To recognize alumni of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (SCCJ) who have engaged their communities in exceptional ways, the School proudly announces its 2020 alumni awards.
Downtown Phoenix campus
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.
There’s nothing like seeing professionals doing what they do where they actually do it to motivate a student toward making a satisfying career choice. Just ask Cassity Sopha, a junior in Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions’ School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (CCJ).
Three months before getting his bachelor’s degree, Quin Patterson had no desire to go to graduate school.
After studying at the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (CCJ), part of the Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions, Patterson was looking forward to completing school and possibly pursuing a career in law enforcement.
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.
A book co-written by an ASU professor about how inequalities in the criminal justice system have roots in bail and pretrial detention issues has been recognized by the Vera Institute of Justice as one of its best books of 2019.
Several faculty members at ASU’s highly regarded School of Criminology and Criminal Justice have written recently published books on subjects ranging from the use of body-worn cameras to how police handle protest events to a look into the lives and careers of attorneys representing defendants facing the death penalty.
These books include:
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.
In an age of intensified public debate about the role of police officers, more law enforcement agencies rely on evidence-based policing to help officers perform their duties.
In a new book written by faculty members, alumni and current and former doctoral students in Arizona State University's School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, authors offer fresh, research-based perspectives to help law enforcement officials make better-informed decisions about running their agencies and best apply strategies and tactics.
More than 3,100 people in Arizona died from firearms from 2015 to 2017 and 71% of those deaths were suicides, according to a new report released by Arizona State University.
The report, presented Wednesday by the Morrison Institute for Public Policy at ASU, includes a detailed breakdown of types of firearm deaths and the victims, with the intent to use the data to prevent gun violence in Arizona.