Theses and Dissertations at Montana State University (MSU)
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/733
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Item Implementing peer conducted mental health and wellness checks in rural law enforcement: a quality improvement project(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Nursing, 2023) Feltz, Cheyenne Jae; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Molly SecorBackground and purpose: Law enforcement officers in the United States are at a significantly increased risk of suicide and mental health challenges, accompanied with increased perceptions of stigma that limits mental health resource utilization. These trends are even more prominent among rural law enforcement officers compared to their urban counterparts. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to assist a rural law enforcement detachment in decreasing mental health stigma through implementation of peer conducted mental health and wellness check-ins. Methods: Baseline and progressive trends of stigma were assessed through the Attitudes About Mental Illness and its Treatment Scale (AMIS) following implementation of peer conducted proactive mental health support check-ins in the detachment. Intervention: This project utilized peer support law enforcement members to facilitate scheduled check-in's and discuss predetermined mental health topics while facilitating access of additional resources and education that could improve health outcomes. Results: A small rural law enforcement detachment conducted peer facilitated mental health and wellness checks with its full team of six team members. Evaluation of the AMIS assessments and personal feedback indicated that these meetings decreased reports of stigma and increased open discussion of mental health issues. Conclusion: Conclusive support for this intervention cannot be ascertained due to the small sample size and short duration of evaluation. However, this initiative indicates a framework for initiating similar processes in other areas and reveals a promising acceptance and trend of utilization and support by involved law enforcement members.Item Is sharing really caring? Estimating the effects of federal asset forfeiture revenue sharing on local policing outcomes(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 2023) Buzzard, Jadon Jediah; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Isaac SwensenCivil asset forfeiture, whereby police agencies may profit from seized assets without a criminal conviction, is a contentious practice. Despite high-profile instances of abuse, law enforcement has made strong claims that forfeiture provides a critical funding mechanism for police departments. This paper offers a unique strategy to identify the causal relationship between asset forfeiture revenue and local policing outcomes, measured by crime reports and clearances (a standard proxy for police effort). I estimate the impact of a temporary suspension of Equitable Sharing, a program allowing local police agencies to financially benefit from asset forfeitures done in collaboration with federal law enforcement. The suspension was a plausibly exogenous shock to the forfeiture revenue received by participating police agencies. I exploit pre-suspension variation in program participation to study this interruption as a quasi-experiment; using a difference-in-differences design, my model estimates the differential impact of the suspension on participating agencies (treated) relative to non-participating agencies (control). My results indicate that the suspension led to a 4.7% increase in the number of violent crimes reported within participating agency jurisdictions relative to the baseline mean, but it also offers suggestive evidence of a small (2.5%) decrease in property crime reports as a result of the suspension. These effects appear to cancel out, producing a consistent null effect on total crime reports. While my results for violent crime are quite robust, the results for property crimes are more sensitive to model specification. My results for crime clearances also turn out to be inconclusive; as such, further research is required to determine whether the suspension's impact on crime reports stems from a change in police effort or an alternative explanatory mechanism.Item Steady hammer: origins of American counterterrorism in the dime novel world of William J. Flynn(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2020) Roberts, Brent Sidney; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Robert RydellThis dissertation traces the life and times of William J. Flynn (1867-1928) as a means of understanding popular attitudes toward anarchism and terrorism, as well as expectations for protection from these forces, at the dawn of the twentieth century. Flynn was constantly at the nexus of law enforcement, serving as jailkeeper in the New York County correctional system; as agent, regional director, and national director of the U.S. Secret Service; and as director of the Bureau of Investigation. He also led a creative literary life, penning memoirs of his cases as novels and newspaper serials, and writing stories and editing a detective fiction magazine after his retirement from government service. Drawing on theories of popular culture of Russel Nye, as well as concepts of power and discourse of Michel Foucault, this study examined Flynn's literary works, historical documents from the Secret Service, Bureau of Investigation, and U.S. Railroad Administration, and popular dime novels to capture public perception of anarchists and expectations for protection from the terrorist threat. Anarchists were portrayed generally as unclean and often of foreign origin, while counter-anarchists appeared as capable, sharp-witted, affluent men and women. Temporality forms an important aspect of the study, demonstrating that Flynn's counterterrorist approach, as well as expectations for protection from terrorist violence, were rooted in elements of time. In a period when most detective work was financed by private individuals, Flynn built an identity for himself as a competent public official, and more importantly through his work and writings established the federal government as the primary entity capable of meeting the demands of protecting American citizens in the early twentieth century. Following retirement, Flynn continued his literary endeavors, always blurring the line between fact and fiction, generally cloaking his own adventures, all worthy of dime novels themselves, with a veneer of fiction.Item Consolidation of law enforcement services : an overview and analysis of the Montana experience(Montana State University - Bozeman, 1982) Wingard, Michael Lee