Bryanna Fox

University of South Florida | USF · Department of Criminology

Among juvenile offenders, those who commit the greatest number and the most violent offenses are referred to as serious, violent, and chronic (SVC) offenders. However, current practices typically identify SVC offenders only after they have committed their prolific and costly offenses. While several studies have examined risk factors of SVCs, no scr...

This study evaluated the effect on burglary arrest rates when using statistically derived behavioral profiles for burglary offenses and offenders in active police investigations. To do this, an experiment was conducted where one police agency that used the profiles was compared with three matched police agencies that did not. Burglary arrest rates...

Developmental and life-course criminology (DLC) aims to identify the causes and correlates of offending over the life span, focusing on the within-individual variations that result in criminal and delinquent behavior. While DLC theories have been very successful and increasingly popular in the field of criminology, a key predictor of antisocial and...

Recent interest among criminologists on the construct of temperament has been fueled by DeLisi and Vaughn's (2014) temperament-based theory of antisocial behavior. Their theory suggests that core self-regulation capacity and negative emotionality are the most salient temperament features for understanding the emergence and maintenance of antisocial...

Purpose: Major advances in the fields of biology, genetics, neuroscience, and psychiatry have shown that many human behaviors are impacted by factors other than social influences. Still, the field of criminology has not incorporated these biological influences into any mainstream criminological theories, leaving a large divide between theories hold...

Preventing child sex trafficking remains an urgent concern for public health and criminal justice professionals. Using crime script analysis, this study identified a typology of child sex traffickers (CSTs). Data for this study were drawn from 78 child sex trafficking cases involving 54 CSTs and 48 victims of commercial sexual exploitation of child...

Despite the apparent ubiquity of prostitution over time and place, and legality of most other modern forms of sex work (e.g., erotic dancing, cam girls, entrepreneurial pornography), prostitution remains criminalized around most of the globe. In recent years there has been a push to reevaluate this stance, with new debates arising over the positive...

Research summary Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) is an increasingly popular violence and gun crime prevention program which aims to identify prolific violent offenders, and deter or incapacitate them from offending. While PSN programs generally show moderate effects on violence and gun crime reduction, questions remain about the magnitude and dura...

Offender profiling is an investigative tool used by police, consultants, and academics to identify the most likely personality, behavioral, and demographic characteristics that an offender will possess, based on an analysis of their crime scene behaviors. While offender profiling has been popularized by TV shows and movies such as Criminal Minds, S...

Psychopathy has been so consistently associated with numerous forms of violent antisocial behavior that it sometimes characterized as the unified theory of crime. Here we explicate empirical linkages between psychopathy and the most severe forms of crime including various manifestations of homicide offending (e.g., sexual homicide, serial murder, a...

Offender profiling has been used by law enforcement agencies around the world for decades. Following homicide, offenses involving sexual assault are the second most common type of crime examined in offender profiling. Profiling sex crimes has successfully assisted investigators to find and convict sexual offenders and to deter future crimes. In thi...

Mental health courts (MHCs) are increasingly used across the United States as a means of reducing contact with the criminal justice system for individuals experiencing serious mental health conditions. MHCs rely on diversion from incarceration to rehabilitation, services, and treatment to reduce recidivism and other negative outcomes among individu...

Researchers and practitioners have a need for valid and generalizable typologies of juvenile homicide offenders (JHOs) to better understand the heterogeneous nature of JHOs, and use this knowledge to inform prevention efforts. Prior studies of JHOs have typically utilized a clinical approach, which is rich in data but based on small nonrepresentati...

While there are a variety of statistical classification techniques available, the most prominent in the behavioral sciences are Cluster Analysis (CA), Multidimensional Scaling (MDS), and Latent Class Analysis (LCA). Researchers often rely on person-oriented statistical classification techniques to identify and understand the latent heterogeneity in...

Background There has been little research into whether personality traits increase vulnerability to serious forms of recurring victimisation, such as commercial sexual exploitation of young people. Aims To investigate whether impulsivity, emotional dysregulation or high psychopathy scale scores indicative of personality traits increase vulnerabili...

Runaway behavior is incredibly prevalent among youth and has been associated with a host of negative distal outcomes to include repeat running, victimization, and future offending. Notably, girls run away at higher frequencies than boys, and the experiences, motivations, and effects of running away appear to vary by gender. However, relatively litt...

