News

By Libby Fairhurst, February 2007 The juvenile justice system emerged a century ago out of the belief that young offenders were less culpable and more salvageable than their adult counterparts, but today, that system is under attack by get-tough policymakers claiming wide public support that Florida State University criminologists say simply doesn’t exist.

Undergraduate criminology student Mary Delina Wright has been awarded a 2006 University Honors Thesis Grant. The grant will support her research leading to an honors thesis, specifically focusing on the public controversy that arose about the book Eichmann in Jerusalem: a Report on the Banality of Evil and its author, Hannah Arendt.

The editorship of Criminology and Public Policy, an official publication of the American Society of Criminology, will move to FSU’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice in Spring 2007 (submissions should be sent to the College beginning March 1, 2007). This prestigious publication is a peer-review journal devoted to the study of criminal justice policy and practice. Beginning with Volume 7, Issue 1 (February 2008), the new editors of Criminology and Public Policy will be Thomas G. Blomberg and Michael D. Reisig.

Gordon P. Waldo Fellowship Provides $16,500 a year plus out-of-state tuition waivers. Awarded to highly motivated FSU criminology doctoral students with the intellectual curiosity necessary to challenge popular ideas about the causes, consequences, and control of crime. Partners Waldo Fellow with College faculty who are leading researchers in a field the fellow is interested in pursuing. Criminology and Public Policy and Social Problems Fellowships

The College is continuing its expansion with the addition of four new faculty members in fall 2006: Kevin Beaver, who is earning his Ph.D. at the University of Cincinnati, Brian Stults from the University of Florida, and Patricia Warren from the University of Massachusetts have joined the faculty as assistant professors. Sarah Bacon, who is finishing her Ph.D.

Professor Vanessa Barker, Ph.D., has received a one-year fellowship from the Princeton University Program in Law and Public Affairs (LAPA). Each year, LAPA brings to Princeton five or six world-class experts on the law. Drawn from law schools, the social sciences, the humanities, and from the world of policy-making and legal practice, the fellows are in full-time residence at Princeton for an entire academic year. During her fellowship, Barker will teach a graduate seminar on punishment and society and conduct research for a new book on comparative penal sanctions in Europe.

The University has named Professor Ted Chiricos, Ph.D., the William Julius Wilson Professor of Criminology in recognition of his excellence in research, teaching, and service. Chiricos’s studies on the fear of crime have been recognized as the most influential in the field, and his research on deterrence changed the way criminologists approached this major and controversial subject matter.

Professors Tom Blomberg, Kristy Holtfreter, and Michael Reisig shared the stage with former U.S Attorney General John Ashcroft when they presented at the Economic Crime in the 21st Century Conference in Miami March 18. Their presentation, Consumer Fraud Victimization: An Empirical Study, was presented as one of the keynote conference addresses and their paper on the subject will be published in the May 2006 issue of the St. Thomas Law Review.

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.

Many of the College’s faculty and graduate students presented at the 2005 American Society of Criminology Conference in Toronto in November. Scroll for an alphabetical list of the presenters and their research topics.