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People behind bars: shifting paradigms of American inmates

Faith Lutze
Faith Lutze

Perceptions change, but the American prison system continues to falter, a WSU professor said.

Faith E. Lutze, an associate professor in the department of criminal justice and criminology, spoke as part of the Common Reading lecture series. The title of Lutze’s lecture was “Perceptions of Justice: The Power of Prisons to Right a Wrong.”

“Sixty percent of our offenders will fail within three years of release,” she said. “So we might be doing something wrong.”

Lutze has researched prison life for about 25 years since she took a tour of Jackson Prison in southern Michigan. She said an experience there drastically changed her perception of the criminal justice system.

Read more about righting wrongs in America

CAS employees honored for excellence

Two members of the CAS community will receive 2013-14 President’s Employee Excellence Awards at the Celebrating Excellence Recognition Banquet, part of the WSU Showcase annual celebration of faculty, staff, and student achievement on March 28.

The awards recognize civil service and administrative professional staff for outstanding contributions in work quality, efficiency, productivity, problem solving, work relations, and community service.

Kris Boreen
Kris Boreen

Kris Boreen, budget and finance manager for the Department of Physics and Astronomy, served in a number of WSU administrative and finance manager positions before landing in physics and astronomy two years ago. Since then, she has helped the department find optimal ways to invest resources, reduce expenses, identify resource needs and manage a complex budget. She asks questions, suggests options, provides answers and hammers out solutions, sometimes working late into the night and on weekends.

Boreen brought “an infusion of positive can-do energy” that helped improve staff morale. She cares about the success of the university, department, faculty, staff and “most definitely the students,” said a nominator.

Sisouvanh Keopanapay
Sisouvanh Keopanapay

Sisouvanh Keopanapay, academic coordinator in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, supervises about 40 interns working in Pullman-area courts and police departments and creates other innovative ways for students and faculty to connect with each other and with the justice community. After she revamped her department’s internship program, it added 25 students in two semesters, said one nominator.

Keopanapay coordinates a variety of tasks efficiently and creatively, including institutional research. She initiated a study abroad program and mentors other advisers. She also advises about half of the department’s undergraduates and “her evaluations are always at the top of the charts,” said a nominator.

Read about all of this year’s winners of the WSU President’s Employee Excellence Awards

Workplace violence remains ‘extremely rare,’ say Vancouver-area experts

Clay Mosher
Clay Mosher

“This could be just a blip,” WSU sociologist Clay Mosher said after two workplace shootings and one drug-related shooting in two days in Vancouver left three people dead and three injured.

“You could see this many things in this many days…. Then you could see nothing for quite some time,” said Mosher, who analyzes crime trends and teaches criminology at WSU Vancouver. It’s possible that our society is growing accustomed to hearing about random gun violence breaking out anywhere and everywhere.

Read more about trends in violent crime

Research to help reduce criminal re-offense rates

Zachary Hamilton
Zachary Hamilton

Increasing public safety and controlling costs are among the benefits of three related research projects led by Zachary Hamilton, assistant professor of criminal justice at WSU Spokane.

With funding from the state Department of Corrections and the state Institute for Public Policy, Hamilton is helping officials predict criminal re-offense and determine the effectiveness of treatment programs. The projects are intended to enhance the state’s system for classifying and treating felony offenders and others who potentially pose a threat to society.
Learn more about this criminology research.

Urban night shift police more likely to suffer long-term job injuries, study finds

Police officers working the night shift are significantly more likely to suffer long-term on-the-job injuries than officers on day and afternoon shifts, according to a new study co-authored by Bryan Vila, professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology and the Sleep and Performance Research Center at WSU Spokane.

According to the research, independent of age and gender, urban officers working nights were three times more likely than those on the day shift, and 2.2 times more likely than those on the afternoon shift, to suffer injuries resulting in leaves of more than 90 days.

Learn more about the study