Current Research Agenda

Guided by my passion for criminological theory construction and theory testing and my commitment to issues of social justice, my current research primarily explores the effects of global neoliberalization on cross-national rates of violent crime.  Since the 1970s, governments worldwide have adapted to growing post-industrial economic instability by way of instituting neoliberal economic and social policies, which necessitate the retrenchment of social welfare programs. This neoliberal restructuring has often involved the dissolution of the social and economic safety nets upon which the citizens of many countries have depended and has coincided with an increase in global levels of unemployment, poverty, and inequality.  I am interested in investigating the relationship between both these deleterious economic conditions and the neoliberal shifts in social welfare policy and rates of criminal behavior in a variety of political contexts, including western democratic and post-communist countries.  Additionally, I am interested in the relationship between crime and public perceptions of social justice in the wake of welfare retrenchment.  As a quantitative researcher with a passion for criminological theory, my exploration of these issues has incorporated multilevel and longitudinal tests of theories whose concepts are hypothesized to buffer the harmful effects of economic deprivation on criminal offending [including, but not limited to, Messner and Rosenfeld’s (1993) institutional anomie theory and Cullen’s (1994) social support theory].  This line of research has also led to the development of an original theory of crime, which integrates theories of social justice into an elaboration of social support theories and serves as the basis for my dissertation project.

Dissertation Research

My dissertation, entitled An Elaboration and Reformulation of Social Support Theories of Crime: Conditioned Social Support Theory, presents and tests an original theoretical elaboration of social support theories of crime. Originally presented by Cullen (1994) as an organizing framework for the field of criminology, social support theory hypothesizes that social support is negatively associated with crime.  Although extant criminological research offers evidence of social support’s dampening effect on crime, there is some evidence to suggest that social support does not work to prevent crime in all contexts—for instance, the post-communist context.  The theory developed and explicated in my dissertation, conditioned social support theory (from here, CSST), works to account for these empirical discrepancies.  As Cullen’s (1994) original formulation of social support theory suggests that the manner in which recipients interpret social support may influence the effectiveness of supports in preventing crime, CSST integrates insights gained through research associated with theories of distributive justice to elaborate and reformulate the theory.  In short, CSST proposes that the negative association between social support and crime is moderated by the perceptions of support recipients concerning the source(s) of social support and the conditions surrounding its receipt.  That is, perceptions of political and economic justice are posited to condition the effects of social support on crime. 

Basic Causal Model: Conditioned Social Support Theory

Basic Causal Model: Conditioned Social Support Theory

In addition to the elucidation of my original theory, my dissertation also includes a cross-national test of my original theory across Western and Eastern European countries, using multilevel regression techniques to analyze region-level and country-level data collected via the European Union’s Eurostat data archives and individual-level data available through the European Values Survey.  My empirical test of CSST is divided into two chapters, as I test the power of CSST to predict both criminal behavior, operationalized via a region-level homicide rate, and pro-social behavior, operationalized via a region-level measure of volunteer activity.  Results of random effects regression analyses offer mixed support for CSST. While social support is not directly related to either crime or prosocial behavior in the theoretically predicted directions, the perceptions of the source of support and perceptions of the conditions under which it is received are found to moderate the effect of social support on crime and prosocial behavior; however, the moderating influences of these perception measures are found to vary across sociopolitical contexts.

 

Future Research

In the future, I hope to expand this line of work detailed above in a variety of ways, including the development of a longitudinal test of CSST, expanding my research sample to include the United States and other western democracies.  I also plan to continue my investigations into the relationship between crime and public perceptions of inequality and social injustice in varied political contexts, including Central and Eastern Europe. As my work with Professor Charles R. Tittle and his research team has allowed me to gain insight into the feasibility of conducting international survey research, I am optimistic that I will be able to procure the appropriate funding and incorporate the development and implementation of a survey aimed at measuring public perceptions of social justice in one or more Eastern European countries into this line of work. I would pursue support from granting agencies and foundations such as NSF’s young investigator award and the Harry F. Guggenheim foundation.

Publications

Journal Articles

Perdue, Robert Todd, James Hawdon, and Kelly M. Thames. 2018. “Can Big Data Predict the Rise of Novel Drug Abuse?” The Journal of Drug Issues. DOI: 10.1177/0022042618772294.

Thames, Kelly M. and Patricia L. McCall. 2014. “A Longitudinal Examination of the Effects of Social Support on Homicide Across European Regions.” International Journal of Conflict and Violence 8:234-261.

Ray, Bradley, Cindy B. Dollar, and Kelly M. Thames. 2011. “Observations of Reintegrative Shaming in a Mental Health Court.” International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 34:49-55. 

Chapters in Edited Volumes

McCall, Patricia L., Paul Nieuwbeerta, Rodney L. Engen, and Kelly M. Thames. 2011.  “Explaining Variation in Homicide Rates across Eastern and Western European Cities: The Effects of Social and Economic Forces." In Marieke Liem and William A. Pridemore (eds.) Homicide Research in Europe. Springer. 

Manuscripts Under Review

Russell, David, Naomi Spence, and Kelly M. Thames. “‘It's So Scary How Common This is Now:’ Frames in Media Coverage of the Opioid Epidemic by Ohio Newspapers and Themes in Facebook User Reactions.” In Revise and Resubmit Status at Information, Communication, and Society

Manuscripts in Preparation

Thames, Kelly M.  “An Elaboration and Reformulation of Social Support Theories of Crime: Conditioned Social Support Theory.”

Thames, Kelly M., David Russell, and Naomi Spence. “Public Policy

Perdue, Robert Todd, Kelly M. Thames, and James Hawdon. “Gateway or Cul De Sac? Legal Recreational Marijuana and Changes in the Use of ‘Hard’ Drugs".”

Thames, Kelly M. “A Cross-National Test of Conditioned Social Support Theory of Crime”

Thames, Kelly M. “Social Support, Social Justice Perceptions, and Pro-Social Behavior in Western and Eastern European Contexts”

Thames, Kelly M. “Universal World Polity, Structural Inequality, or Regionalization? The Structure of the Gender-Oriented INGO Network”