On June 17, 2020, two students from the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Samantha Bennett and Chunghyeon Seo, defended their dissertation research projects.
Samantha Bennett's dissertation research examined the impact of the Pennsylvania Juvenile Justice System Enhancement Strategy on police dispositional behavior of juvenile suspects. Her study used 11 years of data across three different states and hundreds of police agencies. Ultimately, she found mixed support for the impact of PJJSES on police dispositional behavior: while the passage of PJJSES in 2012 does seem to have increased the extent to which Pennsylvanian police agencies made use of informal dispositions, there was no difference between Pennsylvanian agencies and those of other states in terms of the change in formal dispositions.
Bennett accepted an assistant professor position at Muskingum University in New Concord, Ohio, starting the 2020-21 academic year, where she will be teaching several courses, including introductory courses on the criminal justice system, the courts, and corrections, a course on child maltreatment, and a three-week, intensive senior seminar.
Chunghyeon Seo's dissertation examined both the objective and subjective effectiveness of police response models on handling people with mental illness. His dissertation employed two methodologies: a systematic review with meta-analysis and a state-wide survey of police chiefs in Pennsylvania. The systematic review with meta-analysis examined the objective effectiveness of police response models on handling people with mental illness by synthesizing published quantitative studies on the topic. The state-wide survey asked police chiefs in Pennsylvania to report their subjective views on the effectiveness and implementation of mentally ill response models. Seo's research was supported by three internal grants: University Research Experiences for Summer Scholars Award, College Student Scholarly Activity Grant Award, and University Graduate Research Grant.
Seo is planning for a career in academia, but he will spend this summer assisting Alida Merlo (Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice) with juvenile justice reform research associated with her being selected as the IUP Distinguished University Professor for the upcoming academic year.