The History
The Center for the Study of Crime, Delinquency & Corrections at Southern Illinois University was approved in 1961, primarily to conduct research but also to supplement the extension education already offered to inmates at the Menard and Vienna prisons. How the CSCDC became a beloved program of research and teaching criminologists and criminal justice practitioners worldwide is the result of a confluence of events.
The first significant entity in development of the CSCDC was Myrl Alexander, a high level administrator with the Federal Bureau of Prisons who became familiar with SIU when he identified Marion as the ideal site for a facility to replace Alcatraz. He was subsequently hired as the first director, and held the position until Robert Kennedy tapped him to direct the Bureau of Prisons. Alexander facilitated development of the CSCDC within the School of Human Resources to do applied research, and he helped to establish corrections as one longstanding specialty of the CSCDC. He created the ongoing relationship with the Ministry of Justice in Japan. He also recognized that understanding crime, criminals, and ways to reduce or correct offending requires a variety of areas of expertise. His commitment to a multidisciplinary research team continues in the mission of the CSCDC.
The second major impact on the evolution of the CSCDC is an effect of history. The 1960s was a time of mounting public and political pressure to develop rigorous academic programs in the U.S. for administrators in criminal justice agencies. Very few universities offered education specifically to benefit those in careers of policing, court administration, or corrections. It was precisely to address the deficiencies of the largely vocational technological training provided at junior colleges that millions of dollars were earmarked in the Omnibus Crime Control & Safe Streets Act (1968) for the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration to support development of undergraduate academic programs. Almost without exception the new undergraduate programs with core requirements from social sciences and liberal arts were called Administration of Justice degrees and located at public state universities. SIU shared in this national movement among universities and benefited from the federal LEAA support.
In the 1980s, with rising violent crime, public fear of criminal gangs and illicit drug markets, the name of many Administration of Justice programs changed to Criminology and Criminal Justice. The rationale for these changes was that the “AJ” label did not accurately reflect the curricula aimed at understanding the nature and causes of crime, criminals and criminality, and the ways in which society prevents and responds to these through formal agencies and informal mechanisms. However, SIU retained the original Administration of Justice degree name to honor alumni and because the Center for the Study of Delinquency, Crime, and Corrections aptly encompasses the wide variety of multidisciplinary research, teaching and services from which students learn. When the College of Human Resources closed it made sense that the CSCDC join the College of Liberal Arts to facilitate interaction with many other social and behavior scientists.
The Present
The CSCDC faculty has been actively engaged in teaching, offering one of the largest undergraduate majors in CoLA and providing a rigorous foundation in criminological theory, research and administration along with a variety of substantive topical areas to graduate students in the masters program. The quality of the curriculum and instruction is evident in the many alumni of the program who currently hold significant administrative positions in criminal justice (e.g. Ron Thompson, Regional Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons; Gary Waint, Program Director of the Missouri Office of the State Courts Administrator) or who are widely acclaimed criminologists (e.g., Tom Bernard, Professor, Pennsylvania State University; Ray Paternoster, Professor, University of Maryland). Natalie Metz (M.A.’07) is the most recent in a string of students who have gone on to prestigious doctoral programs.
The faculty is actively engaged in the research mission of the university. Within the past few years faculty within the CSCDC has received funding from the National Institute of Justice, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the MacArthur Foundation, the Illinois Department of Corrections, the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, the Illinois Terrorism Taskforce, and the Texas Department of Corrections.
The diverse substantive and methodological expertise of the faculty is evident in the following sample of recent published and presented work:
Sin No More: Understanding Crime, Law, & Morality in America, NYU Press Our Children,Their Children: Confronting Racial & Ethnic differences in Juvenile Justice, UChicago Press The Encyclopedia of Social Measurement, Elsevier/Academic Press Policing 2020: The Future of Crime, Communities, and Policing Privacy, Technology, & Social Change, Knowledge, Technology, & Policy Third Wave Feminism, Peace, & Social Justice, Contemporary Justice Review Ethnic boundaries and the spatial distribution of illicit drug markets When Advocacy for Domestic Violence Victims Backfires: Sources of Victim Disempowerment Human Rights Training of police in Northern Ireland, Internatl J. of Police Strategies & Mgmt The Questionable Advantage of Defense Counsel in Juvenile Court, Justice Quarterly Gun violence and police problem solving, J. of Criminal Justice Policing Mass Casualty Events Using police officers to enhance probation supervision of juveniles, Crime &Delinquency The spatial distribution of juror participation versus calls for jury duty |
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