David Maimon

Collective efficacy, family attachment, and urban adolescent suicide attempts.

The suicide rate among American adolescents between the ages of 14–25 has dramatically increased during the last 50 years, and this fact has been the focus of extensive social-scientific investigation. To date, however, research focusing on the joint effects of mental health, family, and contextual-level predictors on adolescents’ suicidal behaviors is scarce. Drawing on Durkheim’s classic macro-level approach to suicide and collective efficacy theory, we use data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) to examine the effect of informal social controls on adolescents’ suicide attempts. Analyzing reports from 990 youth, we examine the hypothesis that neighborhood-level collective efficacy and family-level integration and social control independently affect suicide attempts. We also examine the extent to which they interact in their effects on suicidal behavior. Overall, results from multilevel logit models support the Durkheimian expectation that family attachment reduces the probability that adolescents will attempt suicide. The effect of collective efficacy is interactive in nature. Specifically, we find that collective efficacy significantly enhances the protective effect of family attachment and support on adolescent suicidal behaviors. We discuss findings within the context of social control theory.

Neighborhood Context and Mental Health

In this chapter, we provide a critical overview of research concerning the association between neighborhood context and mental health. Along the way, we address several fundamental questions. What is neighborhood context, and how is it measured and analyzed? What is the nature and extent of the association between neighborhood context and mental health? Why might neighborhood context contribute to mental health? Are certain groups of people more or less vulnerable to the psychological consequences of neighborhood context? To answer these questions, we describe common indicators of neighborhood context, note typical methods of analysis, summarize associations with a range of mental health outcomes, and discuss several viable mediation and moderation processes. Our primary mediation model suggests that the subjective neighborhood experience is essential to understanding the link between neighborhood context and mental health. We conclude by highlighting several important avenues for future research.

RESTRICTIVE DETERRENT EFFECTS OF A WARNING BANNER IN AN ATTACKED COMPUTER SYSTEM

System trespassing by computer intruders is a growing concern among millions of Internet users. However, little research has employed criminological insights to explore the effectiveness of security means to deter unauthorized access to computer systems. Drawing on the deterrence perspective, we employ a large set of target computers built for the sole purpose of being attacked and conduct two independent experiments to investigate the influence of a warning banner on the progression, frequency, and duration of system trespassing incidents. In both experiments, the target computers (86 computers in the first experiment and 502 computers in the second) were set either to display or not to display a warning banner once intruders had successfully infiltrated the systems; 1,058 trespassing incidents were observed in the first experiment and 3,768 incidents in the second. The findings reveal that although a warning banner does not lead to an immediate termination or a reduction in the frequency of trespassing incidents, it significantly reduces their duration. Moreover, we find that the effect of a warning message on the duration of repeated trespassing incidents is attenuated in computers with a large bandwidth capacity. These findings emphasize the relevance of restrictive deterrence constructs in the study of system trespassing.

The Effect of a Surveillance Banner in an Attacked Computer System Additional Evidence for the Relevance of Restrictive Deterrence in Cyberspace

Objectives: Test whether the presence of a surveillance message on an attacked computer system influences system trespassers’ active engagement with the compromised system (i.e., entering computer commands). The hypothesized restrictive deterrent effect is tested both in the context of a first system trespassing incident and in the progression of repeated trespassing incidents in an attacked computer system. Methods: We designed a randomized controlled trial and deployed a series of virtual target computers with known vulnerabilities into the computer network of a large public university in the United States. The target computers were set to either display or not display a surveillance banner once system trespassers infiltrated them. Results: We find that the presence of a surveillance banner in the attacked computer systems reduced the probability of commands being typed in the system during longer first system trespassing incidents. Further, we find that the probability of commands being typed during subsequent system trespassing incidents (on the same target computer) is conditioned by the presence of a surveillance banner and by whether commands have been entered during previous trespassing incidents. Conclusions: These findings offer modest support for the application of restrictive deterrence in the study of system trespassing.

Illegal Roaming and File Manipulation on Target Computers

Research Summary The results of previous research indicate that the presentation of deterring situational stimuli in an attacked computing environment shapes system trespassers’ avoiding online behaviors during the progression of a system trespassing event. Nevertheless, none of these studies comprised an investigation of whether the effect of deterring cues influence system trespassers’ activities on the system. Moreover, no prior research has been aimed at exploring whether the effect of deterring cues is consistent across different types of system trespassers. We examine whether the effect of situational deterring cues in an attacked computer system influenced the likelihood of system trespassers engaging in active online behaviors on an attacked system, and whether this effect varies based on different levels of administrative privileges taken by system trespassers. By using data from a randomized experiment, we find that a situational deterring cue reduced the probability of system trespassers with fewer privileges on the attacked computer system (nonadministrative users) to enter activity commands. In contrast, the presence of these cues in the attacked system did not affect the probability of system trespassers with the highest level of privileges (administrative users) to enter these commands. Policy Implications In developing policies to curtail malicious online behavior committed by system trespassers, a “one-policy-fits-all” approach is often employed by information technology (IT) teams to protect their organizations. Our results suggest that although the use of a warning banner is effective in reducing the amount of harmful commands entered into a computer system by nonadministrative users, such a policy is ineffective in deterring trespassers who take over a network with administrative privileges. Accordingly, it is important to recognize that the effectiveness of deterring stimuli in cyberspace is largely dependent on the level of administrative privileges taken by the system trespasser when breaking into the system. These findings present the need for the development and implementation of flexible policies in deterring system trespassers.

A journey towards rigorous cybersecurity experiments: on the application of criminological theories

In this paper, we report some lessons learned on conducting empirical studies in cybersecurity. We first describe our attempts to obtain and process security data collected by other organizations. We then list the security data available for research at the University of Maryland and the research we have conducted using these data. Facing critiques - mainly on the lack of generalizability - we describe how we decided to collaborate with social scientists, especially criminologists, to apply social science theories to cybersecurity. Two ongoing research threads are then described to illustrate the feasibility of introducing some science to cybersecurity through the application of criminological theories.