Aerial view of campus with Williamsport, the Susquehanna River and Bald Eagle Mountain as a backdrop

Criminal Justice News


Community corrections text voices new approach to probation and parole

Nearly three million adults are currently on probation in the United States, making it the most used criminal punishment in the United States, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

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Lycoming College students to survey households about attitudes toward Williamsport Bureau of Police and neighborhood issues this spring

Undergraduate students majoring in criminal justice at Lycoming College will be asking residents in Williamsport to participate in a survey this spring to assess attitudes toward the local police. Students will begin this field research on May 15 and will continue through June, during early and late afternoon hours. The student research assistants are working with Justin Medina, Ph.D., assistant professor of criminal justice-criminology at Lycoming, who oversaw an earlier iteration of this research in Fall 2022 that concluded with over 70 survey participants across four Williamsport neighborhoods.  

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Strauser Lecture to address justice reform for disenfranchised women

Lycoming College welcomes Jill McCorkel, Ph.D., as the speaker for the 22nd annual Strauser Lecture. Her talk, titled “Ain't I a Prisoner? How Justice Reform Efforts Are Failing Incarcerated Women,” will discuss the widespread failure of modern reforms in the justice system to help disenfranchised women. It will be held on Monday, March 27, at 4 p.m. in the Academic Center, room D-001, followed by a reception at 5 p.m. in Pennington Lounge. This event is free and open to the public.

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Bucknell University and Lycoming College collaborate to present bestselling author talks

New York Times bestselling author Ann Leary will lecture at both Bucknell University and Lycoming College March 7 and 8 respectively about her book, The Foundling, an historical fiction novel based on the Laurelton Village for Feebleminded Girls and Women of Childbearing Age. Bucknell will host Leary on Tuesday, March 7, at 7 p.m., in Bucknell Hall. Lycoming will host her on Wednesday, March 8, at 7 p.m., in the Trogner Presentation Room in the Krapf Gateway Center. These collaborative events are free and open to the public.

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Virtual reality police training offers real-world experience at Lycoming College

The Mansfield University Public Safety Training Institute (MUPSTI) paid a recent visit to Lycoming College to give the campus community a taste of scenarios faced by the police every day. Students, faculty, and staff were provided the opportunity try out state-of-the-art virtual reality technology to simulate life-like policing scenarios.

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Lycoming College researchers to survey households about attitudes toward Williamsport Bureau of Police and neighborhood issues

Undergraduate students majoring in criminal justice at Lycoming College will be asking residents in four Williamsport neighborhoods near the College campus and in Newberry to participate in a survey assessing attitudes toward the local police. Students will be doing this field work from Oct. 5-Nov. 11, during early and late afternoon hours. The student research assistants are working as part of class assignments in two courses: Research Methods in Criminal Justice taught by Julie Yingling, Ph.D., assistant professor of criminal justice-criminology; and Policing and Society taught by Justin Medina, Ph.D., assistant professor of criminal justice-criminology. The professors have integrated the research project and student training into their Fall 2022 courses.

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Justin Medina writes about probation and parole for "The Hill"

"One-size-fits-all probation and parole are not solutions for reducing future criminality"

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Crime scene investigator to discuss Aurora mass shooting at Lycoming’s annual Strauser Lecture

Darvin Harrell, crime scene investigator with the city of Aurora, Colo., will be the next guest speaker of Lycoming College’s annual Strauser Lecture Series. The talk, “C-16: A Forensic Perspective” is slated for Monday, March 28, at 4 p.m., in the Academic Center, D001. A reception in Pennington Lounge will follow the lecture. This event is free and open to the public. Harrell was previously slated to speak at Lycoming in March of 2020, but the event was postponed due to Covid-19 concerns.

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Lycoming College guest speaker to discuss alternative to criminal retributivism

Lycoming College welcomes Gregg D. Caruso, Ph.D., professor of philosophy at SUNY Corning, visiting fellow at the New College of the Humanities (NCH London), and honorary professor of philosophy at Macquarie University. Caruso’s presentation, “Rejecting Retributivism: Free Will, Punishment, and Criminal Justice,” will take place Tuesday, Feb. 22, at 7 p.m. in room D-001 of the Academic Center. The event is sponsored by the department of philosophy and the department of criminal justice and criminology. The event is free and open to the public.

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WBRE/WYOU: Lycoming College studies leading factors of violence and aggression among youth

Kerry Richmond and Sydney Purcell '21 discuss their study on instances of violence among local youth.

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Lycoming College students present findings on youth crime study

Youth crime in Williamsport is not on the rise, according to Lycoming College criminal justice students from the spring semester’s “Crime Prevention and Policy” course. Recent instances of gun violence in the city, however, inspired students to look closely at current trends of criminal activity and offer solutions to the issues that led to these instances of youth crime.

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Stories of abuse and addiction define a semester for Lycoming freshmen studying reentry of those previously incarcerated

In Lycoming College’s First Year Seminar course, “Returning Home: What Does it Mean to Desist from Crime?” freshmen get a first-hand look at the challenges faced by those previously incarcerated as they seek to create new lives, such as finding a job, reconnecting with their family, and staying sober. In a culminating project, students interviewed and wrote the stories of Lycoming County Reentry Services Center participants for publication, six of which were published over the course of a week in local news outlet, On the PULSE as part of a series entitled, “Stories of Reentry.”

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Reentry simulation to take place at Lycoming College

*The United States makes up 5% of the world’s population, but has 25% of the world’s prison population.

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