This project examines how everyday social media users construct and discuss crime online. This research compares how crime is discussed on two widely used platforms with different structures: Reddit, an anonymous discussion forum, and Nextdoor, a location-based neighborhood network. To explore these differences, I collected and analyzed posts across four categories: violent crimes, property crimes, drug-related incidents, and speculative or suspicious activity posts. Posts were randomly sampled and coded for tone, language, political framing, escalation, and the direction of discussion. The analysis also examined what users were doing socially when they posted, such as warning neighbors, coordinating responses, venting frustration, or signaling ideological positions. Preliminary findings suggest that platform design strongly shapes how crime discussions unfold. On Reddit, discussions frequently escalated into moral outrage, dehumanizing language, and broader ideological debates. On Nextdoor, posts are more likely to focus on neighborhood cooperation, sharing information, and encouraging reporting, although political blame and narratives of decline also appear. Across both platforms, crime incidents often turn into larger discussions about government, public safety, and institutional trust. Understanding how crime is constructed in online spaces helps explain how digital environments shape public perceptions of safety, responsibility, and social order.

Older adults living with multiple chronic conditions must navigate complex and ongoing relationships with healthcare providers as they manage intersecting treatment demands and uncertain health trajectories. While prior research has emphasized patient satisfaction, adherence, and shared decision-making, less attention has been given to how older adults themselves interpret these clinical relationships within the realities of everyday illness management. This qualitative study examines how older adults experience interactions with physicians and how socioeconomic conditions shape those encounters. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with older adults receiving care in two distinct clinical settings serving patients with multimorbidity. Using inductive thematic analysis, three central patterns emerged. First, medical authority was experienced either as hierarchical and directive or as dialogic and negotiated within clinical encounters. Second, trust functioned as a stabilizing resource under chronic illness burden, though it was constructed through different relational pathways across care contexts. Third, socioeconomic status surfaced indirectly through practical constraints that shaped what forms of care were feasible in daily life. Together, these findings suggest that autonomy, trust, and treatment implementation are not solely interpersonal dynamics, but are relationally and structurally produced within clinical systems. By centering older adults’ narratives, this study highlights how care is lived, negotiated, and

Crime statistics are widely used in research, policy, and public discussion, yet they are often treated as straightforward measures of underlying events. This project examines how those statistics are actually produced by following the path from an initial police report to an official record. The focus is not on whether any single report is correct, but on how incidents are turned into data in practice. The study uses a qualitative approach based on interviews with individuals involved in report writing, classification, and records management, along with observation of routine work where possible. Where appropriate, the analysis will incorporate descriptive patterns in administrative data to contextualize these processes. Rather than treating decisions as isolated steps, it follows how classification develops through everyday interaction with organizational guidelines and data systems. By making these processes visible, the project shows how crime statistics are shaped in practice and why that matters for how they are interpreted and used.

With the goal of creating rental properties to alleviate a longstanding affordability and shortage crisis, California policymakers ratified critical legislation in 2016 to facilitate the construction of standardized accessory dwelling units (ADUs). Previous studies have analyzed ADU influence on housing prices, yet confound house prices with land value and demonstrate less location-specific urgency. This study examines ADU impact in the context of land value, for the sake of homeowner return on investment, and rental prices, for the ADU consumer base. The Southern California counties of interest were determined as: Orange, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Ventura, and Riverside. Sourcing data from the California Department of Housing and Community Development, the Southern California Association of Governments, the United States Geological Survey, and similar, the parcel files were then applied in the context of a regression model to evaluate ADU presence and nonpresence, and consequent price changes. Preliminary results appear to indicate that ADU presence measurably increases rental property availability while moderately increasing land value and decreasing rent rates. This research will further use QGIS to chronologically map price changes in response to ADU presence. We expect the final implications to communicate the importance of constructing viable short-term solutions to the crisis, as well as long-term public-sector affordable housing, to Californian officials and beyond.

Around one in six children in the U.S. have witnessed domestic violence involving a parent, often resulting in a child welfare investigation. In Los Angeles County, parents experiencing domestic violence may be charged with “failure to protect,” leading to child welfare involvement. Survivors have increasingly challenged this assertion, arguing it places responsibility on the victim rather than the perpetrator. To address this, UCLA researchers collaborated with stakeholders to identify areas for reform in child welfare for domestic violence cases. Using a mixed-methods approach, the study included surveys of county child welfare administrators and focus groups with parent survivors across Los Angeles County. Participants included 50 administrators and 27 parent survivors, primarily women from diverse racial and geographic backgrounds. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze survey data, and rapid qualitative methods were used for focus group data. Findings suggest moderate progress in identifying domestic violence within child welfare investigations, but persistent gaps in service coordination, safety planning, and cross-system partnerships, alongside barriers such as economic hardship and institutional mistrust. Recommendations highlight the need for improved coordination, expanded economic and housing supports, and enhanced trauma-informed services. Additional recommendations call for increased accountability for perpetrators, inclusion of lived experience, and stronger prevention efforts.

Youth political development is a critical task during adolescence and is shaped by relationships with peers, yet the links between social context and civic engagement are unclear. This study examines associations between youth civic engagement and structural changes in friendship networks using longitudinal egocentric network analysis of a three-wave nationwide study (N=1,073). In each wave, participants reported their own political orientation and civic engagement characteristics, along with nominating up to six friends and the civic attributes of each. As a research assistant under Dr. Chris Wegemer, I first supported data recoding and descriptive analysis, then conducted background literature review on the application of Exponential Random Graph Models to ego networks (ego-ERGMs), and later helped build and tune both cross-sectional and longitudinal models for the data. Using ego-ERGM models, I found that adolescents tended to be friends with those who not only had similar political orientation, but also civic action, agency, and critical awareness of social inequities. Further, youth who were more liberal and had greater civic engagement (action, agency, critical awareness) were likely to have fewer friends. The results were consistent across all waves. The findings suggest that civic engagement could potentially carry social capital costs in the present politically polarized climate.

Incarcerated women in the United States experience a modern form of civil death characterized not only by the loss of formal rights but by the systematic erosion of bodily autonomy, safety, and access to care. This paper argues that women, many of whom enter prison as survivors of sexual abuse, are systematically denied their constitutional rights through institutional practices that enable sexual violence, restrict access to healthcare, and suppress reporting of harm. Drawing on sociological theory and empirical research, the analysis demonstrates that these practices violate the First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Rather than representing isolated failures, these patterns reflect structural arrangements in which institutional power produces vulnerability and limits accountability. Case evidence from women’s prisons demonstrates how these dynamics operate in practice, reinforcing broader patterns of inequality. While the Constitution says people have rights, those rights are often denied or weakened. Civil death isn’t just a legal idea but a lived experience shaped by inequality and powerful institutions.

Veterans don’t struggle after leaving the military because they are broken. They struggle because they leave one of the most structured institutions in society and are expected to immediately function as civilians without continued guidance or camaraderie. This loss of identity, routine, and collective purpose creates a predictable period of instability, yet current military transition programs lack a structured and comprehensive process to address this problem. This work proposes an effective veteran transition model and frames it as an answer to a structural problem, as opposed to individual failure. Drawing on social identity theory and research on institutional integration, it treats military separation as a disruption that requires guided recalibration, not passive adjustment. This paper outlines the structural problem of veteran transition, reviews the relevant literature and theoretical framework, introduces the KG Bridge Model, and concludes with its implementation, evaluation, and policy implications.