Crimeversation

Dr. Lyndsay Boggess is an Associate Professor in the Department of Criminology. She received her Ph.D. in Criminology, Law & Society from the University of California, Irvine. Her research focuses on communities and crime, specifically how neighborhood change affects crime over time, and how changes in crime reciprocally affect neighborhood structure. She has conducted research on the housing market, gentrification and economic investment, and disorder and crime. Dr. Boggess’ recent work focuses on the effects of neighborhood structure on violent crime across different sub-groups such as race/ethnicity and sex, and examining offense patterns across geographic locations.

Dr. Tom Stucky is the Associate Dean at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis. Dr. Stucky discusses his research on the foreclosure-crime relationship and other studies related to communities and crime.  Prior to his graduate studies, Dr. Stucky served as an Undercover Enforcement Agent in the Ohio Department of Liquor Control.

Dr. Eric Connolly is an assistant professor at the Sam Houston State University. He received his Ph.D. from Florida State University. Dr. Connolly specializes in biosocial criminology. He is particularly interested in examining how genetic and environmental factors influence antisocial behavior at different stages of the life course.  He currently serves as president of the Biosocial Criminology Association, an organization of researchers and practitioners devoted to understanding how biology and environment contribute to antisocial behavior. 

Dr. Andrea Glenn is an associate professor in the department of psychology at the University of Alabama. She received her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests include psychopathy, callous/unemotional traits in youth, biologically- based prevention and intervention, hormones, and neuroethics.    In this episode, we discuss the following articles with her.  Using biological factors to individualize interventions for youth with conduct problems: Current state and ethical issues.  Toward tailored interventions: Sympathetic and parasympathetic functioning predicts responses to an intervention for conduct problems delivered in two formats. Oxytocin receptor gene variant interacts with intervention delivery format in predicting intervention outcomes for youth with conduct problems.

Dr. Joseph A. Schwartz is an Associate Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. His research interests include life-course/developmental criminology, behavior genetics, and biosocial criminology, with a particular emphasis on the combination of biological and environmental influences on the development of criminal behavior. He is a founding member and current executive officer of the Biosocial Criminology Association. His works appear in outlets spanning multiple disciplines including Criminology, Journal of Research in Crime & Delinquency, Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Criminal Justice & Behavior, Journal of Youth & Adolescence, Social Science & Medicine, Journal of Adolescent Health, and Developmental Psychology. His research has also been featured in multiple media outlets including CNN, US News & World Report, NPR, Scientific American, and The Huffington Post. *After the recording of this episode Dr. Schwartz’s mentor and dear friend Steve Tibbetts, who he mentions in this episode, passed away. Dr. Steve Tibbetts was a professor at California State University at San Bernadino for 19 years and was recently hired as the chair of Radford University’s Criminal Justice Department. Dr. Tibbetts was an all-around great person and will be sorely missed.*

Dr. Jill Portnoy is an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell in the School of Criminology and Justice Studies. Her research interests include Biosocial criminology, Psychophysiology, Hormones, Nutrition, and Biologically-informed prevention. Her research examines biological risk factors for antisocial behavior, aggression, and psychopathy. Her primary focus is on psychophysiological and hormonal risk factors for antisocial behavior, as well as interactions between these biological factors and the social environment. This research contributes to the broader field of developmental criminology, as well as into the etiology of crime. While most criminological research is either social or cognitive, her work contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the development of delinquency that takes into account factors across multiple levels of measurement. Her research has been published in many high-ranking journals including Criminology.

Dr. J.C. Barnes is an Associate Professor at the University of Cincinnati in the School of Criminal Justice. He has two primary areas of research interest. First, his research seeks to identify how genetic and environmental factors combine to impact criminological phenomena. Second, he studies the offender decision-making process in order to gain insight into the way in which offenders choose their targets. Be sure to check out his book with co-author Kevin Beaver, Quantitative and behavioral genetics for social scientists, releasing in 2020! 

Dr. Noah Painter-Davis is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of New Mexico. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology and Demography from Pennsylvania State University. His research interests focus on race and ethnic differences in crime and punishment, and demography and crime. 

