The School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers-Newark—an international leader in crime prevention and social justice—kicks off its 50th anniversary celebration with a September 27th event featuring Nancy La Vigne, almuna and director of the National Institute for Justice, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and former Chancellor Nancy Cantor, who is now president of Hunter College.
The event, titled Rutgers SCJ at 50: Fifty Years of Public Engagement for Safety and Justice, will include remarks from Interim Chancellor Jeffrey Robinson and a panel discussion, moderated by La Vigne and featuring state and local criminal justice and public safety officials, along with Rutgers staff and faculty. A lunch for alumni will follow.
The School of Criminal Justice has been at the forefront of criminology research and education since it was established by the state legislature in 1974, a time of growing public concern with rising crime rates. Officials recognized the need to improve the quality and effectiveness of the justice system in New Jersey and nationally. It has grown into an institution dedicated to advancing equity across the criminal justice system.
“Our institution has been an enormously important resource to the state of New Jersey and City of Newark, especially since the government has made it a priority to do something about racial disparities in incarceration rates, which are among the highest in the nation,’’ said Professor Todd Clear, who served previously as SCJ dean and Rutgers-Newark Provost. Clear chairs the 50th Anniversary Committee.
Known for faculty who collaborate with residents and local non-profits to conduct research, the School of Criminal Justice has driven successful crime reduction programs and policies that have impacted criminal justice reform locally and beyond.
“In the 50 years since its founding, no university-based program has done more to improve justice and promote safety than the faculty and students of Rutgers School of Criminal Justice,’’ said Clear. “With an overarching ethic of public engagement, Rutgers SCJ has taken its place as the leading example of scholarship for impact.”
The September 27th panel will include Victoria Kuhn of the NJ Department of Corrections Commissioner, Warren Thompson of Newark Public Safety Partners and Lincoln Park Coast Cultural District, Jennifer Sellitti of the New JerseyPublic Defender’s office, Ronald Pierce, New Jersey Deputy Ombudsperson for the Department of Corrections, and Lori Scott Pickens, Director of Community Outreach for Rutgers School of Criminal Justice. A lunch for alumni will follow.
The School of Criminal Justice has won international respect, standing as the only criminal justice school in the world to boast two recipients of the Stockholm Prize in Criminology, which is considered the Nobel Prize of the field, said Clear. Work abroad includes research on crime and justice in South and Central America and studies on crime, public health and incarceration in Chile. Clear created an exchange program with South African criminologists.
In recent years, the school has contributed to a 40 percent reduction in Newark’s crime rate, a drop that’s been attributed in part to the Newark Public Safety Collaborative, which analyzes locations associated with low-level crimes, such as abandoned buildings, vacant lots, and spots with poor lighting, rather than targeting perpetrators. It shares data with community partners and works with them to decrease crime.
The approach, called “Risk Terrain Modeling” was designed by Rutgers-Newark faculty Leslie Kenendy and Joel Caplan. The NPSC analyzes crime data and shares their results with city officials, social service agencies, and community members. The method was first applied in Atlantic City and helped reduce homicides and shooting injuries by 25 percent from 2016 to 2017.
The collaborative is now a national and international model that’s being replicated in Kansas, Dallas and Sweden.
Within the past decade, the School of Criminal Justice has been recognized nationally for its work on prison reentry, children of incarcerated parents, mandatory fines and fees in New Jersey and other states. Additional research has included studies on race and juvenile justice, incarceration rates and policing.
Faculty have published pioneering research on the impact of criminal records have on the lives of people convicted of crimes, especially those whose records were scheduled to be expunged. Rutgers Law School’s Expungement Law Project (ELP) incorporated these findings to prepare a class action lawsuit filed last year by the New Jersey Office of the Public Defender against the New Jersey State Police for failing to process nearly 50,000 expungement orders.
“It’s fair to say that no other program in the country has such a concentration of scholars interested in a range of questions centered on the relationship between criminal justice and social justice,’’ said Clear.
The school will be highlighted in November, when its impact and research will be the subject of several events at the American Society of Criminology (ASC) conference in November.
