| Criminal Justice Majors Present Research in NYC |
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Two criminal justice majors working with Dr. Carolyn Hanes, professor of sociology and criminal justice, presented papers at the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences March 14 and 16 in New York City. The project was made possible through the The Edward H. Arnold and Jeanne Donlevy Arnold Program for Experiential Education.
The first of the two presentations was for Hanes’ paper titled “Murder in the Schoolhouse: The Amish School Shooting,” which included an appendix by Adam Gardner ’13. The paper examined the 2006 massacre that took place at the West Nickel Mines Amish School that left six dead, including gunman Charles Carl Roberts IV, and compared the incident to a previous elementary school attack.
Hanes examined the Amish School shooting as an example of mass murder, which is often defined as a murder that takes place in a single location with at least three or four victims. Hanes compared the case against an incident at Bath Consolidated School in Bath Township, Mich., and also compared the forgiveness of the Amish toward Roberts and his family to the retribution mentality normally tied to victims of such cases.
Gardner’s appendix looked specifically at police response to the incident, breaking down two different types of hostage protocols: “active shooter” and “hostage/barricade.” He deals with the specifics of the crime scene, the speed at which the incident progressed into an “active shooter” scenario, and the challenges police faced dealing with a one-room, isolated schoolhouse against emergency procedures that would have been in place in a larger school.
The presentation was preceded by a slideshow of photos – some from the crime scene and others of Roberts and his family, the destruction of the schoolhouse, and the memorial sites of some of the victims.
The second presentation was by Aryeh Halevy ’12, who penned the paper “Stopping the Violence: A Comparative Analysis of Gang/Youth Violence Prevention/Diversion Programs in the U.S. and U.K.” after a semester abroad in London. Halevy’s slideshow presentation effectively broke down his paper into bulleted findings on the similarities and differences in the ways that police departments in those countries prevent gang activity and punish offenders.
For his study, Halevy traced back to several published studies on gang formation and psychology. He conducted personal interviews with an officer from the Vice and Organized Crime Unit of the Harrisburg Police Bureau, and a constable in the London Metropolitan Police Service for the ward of Holloway.
Both countries were found to take direct approaches at suppressing gang activity with respect to protecting the community in which it occurs. Halevy argues that Harrisburg had plans in place that would have taken greater aim at proactive prevention had the funding been made available long term. Because gang members often come from broken homes, they sometimes need help figuring out how to productively use their spare time. This is not as often the case in Holloway, where there is less focus on prevention and more on suppression.
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