Michael J. Leiber, Ph.D., is a Professor in Criminology at the University of South Florida. He earned his doctorate in criminal justice from the State University of New York at Albany. His main research interests and publications lie in juvenile delinquency, juvenile justice, and race/ethnicity. Over the last twenty years, he has also worked with the Office of Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) as a consultant dealing with the overrepresentation of minority youth in the juvenile justice system.   Recently, he has received the following recognitions:  Distinguished Research Alumni Award – University at Albany, School of Criminal Justice,  The Lifetime Achievement Award. Division on People of Color and Crime, American Society of Criminology for sustained  contributions to scholarship on race, crime and justice, and the W.E.B. Du Bois award for significant contributions to the field of racial and ethnic issues in criminology from the Western Society of Criminology.  He is acting as an Equal Protection Monitor of Memphis/Shelby County Juvenile Court in cooperation with the Department of Justice (DOJ).  Last, he is the editor of the Journal of Crime & Justice, a journal of the Midwestern Criminal Justice Association.

Dr. Jennifer Peck is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Central Florida. She received a dual BA in Criminal Justice and Sociology from the University at Albany (SUNY), and MA and PhD in Criminology from the University of South Florida. Her research interests focus on racial/ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system, treatment of disadvantaged groups throughout juvenile court processing, and special populations in courts and corrections. Jen’s recent publications appear in Justice Quarterly, Law and Human Behavior, Crime & Delinquency, and Race and Justice: An International Journal. She is also a Co-Investigator on a NIJ funded study examining perceptions of school climate and safety in Brevard County, Florida.

Dr. Barry C. Feld is a one of the nation’s leading scholars of juvenile justice. He currently teaches criminal procedure, juvenile law, torts at the University of Minnesota Law School.  The Evolution of the Juvenile Court: Race, Politics, and the Criminalizing of Juvenile Justice(New York University Press, 2017).  Kids, Cops, and Confessions: Inside the Interrogation Room (New York University Press, 2013) (recipient of the 2015 Outstanding Book Award from the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences). Bad Kids: Race and the Transformation of the Juvenile Court (Oxford University Press, 1999) (recipient of the 2001 Outstanding Book Award from the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and the 2002 Michael J. Hindelang Outstanding Book Award from the American Society of Criminology).

Dr. Patrick Lowery, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice in the Wilder School at VCU, Virginia Commonwealth University. His research focuses primarily on socio-legal studies and the intersection of race and poverty in the juvenile justice system. Lowery earned a Ph.D. in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of South Carolina in 2016. Today we discuss socio-legal studies, racial and symbolic threat theory and some great job market advice! 

Andrew Warren was sworn in as State Attorney of Florida’s 13th Judicial Circuit, Hillsborough County, on January 3, 2017, after being elected in November of 2016. Mr. Warren leads an office of approximately 130 prosecutors and nearly 300 employees whose mission is to protect the residents of Hillsborough County as well as ensure the fair and impartial application of the law in our criminal justice system. Mr. Warren previously served as a federal prosecutor with the United States Department of Justice in Tampa, FL, and Washington, DC. After prosecuting street crime as a Special Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia in 2008, Mr. Warren spent the majority of his career at the Justice Department prosecuting complex white collar crime, including investment fraud, Medicare fraud, and corporate corruption. Among other high-profile cases, he successfully prosecuted Robert Allen Stanford and other executives at Stanford Financial Group for orchestrating one of the largest frauds in history, a $7 billion Ponzi scheme.

Wilson R. Palacios, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor and Master's Program Director at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Dr. Palacios' research interest include substance use & abuse, hidden populations, and qualitative research methods. In this episode we discuss the opioid epidemic, or as Dr. Palacios prefers, the opioid syndemic.

