In the United States, managing the tensions between the privileged, politically dominant classes of society and its politically, socially and economically disadvantaged classes, to which communities of color have disproportionately belonged, has always been a central concern of police and the criminal justice system. Some U.S. police agencies were explicitly established in the Civil War era to help preserve slavery and white supremacy.
School of Criminology and Criminal Justice
The logistical challenges of teaching a class inside a state prison are complicated enough during a typical semester, let alone one that includes a pandemic.
This spring, an Arizona State University professor and a doctoral student were instructing 10 students based at the Downtown Phoenix campus, plus 10 more who happen to be men serving criminal sentences at the Arizona State Prison Complex-Florence.
America’s criminal justice system was already in the process of reforming, but the COVID-19 pandemic could make further progress uncertain, especially if crime jumps when the shutdown ends, according to a panel of prosecutors who spoke at an Arizona State University event on May 6.
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.
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.