Areas of Expertise

• Domestic violence
• Child abuse
• Capital punishment
• Parricide
• Mental health
• Youth crime
• Title IX
• Sexual assault

Key Findings

• Individual-level predictors of violence included prior violence, deviant peers, family criminality and mental health problems, and poor family relations. MORE
• Batterer intervention and prevention programs (BIPPs) were shown to be more effective than jail or regular dismissal in reducing the likelihood of future arrests. MORE
• Having an IPV case regularly dismissed increased the odds of a future arrest by 95%. MORE
• Risk and protective factors for weapon-related behaviors vary by race. MORE
• Emotional distress and substance use are predictors of weapon-related behaviors in all youth groups regardless of race. MORE

Biography

Denise Paquette Boots, Associate Professor of Criminology at the University of Texas at Dallas, is an expert in violence, public policy, mental health, child abuse, domestic violence, parricide, capital punishment and youth crime.

Boots is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Urban Policy Research at the University of Texas at Dallas. She served as a juvenile residential counselor for adjudicated youth, Border Patrol Agent trainee and Pre-Doctoral Fellow with the National Consortium on Violence Research. Boots also served as the Associate Chair of the Criminology Program, the faculty mentor to the Terry Scholars Program and consulted with various non-profit organizations. Boots was awarded the UT Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award and currently serves as the inaugural president of the UT Dallas chapter of the National Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi.

She has been published in numerous academic journals and is the author of Mental illness and violent youth: A developmental/life course perspective.

Boots received her Ph.D., M.A. and B.A. in Criminology from the University of South Florida.

Follow Denise on Twitter: @denisepboots