Kicking off season two is Dr. Khary Rigg from the University of South Florida Department of Mental Health Law & Policy.  Khary Rigg is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mental Health Law & Policy and a Faculty Affiliate of the Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute at University of South Florida (USF). Dr. Rigg also holds a courtesy appointment within USF’s Sociology Department. Dr. Rigg received his Ph.D. from the University of Miami and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in health services research from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the Philadelphia VA Medical Center. Dr. Rigg is a health services and policy researcher with over 15 years of experience studying substance use disorders. Prior to coming to USF in 2013, he worked as a Senior Research Associate at the University of Delaware’s Center for Drug & Alcohol Studies and Nova Southeastern University’s Center for Applied Research on Substance Use and Health Disparities. The overall goal of his research is to generate findings that improve the way drug prevention, treatment, and harm reduction interventions are developed and delivered. Dr. Rigg’s research sits at the intersection of addiction, public health, and medicine, and focuses on three main areas: 1) opioid misuse/mortality,  2) drug use within club/nightlife settings, and 3) community-based behavioral health interventions/research. He has conducted studies on underserved populations including drug treatment clients, active street-based users, methadone patients, military veterans, adolescents, and racial/ethnic minorities. Dr. Rigg uses community-based participatory research approaches, qualitative and mixed-methods designs, as well as secondary analysis of large CDC and SAMHSA datasets. 

Episode 9 features policing expert Dr. Lorie Fridell, a professor in the Department of Criminology at the University of South Florida. Dr. Fridell has over 20 years of experience conducting research on law enforcement. Her primary research areas are police use of force and violence against police. Dr. Fridell is a national expert on racial profiling, or what she calls "racially biased policing." She speaks nationally on this topic and provides consultation and command-level training to law enforcement agencies. She has authored, co-authored or edited books entitled: Police Use of Force: Official Reports, Citizen Complaints and Legal Consequences; Police Vehicles and Firearms: Instruments of Deadly Force; Chief Concerns: Exploring the Challenges of Police Use of Force; Community Policing: Past, Present and Future. Recent articles and chapters on these and other research topics include "Use-of-Force Policy, Policy Enforcement and Training," "The Impact of Agency Context, Policies and Practices on Violence against Police," "Deadly Force Policy and Practice: The Forces of Change," and "Attracting Females and Racial/Ethnic Minorities to Law Enforcement." Dr. Fridell is a national expert on racial profiling, or what she calls "racially biased policing."  Publications on this topic include two books: Racially Biased Policing: A Principled Response and By the Numbers: A Guide for Analyzing Race Data from Vehicle Stops (and the companion guide, Understanding Race Data from Vehicle Stops: A Stakeholder's Guide). A recent chapter is and "Racially Biased Policing: The Law Enforcement Response to the Implicit Black-Crime Association." Dr. Fridell is a Co-PI on the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) funded National Police Research Platform, which is a multi-component, multi-method pilot project collecting data on law enforcement personnel and agencies at 100 sites around the United States. Dr. Fridell has served as Principal Investigator or Co-Principal Investigator on projects funded at close to $8 million; she has brought in close to $1.5 million in grants/contracts to USF. She taught previously at the University of Nebraska and Florida State University. She has received five university-level teaching awards.

Episode 8 features expert George W. Burruss, Ph.D. from the University of South Florida. Dr. Burruss is Associate Professor in the Department of Criminology and affiliated with the Florida Cybersecurity Center. He received his Ph.D. in criminology and criminal justice from the University of Missouri — St. Louis in 2001. Before earning his doctorate, Dr. Burruss served as a fraud investigator with the Office of Missouri Attorney General. His research focuses on criminal justice organizations, including policing, homeland security, and juvenile courts. Also, he studies the causes and correlates of offending in cyberspace and how the police respond to cybercrime. He recently published a book with colleagues, Policing Cybercrime and Cyberterror.

We are proud to introduce doctoral candidate Caitlyn Muniz from the University of South Florida Department of Criminology. In addition to discussing Caitlyn's research interest, she shares with us her experience as both a graduate student and a mother. Caitlyn began the USF Criminology PhD. program in the Fall of 2014 after completing a M.A. in Legal Studies from Texas State University and a B.A. in Criminology and Investigations from West Virginia University. 

