While most people tend to thinking of lynchings as something that mostly happened in the South, mob violence was widespread in the United States from 1883 to 1941, and its victims included nearly all races and ethnicities, according to researchers. An interactive map shows the extent of this particularly brutal form of violence.
Through a unique division within Penn State University Police, students support police officers with various security and traffic control efforts while gaining important experience that prepares them for their career goals. Student auxiliary officers are employed by University Police at Penn State University Park and Altoona campuses.
Penn State’s Social Science Research Institute recently announced four new co-funded faculty members who will join the institute in the 2018-19 academic year: Maithreyi Gopalan, Alexis Santos, Kenneth Shores, and Ericka Weathers.
General biases may be at work when people blame or criticize victims of crimes, including rape and robbery victims, according to criminologists. For example, about 80 percent of participants in two studies on the role biases play in victim blaming assigned some direct blame to victims of robbery, while about 43 percent of the participants leveled some direct blame at rape victims.
At the College of the Liberal Arts commencement ceremony on May 5, Candice Crutchfield will represent criminology as its student marshal. Crutchfield is a Paterno Fellow and Schreyer Honors Scholar and is graduating with degrees in criminology and communication arts and sciences.
A team of psychologists have taken steps toward quantifying morality and empathy. When people see or hear something disturbing, they may feel a snap ethical or moral response. These tests and mathematical models can help psychologists capture and quantify those responses. One day, researchers suggest this work could help criminologists and psychologists better understand criminal and pathological behavior.
Mary O'Neill Marsh, a 1969 Penn State alumna with a distinguished career in the U.S. federal court system has created the Dr. John Kramer Professorship in Criminology in the College of the Liberal Arts.
The Rock Ethics Institute at Penn State honored Alanna Kaiser, Nathan Larkin, and Jaden Rankin-Wahlers with the 2016 Stand Up Award. This award is presented to Penn State undergraduate students who have demonstrated courage, fortitude and ethical leadership by taking a stand for a person, a cause or a belief.
The Department of African American Studies and the College of the Liberal Arts are bringing a multidisciplinary perspective to bear as they study last summer’s events in Ferguson, Missouri. Students enrolled in the African American studies course “The Fire This Time: Understanding Ferguson” will examine the historical context, the fatal interaction between police officer and citizen, and the resulting legal proceedings and protests.
Police officers use discretion in handling incidents, despite the presence of mandated rules and regulations governing how officers are supposed to respond, according to a Penn State researcher. Joongyeup Lee, assistant professor of criminal justice in the Penn State Harrisburg School of Public Affairs, analyzed domestic violence cases handled by the Houston police department.
