Date of Award

7-1-2000

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Criminology and Criminal Justice

First Advisor

Dr. Edward R. Maguire

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore a police/probation collaboration in a large Western police department. While many of these collaborative approaches to crime and disorder have been formed, there has been scant empirical research conducted on their effectiveness. As such, this study explores the implementation and impact of a formal collaboration on both the police and probation departments, the juveniles targeted by the collaboration and the local juvenile justice system. In addition, this thesis addresses whether police and probation departments can maintain coordinating relationships to equitably, efficiently and effectively control delinquency in one Western city. This study is mainly qualitative in that observations and unstructured interviews provide most of the data. This qualitative analysis is based on 105 hours of fieldwork and 34 unstructured interviews between January 26, 2000 and February 10, 2000. Quantitative agency data were also collected for descriptive analyses of the program’s selection process, as well as the types of juveniles participating in the program. The findings from this study suggest that the police/probation collaboration in Doggington operates inside an exchange system. As such, the collaboration has mended strained relationships between the police and probation departments. In addition, the collaboration is impacting both the juveniles participating in the program, as well as the local juvenile justice system. The analysis of Doggington’s police/probation collaboration provides an excellent example of how two interdependent criminal justice agencies dealt with their conflicting ideologies and effectively coordinated in order to produce what appear to be equitable, efficient, and, possibly, effective results.

Comments

A Thesis Presented to the Department of Criminal Justice and the Faculty of the Graduate College University of Nebraska at Omaha In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts University of Nebraska at Omaha. Copyright Kimberly D. Hassell July, 2000

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