Spotlight

Dr. Alex Piquero delivered this year's Elliott Youth Development Lecture, entitled "James Joyce, Alice in Wonderland, and Criminal Careers," on Thursday, May 12, 2011, from 2:30-4:00 pm, in the Von Lee Conference Room 200.

Professor Piquero's research focuses on the longitudinal patterning of criminal activity over the life course, methodological and statistical issues involved in studying continuity and change in offending over the life course, and criminological theory. His work has addressed several other criminological and criminal justice issues including sentencing policy, the costs of crime, and the relationships between drugs, alcohol, and violence over the life course. He is co-editor of the Journal of Quantitative Criminology, and recently served as Executive Counselor of the American Society of Criminology (ASC). He has received numerous research, teaching, and mentoring awards, including ASC’s Ruth Shone Cavan Award, which honors outstanding scholarly contributions to the discipline of criminology.  Dr. Piquero is currently ranked first nationally for scholarly productivity and academic impact in Criminology and Criminal Justice.

The Elliott Youth Development Lecture is made possible by the generous support of Skip Elliott, an alumnus of the Department of Criminal Justice and the first recipient of its Disntinquished Alumni Award. An edited version of the Elliott Lecture is published as an invited address in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.

Randy Steidl, of Witness to Innocence, soon will be visiting IU. Mr. Steidl is one of 20 innocent men sentenced to death and later exonerated by the state of Illinois. It was due to those fundamental miscarriages of justice that Governor Pat Quinn recently signed groundbreaking legislation abolishing the death penalty in Illinois. Mr. Steidl played an active role in the legislative efforts in Illinois and will give a Horizons of Knowledge lecture titled, "Convicted, Condemned, and Cleared:  How an Exonerated Man Helped Abolish the Illinois Death Penalty" on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 at 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. in the Maurer School of Law Moot Court Room (room 123).

We are pleased to announce that Michael Koryta was our keynote speaker at our annual graduation celebration, and received our department’s Distinguished Alumni Award. Although a very recent graduate, Michael already is an award winning mystery writer who exemplifies our commitment to the liberal arts. For those of you who do not know about Michael’s accomplishments, do see his website: http://www.michaelkoryta.com.  Many in our department (especially our Department Chair) are fans of his novels and highly recommend them. We were very grateful that he was able to join us in May and share his thoughts with this year's graduates, their families and their friends.

We are pleased to announce that Howard “Skip” Elliott, Vice President of Public Safety and Environment with CSX Transportation in Jacksonville, Florida, has received our department’s first Distinguished Alumni Award. He was our guest speaker at our annual graduation celebration, on May 9th. We were happy to recognize his many successes and service to our department, Indiana University, and the field of criminal justice.