Date of Submission

4-27-2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Criminal Justice (Ph.D.)

Department

Criminal Justice

Advisor

Kevin Barnes-Ceeney, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Michelle D. Fabiani, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Christopher M. Sedelmaier, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Donna Decker, Ph.D.

LC Subject Headings

Prohibited books, Censorship, Fiction, Young adult literature, American

Abstract

The United States is entrenched in a new era of censorship and libricide, characterized by unprecedentedly high rates of book banning, legislatively mandated restriction, and the disproportionate censoring of works authored by and prominently showcasing sexual and racial minorities. This ongoing perpetration of libricide, the prolific characterization of literature as a cultivator, and the societal structure which manifests and promotes literary restriction has thus far received little empirical attention. The current study represents a sequential quantitative study of book banning and libricide in the United States. Mirroring Gerbner’s (1998) method for establishing cultivation effects, the present study (1) utilized open-source data to explore the characteristics and themes present in restricted literature, (2) identified the spatial-temporal distribution of book banning and examined the punitive social structure encouraging censorship and restriction, and (3) utilized survey data of New England college students (n = 513) to test uses and gratifications theory with restricted literature and evaluate claims about the cultivation capacity of banned books. Exploring themes and characteristics revealed fiction and young adult literature to be targeted most frequently, while representative themes appeared disproportionately restricted. Examining the distribution of restriction revealed considerable clustering in restrictive behavior, while examining the punitive society structure showed juvenile punitiveness to be highly associated with more restrictive environments. Finally, utilizing survey data, the current study found restricted literature to be significantly more gratifying than traditional literature, however, neither restricted nor traditional literature was a meaningful cultivator of perceptions and behaviors. While limitations of the current study are presented, including data limitations and model specification, the present study represents a strong assessment of the current era of libricide in the United States and makes recommendations for further empirical tests of literary restriction and libricide.

Download

Share

COinS