Following our second death penalty case, our expert today is Kerry Myers from the University of South Florida. Myers played a pivotal role in the Timothy McVeigh case and testified against him at trial.  Kerry Myers teaches graduate classes on forensic accounting, which includes the topics of white collar crime, fraud, money laundering, and financial investigation, at USF's Lynn Pippenger School of Accountancy in the Muma College of Business. He is also part of the Florida Center for Cybersecurity. Prior to joining USF, Myers worked 25 years as both an attorney and an accountant with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He was one of the original members of the Tampa Bay Bank Fraud Task Force and also served on the Tampa Joint Terrorism Task Force. He was also certified as a bomb technician with the FBI and worked the Oklahoma City Bombing, Centennial Park Bombing in Atlanta, and the TWA Flight 800 crash off of Long Island Sound. He testified against both Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols during their respective trials. His FBI terrorism financing and bombing investigations have taken him to Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Thailand, and Greece. Myers received the Federal Law Enforcement Officers' Association Annual Award for Bravery in 2008 for his work in Afghanistan with improvised explosive devices, and a Director's Award from then-FBI Director Louis Freeh for leading a national terrorism undercover operation. Myers earned his Juris Doctorate, with distinction, from the University of Missouri and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration-Accounting, summa cum laude, from Central Missouri State University. He is a Certified Fraud Examiner and is licensed to practice law in Missouri, where he was a trial attorney and prosecutor for almost a decade before joining the FBI. Tune in to PBS on November 20th to see his interview with PBS!

Our second death penalty case in the Month of Murder: domestic terrorist, Timothy McVeigh. McVeigh perpetrated the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and was executed by lethal injection in 2001. Tune in next week for our interview with an FBI agent who was involved in the investigation and trial. 

Our first death penalty expert, Dr. John Cochran, helps us bust 5 death penalty myths! John Cochran is Professor of Criminology at the University of South Florida. He received his B.A. (1980), M. A. (1982), and Ph.D. (1987) in Sociology from the University of Florida. Before his appointment at USF in 1994, he was a faculty member in the Department of Sociology & Social Work at Wichita State University (1986-1989) and the Department of Sociology at the University of Oklahoma (1989-1993). His teaching and research interests include micro-social theories of criminal behavior, macro-social theories of crime and crime control, assessments of issues regarding the legitimacy of capital punishment, and quantitative data collection and analysis. He has published approximately 150 articles, book chapters, and reports, is an ad hoc reviewer for 46 professional journals, and has served on the editorial boards of Justice Quarterly, Deviant Behavior, Journal of Drug Issues, Criminal Justice Policy Review, Sociological Inquiry, Journal of Crime and Justice, and several others.

Kicking off our month of murder is the first death penalty case: Joseph killed his father-in-law on a hog farm in 1990 during a domestic violence dispute. 

Kathleen Heide, Ph.D, is a Professor of Criminology at University of South Florida's College of Behavioral and Community Sciences in Tampa, Florida. Heide studies violence in children, has evaluated hundreds of troubled kids and has testified in court many times. Her research shows most children who kill parents were abused or neglected; many never emotionally bonded with a parent or anyone else. Heide's research shows guns are the weapon of choice for most kids who kill. Heide has been interviewed hundreds of times by reporters in North America, South America and Europe. She has appeared as an expert on Larry King Live, CNN, Fox News, Court TV, TruTV, Good Morning America, and many talks shows including Geraldo, Sally Jesse Raphael, Maury Povich and Rivera Live. Heide is also the author or co-author of more than 100 publications; author of two widely acclaimed books on juvenile homicide and co-author of recently published book on animal cruelty as pathway to human violence. She has won six awards for teaching excellence and has served as member of more than 10 community and state boards of directors, councils, or task forces, including two consecutive gubernatorial appointments to the Florida Sentencing Commission. Dr. Heide has been honored on many occasions for her educational achievements, research accomplishments, instructional activities, and service to the community and to the profession.  Here are just a few.  Professor Heide has received five awards for teaching excellence. She was invited by Queen Sofia of Spain to present her research on juvenile homicide at an international conference held on youth violence in Valencia, Spain.  She was also invited to give the opening address at an international conference in homicide sponsored by Griffith University and the Australian government in Brisbane, Australia.  Professor Heide was one of eight scholars from Australia, the United Kingdom, the United Nations, and the United States recently invited by Monash University in Australia to present my research on parricide at the Prato Centre in Italy. She has been formally recognized as a Distinguished Alumna of the School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany, State University of New York, one of the top schools of criminology in the United States. 

