As part of their final year, students in our specialist programs participate in an independent research course (SOC439Y5/SOC440Y5), preparing a thesis on a topic of their choice. This page features a selection of their abstracts, highlighting the curiosity, critical thinking, and research skills our students bring to the world of Sociology and Criminology, Law and Society.
Research on Crime, Public Safety & Urban Environments
Preventing Homicides in Toronto—A Correlational Analysis (2023-2024)
By: Jasmine Sodhi
HBA | Criminology, Law and Society (Specialist), Forensic Science (Minor)
My undergraduate thesis examined whether Toronto sustained an effective methodology for curbing the homicide rate since 2005. To assess this, I examined Toronto homicide trends between the years 2015 and 2020, by using policy data from Public Safety Canada and homicide data from Toronto Police Services. Between 2015 and 2020, Toronto used three programs: the Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy (TAVIS), the School Resource Officer Program (SRO), and the Youth in Policing Initiative. While it is debatable whether TAVIS and SRO were used for crime prevention in general or homicide-related crime, they were both disbanded in 2017 due to their ineffectiveness. My hypothesis was that the homicide rates would be at a consistent rise and cluster spatially in low socioeconomic status neighbourhoods, despite these programs. I found that, from 2015 to 2020, the homicide rates in Toronto declined and were dispersed across neighbourhoods, which runs counter to my hypothesis. Further, not having enough research on the effectiveness of these programs and on the cause of homicides and violent crimes in Toronto neighbourhoods limited my ability to correlate changes in homicide rates to the presence of these programs. I found that there was a general lack of scholarship on the causes of homicide in Toronto neighbourhoods. Due to this, it is uncertain what motivated the city to implement certain programs to curb the homicide rates, and further, to judge their effectiveness in doing so. My conclusions are that Toronto homicide is under-studied and, second, there is a need for case study analyses on city-wide program implementation to judge effectiveness in crime reduction.
Riding in Fear: Media, Crime, and the TTC Commute (2024-2025)
By: Clair Thomas
HBA | Criminology, Law and Society (Specialist), Sociology (Major)
The objective of my thesis was to understand the relationship between public safety at the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) and how transit crime is perceived, reported, and experienced by transit users. Asking the question: "How do the everyday experiences of TTC users shape their perceptions of public safety on public transit?", previous research on transit crime identifies theft and assault as primary concerns, with vulnerable populations—including women, LGBTQ+ individuals, and transit employees—being disproportionately affected. The research, however, did not focus on the Canadian aspect—a gap which my study sought to fill. The data I collected concentrated on conducting qualitative research through semi-structured interviews with eight TTC users. Participants reported that the physical environment of the TTC—including unclean and poorly maintained stations, dim lighting, and isolated areas—made them more wary of their surroundings. Second, most participants turned to social media when they heard about TTC crimes, which often reshaped their perception of using the transit system, leading some to choose walking or using Uber instead. Furthermore, all participants, including women, LGBTQ+ individuals, and racialized men, expressed at least one negative experience on the TTC, such as verbal abuse, harassment, and witnessing a crime. Lastly, despite their experiences, most participants chose not to report their incidents due to various reasons, including the distrust in law enforcement and the inconvenience associated with reporting transit crimes. Therefore, this study is essential as it highlights the barriers to crime reporting, policy considerations of the infrastructure of transit, and a more approachable way to report transit crime.
Research on Social Media & Digital Influence
Scrolling Through the Pandemic: The Lasting Impact of Social Media on Young Adults
By: Pariza Qamruzzaman
Criminology, Law and Society (Major), Sociology (Major), History of Religions (Minor)
My undergraduate thesis examined how social media has impacted the mental health of young adults since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. To examine this, I collected qualitative data through six semi-structured interviews with young adults between the ages 18 to 26, focusing on their social media use during and after the pandemic. I was particularly interested in how increased reliance on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn shaped their emotional wellbeing, daily routines, and perceptions of self. With a focus on theories including Social Comparison Theory and Self-Regulation Theory, I analyzed how compulsive scrolling, exposure to idealized content, and lack of in-person interactions resulted in higher levels of anxiety, low self-esteem, and social isolation. While participants acknowledged that social media served as a significant source of connection and mental health awareness during lockdown, many also described developing lasting habits and negative emotional effects that persisted even after returning to school in-person. One of the major findings from my study was the paradox of social media acting as both a source of support and a source of stress, as statistics showed that while young adults felt they had a stronger understanding of mental health since the pandemic, cases of anxiety and depression were still rising. This research suggests that the pandemic has intensified the emotional effect of online engagement, and that young adults continue to navigate this complexity daily. My findings highlight the need for improved digital literacy and mental health strategies tailored to understanding a post-pandemic world in which young adults are consistently struggling to find a balance between their virtual and in-person lives.
Networks of Fear: TikTok's Misinformation on Sex Trafficking
By: Sandali Vithanage
HBA | Sociology (Specialist)
For my undergraduate thesis project, I researched TikTok’s misinformation on sex trafficking through sensationalized viral videos, specifically focusing on the hashtags associated with these videos. Since hashtags play a key role in driving user engagement and shaping which types of content reach targeted audiences, and because there is little social network analysis (SNA) on emerging platforms like TikTok, this gap largely shaped the direction of my research. My research addressed two main questions: (1) What is the network structure of sex trafficking-related hashtags on TikTok? and (2) Which hashtags are most frequently used in relation to viral sex trafficking content on the platform? To collect data, I manually analyzed 100 TikTok videos using multiple user accounts to minimize algorithmic bias. I then applied SNA techniques to map the relationships between hashtags. I expected to find a densely connected network centered on #humantraffickingawareness. While that hashtag, along with #fyp (for you page, TikTok’s main content discovery feed), appeared frequently, the overall network was less interconnected than expected. Instead, it consisted of fragmented subgroups, with certain hashtags serving as bridges between them. This structure highlights that no single narrative or set of hashtags dominates discussions about sex trafficking on TikTok. Rather, these discussions are dispersed across various subgroups and hashtags, with key hashtags tying these distinct clusters together. These findings show that conversations about sex trafficking on TikTok are far from unified. Instead, they reflect a range of perspectives and levels of awareness, often shaped by viral trends. Understanding this structure matters because it can help us better address how misinformation spreads and how certain hashtags shape online narratives about sensationalized topics.
Research on Work, Culture & Behaviour
Tacitly Acquiesced Occupational Deviance in the Canadian Tree Planting Industry
By: Jordyn Wood
HBA | Criminology, Law and Society (Specialist), Ethics, Law and Society (Minor)
My undergraduate research explored the relationship between occupational deviance and the workplace culture and structural incentives within the social context where this deviance occurs. To do this, my research looked at a phenomenon called “stashing” in the tree planting industry, where workers dispose of trees rather than plant them. I found that this phenomenon may be driven by both the competitive occupational culture of the tree planting industry and by compensation systems in which workers were paid a piece rate wage and supervisors earned commission on these wages, creating overlapping incentives for both management and workers to engage in or condone stashing as a case of occupational deviance. To explore the phenomenon of stashing in the tree planting industry, I conducted semi-structured interviews with experienced Canadian tree planters and used NVivo 15 to code the qualitative data collected from these interviews. Existing research on occupational deviance suggests that it can be divided into two categories: white-collar crime, where an offender engages in deviance within their working duties to benefit themselves, and corporate crime, where an offender engages in deviance as an agent of an organization for the organization’s benefit. My research suggests that this dichotomy may oversimplify the issue of occupational deviance and suggests that it can also arise at the intersection of overlapping incentives for deviance.