Faculty Publications, Reports, and Media Contributions
Gillooly wins the 2023 CTSE Innovative Teaching Award
Assistant Professor Jessica Gillooly won the 2023 CTSE Innovative Teaching Award for her focus on experiential and interactive learning activities around Boston that are aimed to help her Intro to Criminal Justice students understand the historical forces of institutionalized racism that are at the core of the criminal justice system. She provides a two-part experiential learning activity for her students that involves an in-class plea bargaining simulation followed by a trip to observe courtroom proceedings at Boston Municipal Court with Suffolk Law Professor Miller. These activities, and after-the-fact reflections, help her students to understand firsthand the toll the criminal justice system takes on those caught up in it.
Sered Airs on Reentry Podcast
Professor Susan Sered spoke on More Life: The Reentry Podcast during Women’s History Month about the experiences of women as they transition from incarceration to the community and ways to move beyond recidivism and desistance. Professor Sered has authored multiple books committed to scholarship on related topics and social justice, such as Uninsured in America: Life and Death in the Land of Opportunity and Can’t Catch a Break: Gender, Jail, Drugs, and the Limits of Personal Responsibility. Sered works closely with advocacy and community organizations on issues of health, gender equity and ending mass incarceration.
You can listen to her episode here.
Ptacek Publishes Book on Violence Against Women
Professor Emeritus James Ptacek recently published a new book entitled, Feeling Trapped: Social Class and Violence against Women. While many studies of intimate violence focus on poor and working-class women, few examine the issue comparatively in terms of class privilege and class disadvantage. Professor Ptacek draws on in-depth interviews with sixty women from wealthy, professional, working-class, and poor communities to investigate how social class shapes both women’s experiences of violence and the responses of their communities to this violence. Ptacek’s framing of women’s victimization as “social entrapment” links private violence to public responses and connects social inequalities to the dilemmas that women face.
Gillooly Airs on Podcast
Assistant Professor Jessica Gillooly, Sociology & Criminal Justice, recently appeared on the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management’s Closer Look podcast. She talks to the host, Professor Seth Gershenson of American University, about her recent award winning JPAM article on the important role that 911 call centers play in shaping police behavior at the scene. JPAM’s Closer Look is a deep-dive discussion with Journal of Policy Analysis & Management (JPAM) authors who are researching some of the top issues facing our country today. The podcast is available on Spotify and podbean.
Harkins Publishes Book on Social Justice
Professor Debra Harkins recently published a book entitled, Helping to Promote Social Justice. It is a richly informed and practical guide for advanced students and young professionals to become helpers capable of promoting social justice with whomever they collaborate with, mentor, serve and consult. Filled with insight and supplemental exercises, the book will direct readers to think critically and reflect on the broader social and political systems that create our current social injustices.
Beginning with a strong theoretical focus on power, social identity and intersectionality, the authors engage with readers’ assumptions on helping, their value systems and their understandings of power and privilege when helping communities in need. The rest of the book focuses on the application of these critical concepts, guiding future helpers to consider how to intervene, assess need, lead, build a team, address conflict and work to promote change from a position of social justice.
Written by academic faculty with expertise in teaching, coaching and consulting, Helping to Promote Social Justice should be considered essential reading for students in social work, sociology, psychology and counselling.
Gebo Co-edits Special Issue
Gillooly Wins 2022 APPAM Raymond Vernon Memorial Prize for Best Article
Assistant Professor Jessica Gillooly has been selected as the recipient of this year’s Raymond Vernon Memorial Award by the Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management (APPAM). Gillooly was recognized for her research, “Lights and Sirens: Variation in 911 Call-Taker Risk Appraisal and its Effects on Police Officer Perceptions at the Scene.” Her paper details how a 911 call-taker’s “alarmist” response to a call primes police officer perceptions at the scene. Gillooly analyzes call-for-service data involving mental health crises and public assaults from a dispatch center in Southeast Michigan to demonstrate that calls classified as high priority by call-takers are significantly more likely to be classified as high priority by the police at the scene. Read full paper here.