This week we discuss the infamous Menendez brothers, the 21 and 18 year old brothers who killed their parents in cold blood. 

Following our discussion on the case of Jeanne Clery, this week we hosted Dr. Ráchael Powers to discuss her research on violence against women on college campuses and the red zone. Dr. Ráchael Powers is an Associate Professor in the Department of Criminology at the University of South Florida. 

Episode 4 of Crimeversation discusses the tragic assault and murder of 19 year old Lehigh University student, Jeanne Clery. What took place the night of April 5, 1986 and how did her parents respond to this tragedy? 

The final episode in our 5 part series on the heartbreaking case of Etan Patz. We are joined by the 'lone juror,' Adam Sirois from the Pedro Hernandez case discussing the trial and his decision to not convict.

Part 4 of the 5 part series discussing the case of Etan Patz. Our expert this week is Dr. Nancy Franklin is an Associate Professor of Cognitive Science at Stony Brook University. Dr. Franklin's research focuses on memory representation, (1) how memories for imagined events  are similar to those for actual events and (2) how people evaluate their memories to determine whether remembered events had actually occurred. Dr. Franklin also studies source monitoring (the process by which a person determines the origin of a retrieved memory) and situation models (the memory representation for a described event or situation). 

Part 3 of a 5 part series discussing the case of Etan Patz. Today we (finally) unveil the identity of suspect #3!

Part 2 of the 5 part series discussing the case of Etan Patz. Our expert this week is Dr. Michelle Jeanis to discuss missing person cases. Dr. Michelle Jeanis received her master’s degree in Psychology from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and a Doctorate in Criminology from the University of South Florida.  Dr. Jeanis’ research focuses on missing persons, youth runaways, and the relationship between news/entertainment media and crime, offenders, and victims. She works with both law enforcement agencies and non-profit organizations in the study of missing persons cases.

Our first Grad Spot interview is with USF Doctoral student, Catherine Law. Catherine began the USF Criminology Ph.D. program in the Fall of 2016 after completing an M.S in Criminal Justice and Penal Change in her home country, Scotland, UK. She was the first recipient of  USF's Fulbright Postgraduate Award, named in honor of USF System President Judy Genshaft. Her research interests include racial and gender disparities within the criminal justice system, incarceration issues, and intimate partner violence.

Part 1 of a 5 part series discussing the heartbreaking case of Etan Patz. Today we discuss the details of Etan's disappearance and suspects 1-2. 

Episode 2 Part 2 of Crimeversation continues the conversation around police militarization and the events that took place in Ferguson, Missouri. Our expert this week is Dr. Rick Moule from the University of South Florida. 

Episode 2 of Crimeversation follows the events that took place in Ferguson, Missouri after the death of Michael Brown. Hosts Lauren Miley and Tayler Shreve discuss both officer and witness accounts of the shooting, then discuss the riots in Ferguson, Missouri. Part 1 begins the conversation around police militarization that will continue next week with Dr. Rick Moule from the University of South Florida. 

Continuing the conversation about immigration policy, our second expert is Dr. Bryanna Fox from the University of South Florida. Dr. Bryanna Fox is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminology and Courtesy Professor in the Department of Mental Health, Law, and Policy at the University of South Florida.

Continuing the conversation about immigration policy, our first expert is Dr. Alex Piquero from the University of Texas at Dallas. Dr. Alex R. Piquero is Ashbel Smith Professor of Criminology and Associate Dean for Graduate Programs in the School of Economic, Political, and Policy Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas.