ABSTRACT Title of Document: the UTILITY OF
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ABSTRACT Title of Document: THE UTILITY OF DETERRENCE-BASED SANCTIONS IN THE PREVENTION OF VIOLENCE AGAINST ABORTION PROVIDERS: TESTING A BLENDED MODEL OF DETERRENCE AND BACKLASH Brad Bartholomew, Doctor of Philosophy, 2012 Directed by: Professor Gary LaFree Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice The American abortion debate has existed since the early 19 th century; however, the previous four decades have born witness to fundamental changes within the abortion opposition movement. Beginning in the 1970s, activists started to focus more of their attention on abortion providers. Soon thereafter, the traditionally peaceful protest activities of the activist movement began to share space with acts of harassment, arson, bombings, assaults, and even assassination. Today, abortion provider-related crime has become an unwelcome staple within the broader pro-life movement. In an attempt to prevent future attacks, state and federal legislatures have enacted a series of protection laws designed to raise the penalties associated with crimes against abortion providers. Despite the recent proliferation of these laws, their impact on abortion provider-related crime has seldom been the subject of rigorous empirical research. In this dissertation, I aim to address this shortcoming by using zero-inflated negative binomial regression modeling to present the first longitudinal test of the relationship between protection laws and abortion provider-related crime using incident- level data from 1975 to 2008, collected during a year-long research project at The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). The results of this study offer considerable support for the backlash hypothesis and the notion that traditional deterrence-based policy is often demonstrably unsuccessful in the prevention of this particular type of crime. Additionally, the findings suggest that not all protection laws are created equal with respect to their impact on crime. While state laws prohibiting minor forms of anti-abortion crime are shown to produce a backlash effect for crimes of harassment and vandalism, other types of state protection laws were shown to have no effect on crime whatsoever. Furthermore, the presence of the highly visible FACE Act is shown to generate similar increases for both major and minor crime types. THE UTILITY OF DETERRENCE-BASED SANCTIONS IN THE PREVENTION OF VIOLENCE AGAINST ABORTION PROVIDERS: TESTING A BLENDED MODEL OF DETERRENCE AND BACKLASH By Brad Bartholomew Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2012 Advisory Committee: Professor Gary LaFree, Chair Professor Laura Dugan Professor Josh Freilich Professor Mark Graber Professor Jean McGloin Professor Ray Paternoster © Copyright by Brad Bartholomew 2012 Acknowledgements Support for this research was provided by Grant N00140510629 from the Department of Homeland Security through the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. Any opinions or conclusions are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Homeland Security. As I approach the end of this endeavor, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge those who have played an important role, not only in shaping my abilities as an educator and scientist, but also for helping me to become a better person. I owe a great deal of thanks to Dr. Laura Dugan. She introduced me to the sub- field of terrorism studies and encouraged me to take the path less traveled. Moreover, I thank her for never being too busy to answer my questions and to help me gain a better understanding of crime research. To that end, I also owe thanks to Dr. Freilich, Dr. Graber, Dr. McGloin and Dr. Paternoster for comprising a truly outstanding dissertation committee. Thank you to Dr. LaFree. As a professor, dissertation chair and mentor, he provided me with invaluable instruction, advice as well as the opportunity to apply these lessons in my own research. Working with Dr. LaFree, I gained invaluable experience in data collection and in the management of my own research projects. Additionally, I would like to thank Gary for always making time to talk when I had questions. I feel as though he took an interest in my development as a researcher and for that, I am grateful. I would also like to thank my friends and family for their support and seemingly endless patience. Without you, I would not be here, and I would be a much different person. To Josh, I say thanks for being a great friend, regardless of our locations. The next round is on me. To Dave, thanks for being a great office mate and a better friend. You were always there to hear my concerns, both professional and personal. To Jaclyn, thanks for being a great running partner and friend. To Amanda, thank you for being there from the beginning and for supporting me all the way. Thank you to my parents for all of the late night phone calls and for knowing just when to offer that crucial bit of encouragement. Through your examples, I learned the values of public service, a strong work ethic and decency. Through your love and attention, I learned the value of family. Thank you. Thank you Marie, simply for being who you are, and for being in my life. Although this past year has proven extremely challenging in a number of ways, it has also, because of you, been one of the most joyous times in my life. Finally, I would like to thank START interns Mike Cross, Matt Deppe, Tarra Jackson, Joseph McCully, Maroulla Plangentis and Lauren Restivo for all of your coding assistance. Additional thanks to Sasha Prokopets and Ben Rosenbaum for all of your help in ensuring the quality and consistency of these data. Thanks to Elizabeth Nash at the Allen Guttmacher Institute for providing assistance with state and local protection laws, Sharon Lau at The National Abortion Federation, Ellen Gertzog at The Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Don Robinson of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, for making available to us, data on abortion-related crime. ii Table of Contents Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................. ii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... iii List of Tables ...................................................................................................................... v List of Figures .................................................................................................................... vi Chapter 1: Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1 Summary and Outline ..................................................................................................... 7 Chapter 2: Literature Review .............................................................................................. 9 Anti-Abortion Terrorism and the Low Utility of Uniform Classification ...................... 9 A Brief History of the Anti-Abortion Movement in the United States ......................... 11 Evolution in Protest Tactics (1973-2011) ................................................................. 13 Countermeasures ....................................................................................................... 19 Deterrence, Rational Choice and Crime ....................................................................... 21 Research on Sanction Severity .................................................................................. 22 Deterrence, Rational Choice and Political Violence ................................................. 24 Backlash, Substitution and Crime ................................................................................. 30 A Blended Model of Deterrence and Backlash ............................................................. 35 What it all means .......................................................................................................... 46 Chapter 3: Theoretical Models To Be Tested ................................................................... 51 Summary ....................................................................................................................... 56 Chapter 4: Data Collection Methodology ......................................................................... 57 Academic Chronologies ................................................................................................ 59 Government Terrorism and Criminal Databases .......................................................... 60 Reproductive Healthcare Advocacy Groups ................................................................. 61 Anti-Abortion Crime Data: Supplementary Procedures ............................................... 62 Database Strengths and Limitations.............................................................................. 66 Summary ....................................................................................................................... 69 Chapter 5: Statistical Methodology .................................................................................. 70 Unit of Analysis ............................................................................................................ 70 Construction of