Introduction Increasing amounts of time using digital media (i.e., texting, social media, electronic gaming, and general smartphone and computer use) among children and adolescents is becoming a growing concern given its potentially deleterious effects on health. However, little is known about the social and developmental underpinnings of digital m...

Criminological inquiry has identified a range of risk factors associated with juvenile delinquency. However, little research has assessed juvenile computer hacking, despite the substantial harm and opportunities for delinquent behavior online. Therefore, understanding the applicability of criminological risk factors among a cross-national sample of...

Psychopathy is of great interest to criminologists, given its consistent association with violence, offending, and antisocial behavior. However, the etiology of psychopathy, particularly in terms of a gene × environment (G×E) interaction, has had little examination in the literature. One study has examined the direct and interactive effects of two...

Considerable research has examined risk factors for offending, but far less is known on the constellations of co-occurring risk factors, such as adverse childhood experiences and low self-control, and the overall continuity in risk between childhood/adolescence and adulthood. Using data on 735 adults incarcerated in a county jail in Florida, this s...

This study draws upon the labeling perspective to examine whether there are patterns of continuity and/or change in the severity of juvenile court dispositions, and if these patterns vary by race/ethnicity. Using data on youth referred five times to the Pennsylvania Department of Juvenile Justice between 2000 and 2010 (n = 9089), we examine the pre...

In an era of unprecedented technological accessibility coupled with the possibility of online anonymity, human traffickers often operate in the shadows – avoiding interference by typical societal safeguards and law enforcement. This chapter highlights challenges to combatting human trafficking due to the widespread use of mobile technology and the...

Anderson’s Code of the Street thesis suggests that stronger belief in, and adherence to, subcultural “street code” norms increases the risk of criminal and aggressive behaviors, particularly among adolescents and young adults in urban communities. This study uses a meta-analysis to assess the overall relationship between individual belief in the st...

Objectives To assess whether the relationship between legitimacy and police empowerment is sensitive to the operationalization of legitimacy, and whether the effects of legitimacy and its components on empowerment are invariant. Empowerment is examined in the context of police militarization—public support for the discretionary use of surplus milit...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to outline the specific details and lessons learned during a cold case collaborative effort, which granted graduate students and a professor from the University of South Florida the opportunity to assist Pasco Sheriff’s Office in the investigation of a cold case homicide. Methodology The collaboration between l...

The current policing landscape has seen the rise in serious and organized crime across the globe. Criminals are innovating in real-time leveraging cyber, social media, enhanced surveillance to support their activities. In so doing, the criminal landscape has become transnational whereby collaborative networks have flourished thereby creating greate...

Background: A large body of research has examined the relationship between victimization and future offending, with results suggesting that crime victims are at higher risk of future criminal behavior-known as the victim-offender overlap. Prior studies have primarily examined the relationship between general victimization (e.g., violent victimizat...

Purpose The legitimacy crisis faced by law enforcement has been suggested to be the result of a new media environment where citizens can record encounters with police and place these recordings online. The purpose of this paper is to examine the motives of individuals who cop-watch, or record the police, but not the factors influencing visiting cop...

Many runaway youth experience an overabundance of negative life events before, during, and after running away from caregivers. In order to better understand, prevent, and treat adolescent runaways based upon the unique experiences they endure, researchers have created typologies of runaway youth. Building on previous research, this study developed...

Purpose: The procedural justice model of legal socialization holds that perceptions of unfair treatment by legal authorities foster cynicism toward the law. Subcultural theories argue negative perceptions of those same authorities, and resulting cynicism toward the law, also foster belief in antisocial norms. The current study considers the overlap...

This study examines the effects of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on the risk of internalizing or externalizing outcomes among juveniles. While myriad research has investigated the impacts of ACEs on internalizing and externalizing outcomes, it is unclear whether ACEs have a stronger link to one outcome over the other when controlling for oth...

Purpose Despite increased scholarly inquiry regarding intelligence-led policing (ILP) and popularity among law enforcement agencies around the globe, ambiguity remains regarding the conceptual foundation and appropriate measurement of ILP. Although most scholars agree that ILP is indeed a unique policing philosophy, there is less consensus regardin...

