Research

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.

Research by Gary Kleck, a professor at Florida State University’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, played a key role in the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision on the Second Amendment right to bear arms.

Ted Chiricos, William Julius Wilson Professor of Criminology in the FSU College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, has been named the next editor of Social Problems.

The overpopulation of prisons has endured extensive research for many years, and those that are the most responsible for funding them, the citizens, are the least informed about their effects. This is a point that Associate Professor William Bales and other researchers illustrate in the Pew Charitable Trusts study “Public Safety, Public Spending: Forecasting America’s Prison Population 2007-2011.” This study is the first of its kind.

The Florida State University Office of Research on behalf of the Center for Criminology and Public Policy Research has formed a cooperative research relationship with the Florida Department of Corrections (DOC) through a Memorandum of Understanding. This formal agreement paves the way for collaborative research projects and the solicitation of grant funded projects relating to the field of corrections.