Editor's note: This story is part of a series of profiles of notable spring 2020 graduates.
Genevieve McKenzie remembers the spring of her freshman year, when she questioned whether she made the right decision to major in criminology and criminal justice.
But even more vivid in her memory is the day those doubts disappeared. It was the day she sat face-to-face in an Arizona prison with an incarcerated man dressed in an orange jumpsuit.
Karla Chicuate was intellectually acquainted with the morally evil practice of grooming, abducting and selling human beings for labor or sexual exploitation when she traveled in January to west Africa.
After all, she had been working as an educator with the city of Tempe’s Sexual Relationship and Violence Department for about a year and a half when her 10-day excursion began, and she intentionally chose the assignment to work with women and children who had endured human trafficking.
Her office bookcases were half empty, with dozens of volumes already in boxes on a table in her soon-to-be former office, as Cassia Spohn completed her time as director of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice and reflected on the next phase of her career journey during the waning days of 2019.
One in four suicides in Arizona are related to violence involving an intimate partner, according to a new report from Arizona State University’s Center for Violence Prevention and Community Safety.
The center is based at ASU’s Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions. October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
Editor’s note: This is part of a series of profiles for spring 2019 commencement.
Katharine Leigh Brown loves and values the criminal justice system. She even entertained thoughts of becoming a police officer.
Momentum is beginning to shift toward addressing the effects of mass incarceration, and Arizona State University has several initiatives to address the growing concern over the fate of people in prison, how it affects their families and what happens when they rejoin society.
The programs in the Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions work inside the prisons and in the community and involve undergraduates, grad students and the public:
The sixth annual ASU Prison Education Conference will bring together a broad coalition of experts and community members to discuss criminal justice and the transformative power of education. Organized by Arizona State University's Prison Education Awareness Club and sponsored by the Department of English and the School of Social Transformation, the conference is set for 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday, Feb. 10, in the Turquoise Room of the Memorial Union on ASU’s Tempe campus.