Department News

Please join the Program in Criminal Justice for a talk given by Monica Bell on October 13th, 2022 in Tillett Hall, Room 226 at 4:00pm.

Monica Bell is an Associate Professor of Law and Sociology at Yale Law School. Her areas of research include law and sociology, policing and the criminal legal system, and race and the law. Her scholarship aims to center the voices and perspectives of people who experience legal exclusion and oppression.

The Program in Criminal Justice's Instructor, Mark Desire has been selected as the keynote speaker for the 32nd International Symposium on Human Identification. The event, which is the largest forensic symposium worldwide will be held on the 20th Anniversary of 9/11 in Orlando, Florida. Please click on this link for more information:  https://www.ishinews.com/

The Program in Criminal Justice's Assistant Professor, Noura Erakat has been selected as the recipient of the Law for the People Award by the National Lawyers Guild. 

The Program in Criminal Justice is delighted to announce that Elizabeth Vignuolo (Criminal Justice, 2021) has been awarded a Henry Rutgers Scholar award for her senior honors thesis, "Overly Punitive and Under the Reform Radar: The Felony Murder Rule and its Unlikely Origins," under the supervision of Professor Lisa L. Miller (Political Science and Program in Criminal Justice). This is a huge accomplishment. Congratulations Lizzie!

The Program in Criminal Justice hosted a discussion panel on Monday, April 26th regarding the trial of Derek Chauvin for the killing of George Floyd. Please click on this link in order to view the recorded discussion. 

The Program in Criminal Justice's Director, Dr. Alec Walen, has been giving a course on a close up of crime and punishment while utilizing podcasts as a primary source.Please click on this link in order to view the full article: CJ course

The Program in Criminal Justice's Director, Dr. Alec Walen was a Scarlet Speaker for the School of Arts and Sciences.Please click on this link in order to view the lecture: Scarlet Speaker Talk

Please view this interesting op-ed piece that the Washington Post Published for our faculty member, Noura Erakat.

Dear CJ students,

I write this with a heavy heart. On April 16, a beloved and superb teacher, scholar, and friend, the former Director of the Program in Criminal Justice, Pat Carr, died from the cancer he had been battling for almost a decade.

Prof. Carr joined Rutgers, in Sociology and Criminal Justice, in 2005. He was well known for his outstanding work on young people and policing, youth violence and social control, and the transition to adulthood, including the books Clean Streets, Hollowing Out the Middle, Coming of Age in America, and Theories of Crime. But he always said that he was happiest in the classroom. His students meant the world to him. Even as he was back in treatment last spring, he didn’t miss a single class meeting, a testament to his dedication to his students.

I recall that I wanted to see him teach last year, so I sat in on a session of his Juvenile Justice class. He did a marvelous job of providing information and asking questions, giving students lots of time to talk, and yet keeping the class focused, and all with his normal sharp wit. I then found out that he hadn’t even planned to teach that day; he was supposed to have a guest lecturer, but the guest canceled at the last minute and Prof. Carr just stepped up without missing a beat. Only the best teachers can do that.

He was, to quote Julie Philips, the chair of the Department of Sociology, “a valued and beloved colleague – he gave honest and savvy advice, often with a dose of his wicked humor, and was extremely thoughtful, creative and resourceful in addressing problems. He was one of a kind.”

In the future, we as a Program will be devising other ways to honor him as well. We’ll keep you posted as those plans become concrete.

Meanwhile, if you'd like, you can make a donation to the Calliope Joy Foundation, established by Pat and his wife Maria Kefalas after their daughter was diagnosed with leukodystrophy. If you would like to send a note of condolence to Pat’s family, you can send to Maria Kefalas and his children (Camille (20), PJ (17) and Cal (10)), 420 Conshohocken State Road, Bala Cynwyd, PA 19004.

You can find other remembrances of Pat Carr here:
Rutgers Today
Beacon Press
The Philadelphia Inquirer

Yours,

Alec Walen

Director, Program in Criminal Justice

Dr. Anne Morrison Piehl is the 2015 recipient of the Rutgers College Class of 1962 Presidential Public Service Award.  The Rutgers College Class of 1962 Presidential Public Service Award honors members of the faculty, student body, or staff for volunteer service to government, professional and scholarly organizations, or the public.  

Read more: Dr. Anne M. Piehl, Winner of 2015 Presidential Public Service Award

Photo: Larry Levanti
Tom Ridge

"Mass casualty events – terrorism, natural disasters and biological superbugs – are the challenges of the 21st century and confronting them calls for multidisciplinary public-private partnerships.

'For the next generation of homeland security professionals, multidisciplined public-private collaboration must be a part of your DNA,' said Tom Ridge, the country’s first homeland security secretary and keynote speaker at a Rutgers conference that brought together experts in emergency preparedness, disaster response and homeland security.