For five decades, law enforcement agencies have developed specialized units, such as Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams, for dealing with dangerous situations. In recent years, the uses of SWAT have expanded to a number of circumstances. The President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing noted that improper use of SWAT may damage the publics...

In the 4 decades since offender profiling (OP) was established, hundreds of journal articles, books, book chapters, reports, and magazine articles have been published on the topic, and the technique has been used by countless law enforcement agencies around the globe. However, despite the popularity and extensive literature published on OP, very li...

Suicide is the leading cause of death for incarcerated youth, and up to half of all juveniles in confinement experience suicidal ideation in addition to other psychopathology, including psychopathic personality features. Unfortunately, limited research has investigated the psychopathy-suicidality link among juvenile delinquents and using newer psyc...

The process-based model dominates contemporary American research on police-community relations and perceptions of police. A sizable literature has examined the linkages between procedural justice, legitimacy, compliance with the law, and cooperation with police. Less examined is the relationship between legitimacy and public empowerment of police....

Despite cultural notions that psychopathy and homicide arestrongly linked, there has not been a quantitative meta-analytic review of the association between psychopathy and homicide offending. The current study meta-analyzed data from 29 unique samples from 22 studies that included 2,603 homicide offenders, and found that the mean psychopathy score...

Purpose Research indicates that a link exists between resting heart rate (RHR) and various forms of antisocial, violent and criminal behavior among community and criminal samples. However, the relationship between RHR and engagement in aggressive/violent encounters among law enforcement has not yet been examined. The purpose of this paper is to exa...

Previous empirical inquiries into the etiology of juvenile sex offending have been largely atheoretical. Consequently, a call for studies conducted utilizing developmental and life-course (DLC) criminological theory has been made to better understand the onset, development, risk, and protective factors of juvenile sex offending. Therefore, this stu...

The rhetoric, rumor, and hostility that surrounded the election of Barack Obama in 2008 appeared to correspond with the notion of a “moral panic.” However, systematically measuring phenomena like moral panics, which are volatile and dispersed in nature, can be difficult. This paper utilizes Google search data combined with other sources to examine...

Purpose The events in Ferguson, MO in 2014 renewed national attention to the issue of militarization of law enforcement. Despite scrutiny from policymakers and community stakeholders, little is known regarding the public's opinion on police militarization (PM), or the factors shaping these views. This problem is magnified because individuals may su...

This study examines public perceptions of police militarization, specifically whether individuals believe police are too militarized, and support for practices associated with militarization. Drawing on concepts found in the legal socialization literature—legitimacy and legal cynicism—the current study tests hypotheses regarding whether these const...

This chapter describes the history and use of SWAT teams, the use of DHS grant money, and the Pentagon’s 1033 Program to allow police departments (PDs) across the country to acquire military-grade equipment and weaponry in a practice otherwise known as police militarization. In this chapter, the history of police militarization is reviewed, along w...

This chapter provides an overview of the study on support for PM by key stakeholders of the practice, the results of which are presented in the remaining chapters of this book. Specifically, this chapter provides a detailed description of the data collection procedures, sampling technique, measures used in the study, and the research questions addr...

The purpose of this chapter is to present additional context and background on American law enforcement, police militarization (PM), and the gradual blurring of the lines between police and the military. To begin, a timeline of events and the background on PM is provided, followed by a discussion of the historical events and policies supporting PM....

This chapter addresses the second research question, whether significant differences exist in the level of support for PM among policymakers and practitioners. To assess if there was any significant variation in support for PM among the key stakeholders, a series of chi-square tests, ANOVAs, and the PSM quasi-experimental analytical technique were...

Some research and popular belief suggests that certain demographic traits moderate an individuals’ support for policing practices, to include PM. Therefore, this chapter addresses the third research question and includes examination of the effect of demographic features on support for each aspect of PM using a variety of regression and PSM analyses...

The study highlighted in this book was conducted to examine the support for PM by the key stakeholders of the practice, to include members of the 114th Congress U.S. House of Representatives, police executives, and police officers in the United States. This chapter includes a review of the findings from the study, key takeaways, practical and theor...

