JENN
TOSTLEBE

Biography

Dr. Jenn Tostlebe is an Assistant Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Nebraska Omaha and a Faculty Fellow at the Nebraska Center for Justice Research. She earned her PhD at the University of Colorado Boulder (Sociology) and received her B.A. and M.S. from Iowa State University.

Jenn has published in Criminology, Health & Justice, Homicide Studies, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, and Preventive Medicine, among other journals.

Research:

Her research interests include incarceration and restrictive housing, criminological theory, mental and physical health, gangs and criminal networks, and prison misconduct and recidivism post-release.

Jenn has been the project manager for a study investigating the impact of solitary confinement (and a step-down program) on prisoners and prisons in Oregon, which was funded by the Charles Koch Foundation. She has also worked as a graduate research assistant on a National Institute of Justice (NIJ) funded project examining gangs and prisoner reentry in Texas (The LoneStar Project), on a National Institutes of Health (NIH; The National Institute of Child Health & Human Development) funded project examining the sources of mortality risk among individuals identified in a police database as gang members, and on a Denver-based evaluation study of a Functional Family Therapy-Gangs (FFT-G) treatment program.

For her dissertation research, “The intersection of social states and individual characteristics: A longitudinal examination of the gang membership-psychopathic tendencies link and its association with offending,” Jenn was awarded The University of Colorado Boulder Graduate School Dissertation Completion Fellowship.

Teaching:

Jenn’s teaching interests include institutional corrections, criminological theory, quantitative methods, health and corrections, gangs and gang membership, research design, and juvenile justice and delinquency.

At the University of Nebraska Omaha, she teaches Survey of Corrections (undergraduate) and Advanced Seminar in Corrections (Doctoral).

At the University of Colorado Boulder, she was a Graduate Part Time Instructor (GPTI) for Introduction to Social Statistics and Crime & Society, and the teaching assistant for a variety of courses including Criminological Theory, Data 1 (Graduate Statistics), Deviant and Criminal Behavior, Gangs, Juvenile Justice and Delinquency, and Social Problems.

Featured Publication

Tostlebe, J. J., & Pyrooz, D. C. (2022). Procedural justice, legal orientations, and gang membership: Testing an alternative explanation to understand the gang–misconduct link. Criminology, 60(4), 700-739. [Link]

Abstract: A top priority of prison authorities is maintaining a safe and orderly institutional environment. Gangs are believed to impede this objective, warranting bespoke policies and practices. Drawing on the process-based model of regulation, we depart from orthodox explanations for the gang–misconduct link and argue that gang affiliates are treated less fairly than nongang affiliates owing to suppression-oriented administrative policies and harsher day-to-day interactions with officers, which, in turn, impact compliance. We use administrative and survey data sources based on a sample of 802 male prisoners and generalized structural equation modeling to examine whether procedural justice and legal orientations mediate the association between official classification of gang affiliation and self-reported misconduct. Our findings reveal partial support for the process-based model: procedural justice and legitimacy are poorer among gang than among nongang respondents but do not mediate the gang–misconduct link. The traditional pathway between procedural justice, legitimacy, and obligation to obey was observed, none of which were related to misconduct, standing in sharp contrast to the expectations of the process-based model. These findings suggest that factors other than procedural justice and legal orientations may be more relevant for rule violations among gangs, specifically, and within correctional environments, generally.

Links

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