laskorunsky. 2016.  “The Role of Juvenile Adjudications in the Disproportional Incarceration of African American and Hispanic Defendants.”  Journal of Crime and Justice 39(1):9-27.
  • Ulmer, Jeffery T. and Julia Laskorunsky. 2016.  “Sentencing, Policy, and Race, Ethnic, and Gender Disparities.”  Pp. 170-186 in Advancing Criminology and Criminal Justice Policyedited by T. Blomberg, J. Mestre Brancale, K. Beaver, and W. Bales.  New York:  Routledge.Whichard, Corey and Richard B. Felson. 2016. “Are Suspects Who Resist Arrest Defiant, Desperate, or Disoriented?”  Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 53:564-591.
  • Felson, Richard and Brendan Lantz. 2015. “When Are Victims Unlikely to Cooperate with the Police?” Aggressive Behavior 42: 97-108.
  • Lantz, Brendan and Robert Hutchison.  2015.  “Co-offender Ties and the Criminal Career: The Relationship between Co-offender Group Structure and the Individual Offender.”  Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 52:658-690.
  • McLanahan, Sara and Wade C. Jacobsen. 2015. “Diverging Destinies Revisited.” Pp. 3-23 in Families in an Era of Increasing Inequality: Diverging Destinies, edited by PR Amato, A Booth, SM McHale, and J Van Hook. New York: Springer.
  • Staff, Jeremy, Corey Whichard, Sonja E. Siennick, and Jennifer L. Maggs. 2015. “Early Life Risks, Antisocial Tendencies, and Preteen Delinquency.” Criminology 53:677-701.
  • Staff, Jeremy, Nayan Ramirez, and Mike Vuolo. 2015. “The Transition to Adulthood Matters.” Pp. 137-146 in Diverging Destinies: Families in an Era of Increasing Inequality, edited by Paul Amato, Alan Booth, Susan McHale, and Jennifer Van Hook.  New York: Springer.
  • Ulmer, Jeffery T. and Julia Laskorunsky.  2015. “Sentencing Policy and Practices in Pennsylvania.”  Oxford Handbooks in Criminology and Criminal Justice, edited by M. Tonry.  New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Ruback, R. Barry, Andrew Gladfelter, and Brendan Lantz.  2014.  Paying Restitution: An Experimental Analysis of the Effects of Information and Rationale.  Criminology & Public Policy, 13, 405-436.  (Included in the National Institute of Justice’s CrimeSolutions.gov repository of evidence-based justice programs)
  • Forste, Renata and Wade C. Jacobsen. 2013. “Divorced Mothers and Higher Education in Utah.” Marriage & Family Review 49(4): 330-348. 

Former Students (2013-2016)

  • Frisco, Michelle L., Marin R. Wenger, and Derek A. Kreager. Forthcoming. “Extradyadic Sex and Union Dissolution among Married and Cohabiting Young Adults.” Social Science Research.
  • Gladfelter, Andrew, R. Barry Ruback. Forthcoming. “Victims’ Needs and Restorative Justice.  Forthcoming in C. Robertson (Ed.) Handbook on Victims Issues in Criminal Justice.  New York: Taylor & Francis/Routledge.
  • Becker, Jacob. 2016. “The Dynamics of Neighborhood Structural Conditions: The Effects of Concentrated Disadvantage on Homicide over Time and Space.” City & Community 15:64-82.
  • Light, Michael T. and Jeffery T. Ulmer. 2016. “Explaining the Gaps in White, Black and Hispanic Violence Since 1990: Accounting for Immigration, Incarceration, and Inequality.” American Sociological Review 81(2):290-315.
  • Light, Michael T. 2016. “The Punishment Consequences of Lacking National Membership in Germany, 1998-2010.” Social Forces 94: 1385-1408. 
  • Kreager, Derek A., Daniel Ragan, Holly Nguyen, and Jeremy Staff. 2016. “When Onset Meets Desistance: Cognitive Transformation and Adolescent Delinquency Experimentation.” Journal of Developmental and Life Course Criminology 2:135-161.
  • Light, Michael and John Iceland. 2016. “The Social Context of Racial Boundary Negotiations: Segregation, Hate Crime, and Hispanic Racial Identification in Metropolitan America.” Sociological Science 3:61-84.
  • Painter-Davis, Noah. 2016. “Immigration Effects on Violence Contextualized The Role of Immigrant Destination Type and Race/Ethnicity.” Sociological Perspectives 59: 130-152
  • Silver, Eric and Leslie Abell. 2016. “Beyond Harm and Fairness: A Study of Deviance and Morality.” Deviant Behavior 37:496-508.
  • Ulmer, Jeffery T., Noah Painter-Davis, and Leigh Tinik. 2016. “Disproportional Imprisonment of Black and Hispanic Males:  Sentencing Discretion, Processing Outcomes, and Policy Structures.” Justice Quarterly 33(4):642-681.  
  • Cundiff, Patrick, and Duane F. Alwin. 2015. “Changing Beliefs about Crime and Punishment in American Society.” Journal of Law and Criminal Justice 3: 49-66.
  • Harris, Casey T., Jeff Gruenewald, and Noah PainterDavis. 2015. “Hispanic Immigration and Black Violence at the Macro‐Level: Examining the Conditioning Effect of Victim Race/Ethnicity.” Sociological Forum 30:62-82.
  • Warner, Cody. 2015. “On the Move: Incarceration, Race, and Residential Mobility.” Social Science Research 52:451-64.
