The National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) recently announced the 2009 Winners of the Prevention for a Safer Society (PASS) awards. The awards are made annually to honor and recognize professionals who cover issues and highlight solutions to criminal justice, juvenile justice and child welfare problems. Dr. Vanessa Barker is the recipient of the 2009 NCCD PASS Award for her recent book entitled; The Politics of Imprisonment: How the Democratic Process Shapes the Way America Punishes Offenders (Oxford University Press 2009).

Eric Baumer, Allen E. Liska Professor of Criminology, received a National Institute of Justice Grant to conduct a research project titled “Assessing the Link between Foreclosure and Crime Rates: A Multi-level Analysis of Neighborhoods across Cities and Metropolitan Areas.”

FSU criminologist Kevin Beaver received this year’s American Society of Criminology Ruth Shonle Cavan Young Scholar Award. The award recognizes his outstanding contributions to the field in just the few years since he received his doctorate.

“The Labeling of Convicted Felons and Its Consequences for Recidivism,” published in Criminology (45: 547–582) and authored by professors Ted Chiricos and Bill Bales and recent Ph.D. graduates Kelle Barrick and Stephanie Bontrager was selected as the winner of the American Society of Criminology’s Outstanding Paper Award.

In this era of increased accountability and tightened budgets within higher education, it is essential that programs and colleges demonstrate their quality and success. One indicator of the quality and success of a program is its faculty and their research, which can be measured through grant dollars received.

A landmark case comes down on the side of Americans’ individual right to arm themselves. What the best research has to say about what it all means, and why. Read the rest of the article here.

The increasing growth in the U.S. prison population over the past three decades has been unprecedented in the country’s history, resulting in 2.4 million offenders in jails and prisons in 2007. The cost to taxpayers for adult and juvenile corrections in 2009 will reach approximately $50.3 billion, more than triple the 1986 cost of $15.6 billion. Consequently, lawmakers and policymakers are seeking alternative means of controlling offenders without jeopardizing public safety.

The Florida State University College of Criminology and Criminal Justice will help to lead the newly formed “Alliance for the Advancement of Education in Juvenile Justice and Adult Corrections,” a national coalition of correctional and educational professionals promoting proven education programs for incarcerated juvenile and adult offenders. “Despite the current recession and the threat of cuts or worse to many public programs, our nation literally cannot afford to see the Alliance mission fail,” said Florida State Professor Tom Blomberg, dean of the college.

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By Libby Fairhurst Birds of a feather flock together, according to the adage, and adolescent males who possess a certain type of variation in a specific gene are more likely to flock to delinquent peers, according to a landmark study led by Florida State University criminologist Kevin M. Beaver. “This research is groundbreaking because it shows that the propensity in some adolescents to affiliate with delinquent peers is tied up in the genome,” said Beaver, an assistant professor in the FSU College of Criminology and Criminal Justice.