Let there be no new women’s prison in Massachusetts
By Susan Sered for Boston Globe – July 1, 2022
“As I told your reporter (“Report seeks new women’s prison,” Metro, June 27), I am strongly opposed to building a new women’s prison. As a sociologist working with women who have been incarcerated, I witness how it causes long-term harm to women and their families…”
Why 911 dispatch is critical to the Uvalde shooting investigation
By Jessica Gillooly, Opinion Contributor – June 4, 2022
“As a former 911 call-taker, I understand time pressure. It can be frustrating waiting for a 911 caller to provide the address of their emergency or for a police officer to arrive at the scene of an incident. It also can be deadly…”
Breaking the Cycle
By Rachel Cohen for Suffolk University Magazine Spring 2022
“When Boston’s new mayor Michelle Wu announced in early December her decision to move people living in tent encampments at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard into nearby transitional housing…”
Sounding the Alarm on Correctional Officer Mental Health
By Andrea Grant for Suffolk University News and Features – February 27, 2022
“In 2016, the Massachusetts Department of Correction had a crisis on its hands — and it had nothing to do with its inmates. Instead, data showed unusually high suicide rates among its staff. Twenty correctional officers (COs) had died by suicide in the previous five years…”
Op-Ed: The first lesson of fielding 911 calls: Don’t be alarmist
By Jessica Gillooly for Los Angeles Times – January 7, 2022
“Fourteen-year-old Valentina Orellana-Peralta was shopping with her mother two days before Christmas when she was killed by a stray bullet fired by police in the North Hollywood Burlington store. The question of why this tragedy happened falls not only on the officer’s action in that moment, but also on the information the police were given when they were sent to the store…”
We Need Another Path: Indigenous Approaches to Sustainability
By Keri Iyall-Smith – March 26, 2021
“A British scientist recently placed a cellular phone in a blender to break the device apart and discover its internal components. These items are unknown to us, and we are further separated from the substances that allow for the manufacture and creation of the devices—how are the raw materials acquired? What is the procedure for extracting the resources? From where are they extracted?…”
Recreating Our Communities to Respond to the Climate Emergency
By Keri Iyall-Smith – December 13, 2021
“Sometimes in slow motion, other times in time lapse, climate change is underway. People are already experiencing the ill effects of climate change, and if we fail to act quickly things will only become more dire. In one stark example, the town of Kivalina in Alaska is at risk of being washed away by the sea, and efforts are underway to relocate the community. The Inuit Circumpolar Conference has been gathering data on climate change for decades and they seek to preserve their right to…”
The Impact of Correction Officer Suicide on the Institutional Environment and on the Wellbeing of Correctional Employees
By Carlos Monteiro and Natasha Frost – December 1, 2021
“In 2016, almost 43,000 Americans died by suicide (Peterson et al., 2018). Suicide, which is the 10th
leading cause of death in the United States, claims more than twice as many lives each year…“
The Interaction of Personal and Occupational Factors in the Suicide Deaths of Correction Officers
By Carlos Monteiro and Natasha Frost – January 1, 2020
“Using a grounded theory approach, the study sought to better understand the ways in which personal and occupational factors may have contributed to the suicide deaths of the officers…“
How 911 callers and call-takers impact police encounters with the public: The case of the Henry Louis Gates Jr. arrest
By Jessica Gillooly for Criminal Justice and Public Policy – July 9, 2020
“Contemporary policing in America is facing serious issues surrounding the level and distribution…”
Iyall Smith Interview
By Keri Iyall Smith, 2020
Keri Iyall Smith, Associate Professor of Sociology at Suffolk University and representative to the AAAS Science and Human Rights Coalition for Sociologists without Borders, outlines the challenges indigenous peoples in the US are facing from COVID-19 and how Native American communities are responding to the pandemic.
Understanding Correctional Officer Stress
By Carlos Monteiro, et. al. – January 2019
“In 2014, researchers Marie Griffin and John Hepburn from Arizona State University received
federal funding from the National Institute of Justice for their proposed study, “Measuring
the Effects of Correctional Officer Stress on the Well-Being of the Individual Officer and the
Prison Workplace and Developing a Practical Index of Correctional Officer Stress for Use by
Correctional Agencies.” The three-year (two phase) study involved collaboration with
researchers and departments of correction from two other states…”
Deportation as a Collateral Consequence
By Carlos Monteiro for Handbook on the Consequences of Sentencing and Punishment Decisions – September 6, 2018
“This chapter provides a review of research related to U.S. deportation policies specific to criminal convictions and criminal court proceedings. The chapter begins with a survey of the history of deportation, highlighting the relevant policies and charting through the expansion of deportation practices, with analyses of the major motivating factors for deportation...”
Administrative Segregation in U.S. Prisons Executive Summary
By Carlos Monteiro and Natasha Frost – March 2016
“As the use of administrative segregation has spread precipitously, particularly since the mid1980s, so have concerns around its effects and utility (Arrigo & Bullock, 2008; Haney & Lynch,
1997; King, 1999; P. S. Smith, 2006). Some claim administrative segregation is a necessary…”