Criminology/Domestic Violence

For the past three years Drs. Wright, Jasinski and Mustaine have been collecting data for the National Institute of Justice Sponsored Florida Four City Survey. This study examines the experiences of violence among a sample of approximately 800 women in four large metropolitan cities in Florida. Data from a comparison sample of about 100 men were also collected. Initial analyses have found that an extremely large proportion of the men and women in this project have been victimized in their lifetime.

Dr. Jason Ford has been studying the relationship between substance use and delinquency during adolescence and has found that substance use leads to stable patterns in offending behavior over time. He is also trying to find out whether or not higher education functions as a turning point in the life-course, leading to desistance from criminal behavior.

Dr.'s Huff-Corzine and Corzine (along with several colleagues from around the country) are working on a textbook titled Pathways to Murder that will offer a comprehensive overview of homicide as a social phenomenon in the contemporary United States while also making a systematic effort to dispel common myths about homicide. The title indicates the primary contention of the book, namely that murder can be the end product of many different sequences of social interactions and is often a byproduct of otherwise normal activities.