Read more: Rutgers Launches New Institute for Emergency Preparedness and Homeland Security

"When is a cell phone more than a cell phone? When it enables a survivor of domestic or dating abuse to reclaim her life.

Close to 2,000 refurbished cell phones are in the hands of formerly vulnerable women and men thanks to a partnership launched in 2008 between Rutgers and Verizon Wireless.

The used phones, dropped off in bins placed strategically on the university’s major campuses in New Brunswick, Camden and Newark, have been wiped free of existing numbers and loaded with 3,000 minutes of nationwide calling or texting.

Read more: Rutgers, Verizon Team Up to Provide Lifeline for Domestic Abuse Survivors – and Boon for Environment

At this year’s commencement ceremony, 32 Criminal Justice graduates received the prestigious Albert Roberts Scholar Award.  Each year this award is given to graduates who have demonstrated uncommon achievement in the Criminal Justice major.  Students who receive this award must complete a minimum GPA of 3.8 in the major.  This award remembers longtime faculty member Al Roberts, a scholar of victimology and social work, who had exemplary commitment to undergraduate education.

Read more: Commencement 2014: 32 C.J. Graduates Receive Prestigious Albert Roberts Scholar Award

Photo: Courtesy of Jane Siegel Jane Siegel

"John was 15 when Rutgers academic Jane Siegel encountered him for the first time. His mother was in prison – a chronic thief and drug addict, she had been arrested 31 times and convicted 15 times.  

Ten years later, John’s own rap sheet included eight arrests and two convictions. He’d held a series of dead-end jobs and saw little hope of anything better. He was chronically depressed.

Read more: Children Are Collateral Victims When Mom Serves Time, Rutgers Academic Finds

Credit: Rutgers Today
Laura Cohen, Director of the Rutgers Criminal and Youth Justice Clinic

“Solitary confinement for incarcerated juveniles has been condemned by psychologists, federal agencies and the United Nations for hindering rehabilitation efforts and damaging children’s mental health.

Yet according to a Rutgers juvenile justice advocate, many of the 300 juveniles who are incarcerated daily in secure facilities in New Jersey have been punished with solitary confinement for several consecutive days.

Read more: Rutgers University Teams with A.C.L.U. to End Solitary Confinement for Incarcerated Juveniles

"Kimberlee Sue Moran is no ordinary geek. As Geekadelphia’s Scientist of the Year, her crowning achievement was blowing up a bus filled with dead animals to help first responders learn how to identify bombing victims.

“They got an understanding of debris patterns and developed a protocol where they could reconstruct what happened and recover both biological and non-biological evidence,’’ explains Moran, a Rutgers-Camden forensic archaeology professor and grant facilitator.

Read more: Geekadelphia's Scientist of the Year

At this year’s commencement ceremony, 37 Criminal Justice graduates received the prestigious Albert Roberts Scholar Award.  Each year this award is given to graduates who have demonstrated uncommon achievement in the Criminal Justice major.  Students who receive this award must complete a minimum GPA of 3.8 in the major.  This award remembers longtime faculty member Al Roberts, a scholar of victimology and social work, who had exemplary commitment to undergraduate education.

Read more: Commencement 2013: 37 C.J. Graduates Receive Prestigious Albert Roberts Scholar Award

Credit: Nick Romanenko, Rutgers University
Nancy Wolff, Director of the Center for Behavior Health Services and Criminal Justice Research

“A report issued today by a group of experts led by a Rutgers University corrections policy expert sets forth new best practice guidelines for how New Jersey’s agencies work with halfway houses, including the push for accountability and a rewards model based on performance.

The report, “Halfway from Prison to the Community: From Current Practice to Best Practice,” includes 11 recommendations, the result of three roundtable discussions held at Rutgers by 19 educators, advocates, policymakers and corrections practitioners between August and November 2012.

Read more: Rutgers-Led Group Recommends Best Practice Guidelines for Halfway Houses in New Report

Stephanie A. Rodriguez (Class of 2011), is a graduate of Rutgers College who majored in Biology and minored in Criminology. She was in the first group of Rutgers students who completed the first Forensics Science course offered through the Program in Criminal Justice in the fall of 2009. Stephanie also interned for Professor Mark Desire, Program in Criminal Justice, and was recently hired to work under Dr. Desire with the Department of Forensic Biology as part of the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner. She works as a criminalist and specializes in missing person identification.

Connor F. Montferrat (Class of 2013), a Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences student double-majoring in Criminal Justice and Political Science was published in the Columbia Undergraduate Law Review. “Repeal Rule 413 of the Federal Rules of Evidence: The Admissibility of Evidence of Prior Sex Offenses” was a paper Connor originally completed for Dr. Lennox Hinds’ Crimes Against Humanity course. His paper was published in Volume VII, Issue I, Fall 2012 edition of the Columbia Undergraduate Law Review. You can find a copy of this issue and Connor’s paper here.