  • Steffensmeier, Darrell, Casey T. Harris, and Noah Painter-Davis. 2015. “Gender and Arrests for Larceny, Fraud, Forgery, and Embezzlement: Conventional or Occupational Property Crime Offenders?” Journal of Criminal Justice 43: 205-217.
  • Felson, Richard B. and Patrick Cundiff. 2014. “Sexual Assault as a Crime Against Young People.” Archives of Sexual Behavior 43: 273 -284.
  • Graif, Corina, Andrew S. Gladfelter, and Stephen A. Matthews. 2014. “Urban Poverty and Neighborhood Effects on Crime: Incorporating Spatial and Network Perspectives”. Sociology Compass 8: 1140–1155.
  • Light, Michael T., Michael Massoglia, and Ryan D. King. 2014. “Citizenship and Punishment: The Salience of National Membership in U.S. Criminal Courts.” American Sociological Review 79: 825-847.  
  • Light, Michael T. 2014. “The New Face of Legal Inequality: Noncitizens and the Long-Term Trends in Sentencing Disparities across U.S. District Courts, 1992-2009.” Law & Society Review 48: 447-478.
  • Osgood, D. Wayne, Mark E. Feinberg, Lacey N. Wallace, & James Moody. 2014. “Group position and substance use.”  Addictive Behaviors 39: 923-933.
  • Ragan, Daniel.  2014.  Revisiting “what they think”:  Adolescent drinking and the importance of peer beliefs.  Criminology 52:488-513.
  • Ragan, Daniel, D. Wayne Osgood, and Mark Feinberg.  2014.  Friends as a bridge to parental influence:  Implications for adolescent alcohol use.  Social Forces 92:1061-1085.
  • Remster, Brianna. 2014. “Self-Control and the Depression-Delinquency Link.” Deviant Behavior 35:66-84.
  • Ruback, R. Barry, Valerie Clark, and Cody Warner.  2014.  “Why are Crime Victims at Risk of Being Victimized Again?  Substance Use, Depression, and Offending as Mediators of the Victimization-revictimization Link.”  Journal of Interpersonal Violence29:157-185. Siennick, Sonja, Jeremy Staff, D. Wayne Osgood, John E. Schulenberg, Jerald G. Bachman, and Matthew VanEseltine. 2014. “Partnership Transitions and Antisocial Behavior in Young Adulthood: A Within-Person, Multi-Cohort Analysis.”  Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 51:735-758.
  • Siennick, Sonja, Eric A. Stewart, and Jeremy Staff.  2014. “Explaining the Association between Incarceration and Divorce.” Criminology 52:371-398.
  • Warner, Cody. and John D. McCarthy. 2014. “Whatever Can Go Wrong Will: Situational Complexity and Public Order Policing”. Policing and Society 24:566-587.
  • Burchfield, Keri and Eric Silver. 2013. “Collective Efficacy and Crime in Los Angeles Neighborhoods: Implications for the Latino Paradox.” Sociological Inquiry 83:154-176.
  • Cundiff, Patrick. 2013. “Ordered Delinquency? The “Effects” of Birth Order on Delinquency.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 39:1017-1029.
  • Felson, Richard B. and Luke Bonkiewicz. 2013 “Guns and Trafficking in Crack Cocaine and Other Drug Markets.”   Crime & Delinquency 59: 319-343.  
  • Firebaugh, Glenn, Cody Warner, and Michael Massoglia. 2013. “Fixed Effects, Random Effects, and Hybrid Models for Causal Analysis.” Pp. 113-132 in Handbook of Causal Analysis for Social Research (Stephen Morgan, Editor). New York: Springer.
  • Harris, Casey and Ben Feldmeyer. 2013. “Latino Immigration and White, Black, and Latino Violent Crime: A Comparison of Traditional and Non-Traditional Immigrant Destinations.” Social Science Research 42:202-16.
  • Kreager, Derek A., Richard Felson, Cody Warner, and Marin R. Wenger. 2013. “Women’s Education, Marital Violence, and Divorce: A Social Exchange Perspective.” Journal of Marriage and Family 75:565-581.
  • Massoglia, Michael, Glenn Firebaugh, and Cody Warner. 2013. “Racial Variation in the Effect of Incarceration on Neighborhood Attainment.” American Sociological Review 78:142-165.
  • Osgood, D. Wayne, Mark E. Feinberg, Scott D. Gest, James Moody, Daniel T. Ragan, Richard Spoth, Mark Greenberg, and Cleve Redmond. 2013. “Network Effects of PROSPER on the Influence Potential of Prosocial versus Antisocial Youth. Journal of Adolescent Health 53: 174-179.
  • Osgood, D. Wayne, Daniel T. RaganLacey Wallace, Scott D. Gest, Mark E. Feinberg, and James Moody. 2013.  “Peers and the Emergence of Alcohol Use: Influence and Selection Processes in Adolescent Friendship Networks.” Journal of Research on Adolescence23(3): 500-512. Parks, Michael, D. Wayne Osgood, Richard B. Felson, Samantha Wells, and Kathryn Graham.  2013. “Third Party Involvement in Barroom Conflicts.”  Aggressive Behavior 257–268.
  • Staff, Jeremy, John Schulenberg, Jerald Bachman, Michael Parks, and Matthew VanEseltine. 2013. “Identifying Good and Bad Jobs in Adolescence.” Pp. 26-45 in Health and Safety of Young Workers: Proceedings of a U.S. and Canadian Series of Symposia. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Publication No. 2013-144.
  • Ulmer, Jeffery T. and Casey Harris.  2013. “Race and the Religious Contexts of Violence: Linking Religion and White, Black, and Latino Violent Crime.”  The Sociological Quarterly 54(4):610-646.