This chapter includes discussion of the trends in PM and research on public perceptions of the practice. Only a small number of studies have measured the public’s attitudes about PM and trends in the practice, which are reviewed in this chapter. Finally, advances in technology that have contributed to PM in the United States are also discussed.

This Brief examines the “militarization” of law enforcement in the United States through the lens of the stakeholders primarily responsible for implementing, funding, and enacting the practice. Largely a result of policies such as the war on drugs, war on terror, and the 1033 program, there has been a gradual but dramatic rise in the use of militar...

Bullying is a serious social problem with far-reaching consequences that impact many aspects of the criminal justice system. Efforts to prevent bullying through various prevention and intervention programs have shown positive effects in reducing both bullying and victimization. These results vary, though, by the design and components of the bullyin...

Despite the dramatic rise in use of militarized weapons, equipment, and tactics by police departments across the nation, no study has examined the opinions of those responsible for designing, funding, and implementing police militarization in the United States. Therefore, this study collected and analyzed opinion data from 465 key stakeholders from...

Although juvenile sex offenders (JSOs) are a pressing topic among researchers and juvenile justice practitioners, empirically driven typologies of JSOs using U.S. data are lacking. Here, we develop the first statistical typology of male and female JSOs using data from the United States selected from a sample of 4,143 JSOs referred to the Florida De...

Purpose: This research evaluates the ability of a comprehensive set of covariates to distinguish and predict juvenile sex offenders (JSOs) from non-sexual juvenile offenders (NSJOs) using demographic traits, criminality covariates, childhood trauma, and psychopathologies in a sample of male and female juvenile offenders in the United States. Method...

This study evaluates the behavioral consistency in offending styles among a sample of serial burglars from the United States. Three popular specialization analyses—Jaccard’s coefficient, the forward specialization coefficient (FSC), and the Diversity (D) index—are used to compare if, and how much, variation exists in the behavior of serial burglars...

Much research has examined Moffitt's developmental taxonomy, focusing almost exclusively on the distinction between life-course persistent and adolescence-limited offenders. Of interest, a handful of studies have identified a group of individuals whose early childhood years were marked by extensive antisocial behavior but who seemed to recover and...

Sex offenders are often considered as a homogenous group of offenders when, in fact, there is considerable heterogeneity in this population. As such, with recognition of the relevance of measuring sex offending behavior, the purpose of this chapter is to provide a review of the various types and typologies of sex offenders, summarize the theoretica...

Developmental and life-course (DLC) theories of crime aim to identify the causes and correlates of offending over the life span, focusing on the within-individual variations that result in criminal and delinquent behavior. Although there are several notable theories in the field, few contain both developmental and situational factors related to off...

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is among the most well-known, respected, and powerful law enforcement agencies in the world. Still, much of its history, priorities, and most infamous cases remain unknown to most of the public. This entry discusses the origins and rise of the FBI, highlighting the cases and social changes that led to the B...

Purpose There have been a number of prior studies that have investigated the relationship between tattoos and crime with most documenting evidence of an association. Specifically, prior research often suggests that individuals with tattoos commit more crime, are disproportionately concentrated in offender and institutionalized populations, and ofte...

Understanding how to properly present and discuss the methods and results from an empirical study is an essential skill for researchers in any field of work. The methodology and results sections are often considered the most important parts of a manuscript, as the information in these sections are what readers use to evaluate the quality, validity,...

This research creates a new criminal profile for burglary by establishing the link among certain offender traits, past criminal behavior, and crime scene features. Utilizing latent class analysis (LCA) to identify underlying groups within the offender and offense characteristics, the relationship between certain offense styles and the most likely o...

This article investigates the effects of target characteristics on non-residential burglary sighting risks, and evaluates a sighting model framed by criminal event theories. It is based on a random sample of individual UK burglary incidents for which data were collected from officer questionnaires, victim interviews, site surveys and police records...

Bullying prevention programs have been shown to be generally effective in reducing bullying and victimization. However, the effects are relatively small in randomized experiments and greater in quasi-experimental and age-cohort designs. Programs that are more intensive and of longer duration (for both children and teachers) are more effective, as a...

It is often assumed that the religious culture of a state can shape policies within the state, particularly concerning morality issues such as abortion or homosexuality. However, the precise manner in which religion shapes these policies has not been clearly specified. Drawing from social movements and policy literature, we argue that the influence...