Spotlight

Stephen B. Bright delivered a talk titled Race and Poverty in the American Criminal Justice System on November 28, 2012. This talk was a Themester event, sponsored by The Department of Criminal Justice, The Department of Political Science, and Political and Civic Engagement Program (PACE), all within the College of Arts and Sciences, as well as the School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA) and the Maurer School of Law.

Stephen B. Bright is president and senior counsel of the Southern Center for Human Rights and is the Harvey Karp Visiting Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School. He represents people facing death, advocates to improve conditions of jails and prisons, and has successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on racial discrimination in the selection of capital juries. In addition, he publishes extensively in these areas and isoften called upon to testify before various legislative committees. These varied experiences provide him with an unique perspective on the interconnections of race, poverty and the American Criminal Justice System.

Dr. Ronald Simons will deliver this year’s Elliott Youth DevelopmentLecture, entitled “Giving Prominence to the Social in Biosocial Explanations of Antisocial Behavior” On Friday, October 19, in Room 200 of the Von Lee Office Building at 517 East Kirkwood Avenue.

Dr. Simons is a Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Sociology, a Fellow in the Institute for Behavioral Research, and an affiliate of the Center for Gene – Social Environment Transaction at the University of Georgia. His research has focused on the manner in which family processes, community factors, racial discrimination, and peer interaction combine to influence antisocial behavior and mental health across the life course.   This research has examined the developmental roots of adolescent and adult problem behavior as well as the extent to which adult transitions involving romantic relationships, employment, and incarceration influence desistance/remission.  Recently, his research program has expanded to include tests of different models of gene-environment interaction and of various perspectives regarding the effect of stress on allostatic load and illness.  Dr. Simons has received over $30 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health for his research and has published widely in the fields of criminology, youth development, and medical sociology, including 4 books and over 150 refereed articles in leading journals; such as, American Sociological Review, Criminology, Journal of Marriage and Family, and Child Development.

Dr. Rolf Loeber delivered this year's Elliott Youth Development Lecture, entitled "Homicide Offenders and Homicide Victims and What they have in Common: A Developmental Account," on Thursday, June 21, 2012.

Rolf Loeber, Ph. D., is a leading authority on child delinquency and antisocial behavior, substance use, and mental health problems.  He is a Distinguished University Professor of Psychiatry and Professor of Psychology and Epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh, and Professor of Juvenile Delinquency and Social Development, at Free University, Amsterdam, Netherlands.  He is co-director of the Life History Program and is principal investigator of three of the world’s premier longitudinal studies: The Pittsburgh Youth Study, the Developmental Trends Study, and the Pittsburgh Girls Study.  He has published widely in the fields of juvenile antisocial behavior and delinquency, substance use, and mental health problems, including 4 books and over 250 scientific papers. Dr. Loeber has co-chaired the U.S. Study Group on Child Delinquents and is the co-chair of the U.S. National Institute of Justice Study Group on Transitions from Juvenile Delinquency to Adult Crime.  He has received many awards in recognition of his research; he is a fellow of the American Society of Criminology, the American Psychological Association, and the Wolfson Professor and Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England.

Dr. Alex Piquero delivered this year's Elliott Youth Development Lecture, entitled "James Joyce, Alice in Wonderland, and Criminal Careers," on Thursday, May 12, 2011, from 2:30-4:00 pm, in the Von Lee Conference Room 200.

Professor Piquero's research focuses on the longitudinal patterning of criminal activity over the life course, methodological and statistical issues involved in studying continuity and change in offending over the life course, and criminological theory. His work has addressed several other criminological and criminal justice issues including sentencing policy, the costs of crime, and the relationships between drugs, alcohol, and violence over the life course. He is co-editor of the Journal of Quantitative Criminology, and recently served as Executive Counselor of the American Society of Criminology (ASC). He has received numerous research, teaching, and mentoring awards, including ASC’s Ruth Shone Cavan Award, which honors outstanding scholarly contributions to the discipline of criminology.  Dr. Piquero is currently ranked first nationally for scholarly productivity and academic impact in Criminology and Criminal Justice.

The Elliott Youth Development Lecture is made possible by the generous support of Skip Elliott, an alumnus of the Department of Criminal Justice and the first recipient of its Disntinquished Alumni Award. An edited version of the Elliott Lecture is published as an invited address in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.

Randy Steidl, of Witness to Innocence, soon will be visiting IU. Mr. Steidl is one of 20 innocent men sentenced to death and later exonerated by the state of Illinois. It was due to those fundamental miscarriages of justice that Governor Pat Quinn recently signed groundbreaking legislation abolishing the death penalty in Illinois. Mr. Steidl played an active role in the legislative efforts in Illinois and will give a Horizons of Knowledge lecture titled, "Convicted, Condemned, and Cleared:  How an Exonerated Man Helped Abolish the Illinois Death Penalty" on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 at 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. in the Maurer School of Law Moot Court Room (room 123).

We are pleased to announce that Michael Koryta was our keynote speaker at our annual graduation celebration, and received our department’s Distinguished Alumni Award. Although a very recent graduate, Michael already is an award winning mystery writer who exemplifies our commitment to the liberal arts. For those of you who do not know about Michael’s accomplishments, do see his website: http://www.michaelkoryta.com.  Many in our department (especially our Department Chair) are fans of his novels and highly recommend them. We were very grateful that he was able to join us in May and share his thoughts with this year's graduates, their families and their friends.

We are pleased to announce that Howard “Skip” Elliott, Vice President of Public Safety and Environment with CSX Transportation in Jacksonville, Florida, has received our department’s first Distinguished Alumni Award. He was our guest speaker at our annual graduation celebration, on May 9th. We were happy to recognize his many successes and service to our department, Indiana University, and the field of criminal justice.