@ John Jay Newsletter - March 11, 2009

@John Jay Worth Noting March 13 8:30 AM McCabe Fellowship Breakfast Guest speaker: Seán Aylward, Secretary General, Department of Justice, Republic of Ireland RSVP to [email protected] 4th Floor, Haaren Hall

March 17 4:00 PM Book & Author Lecture

A Criminal Injustice: A True Crime, a False Confession, and the Fight to Free Marty Tankleff Richard Firstman and Jay Salpeter Moderated by Professor Saul Kassin Room 630, Haaren Hall

March 19 5:00 PM Conversations in Literature & Law

Where the Wild Things Are: Children’s Literature and the Constitution of Law Desmond Manderson McGill University Room 630, Haaren Hall

March 22 4:00 PM Water, Our Most Precious Resource: A Celebration of World Water Day

A narrated concert including traditional spirituals, gospel and folk music Gerald W. Lynch Theater

March 30 6:00 PM 2009 Alumni Reunion

Saluting the classes of 1969, 1974, 1979, 1984, 1989, 1994, 1999 and 2004. Honorees: Anthony J. Lamberti, Esq. (BA, 1978) and Professor Karen Kaplowitz, English Department RSVP to [email protected] Gymnasium, Haaren Hall

News and Events of Interest to the College Community March 11, 2009

Black History Month Wraps Up with Salute to Malcolm X, Dr. King, Obama & Malone Milly-ann Isaac belts out the anthem “Lift Every Voice and Sing” at the 19th annual Malcolm/King Breakfast on February 27, as President Jeremy Travis, Vice President for Student Development Berenecea Johnson Eanes, Dean of Graduate Studies Jannette Domingo and Dr. James Malone look on. Malone, the event’s honoree, retired in January after 40 years at John Jay, during which he served as the first director of the SEEK Department, the first vice president for administrative affairs and dean of students, among other positions. Travis pointed out that Malone also served as a tennis opponent and coach. In his acceptance remarks, Malone said: “What I am most proud of are the many students I have helped to develop a different world view. That makes my heart sing.” The event’s scheduled keynote speaker, New York State Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith, was unable to attend due to unforeseen circumstances.

Play Ball!

Baseball & Softball Teams See Big Things in Store in 2009 One sure sign that spring is just around the corner is the return of baseball and softball to the John Jay calendar. The men’s baseball team opened its eighth season under head coach Dan Palumbo on February 22, in a road game played under raw wintry conditions against Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ. The Bloodhounds lost 12-7 in their only game before heading South for a seven-game trip to Florida. The women’s softball team began its 2009 season on March 6 with a four-game tournament in Virginia Beach, VA. Results of those games were not available as this issue went to press. “We had a positive season last year which was perfect to build on when approaching this season,” said second-year head coach Laura Drazdowski. “We are a much different team

Marketing & Development Pro Is John Jay’s Newest VP Vivien Hoexter, a veteran fundraising program. executive in the highly Prior to Gilda’s Club, competitive nonprofit Hoexter was vice president sector, has been named of AFS Intercultural as the College’s new Vice Programs/USA, one President for Marketing and of the world’s largest Development. international high school President Jeremy Travis exchange programs. She announced the appointment has also been director on February 9. Hoexter of development for The succeeds Tova Friedler, who Hunger Project, a global retired at the end of January. anti-poverty initiative. “In every position she has Hoexter earned her held, Vivien has been highly bachelor’s degree in successful at increasing the history (magna cum laude) organization’s visibility, buildfrom Yale College, and a ing a team of professionals master’s degree in business committed to the organizaadministration, with a tion’s mission, and leveraging concentration in marketing, external support for that from the Wharton School Vice President for Marketing and Development mission,” Travis said. “These at the University of Vivien Hoexter skills are precisely what John Pennsylvania. Jay needs at this point in our history.” “I am thrilled to be part of such a vibrant Hoexter most recently served as chief community,” said Hoexter, whose department executive officer of Gilda’s Club Worldwide, includes alumni relations, fundraising and an organization that provides emotional and development, special events planning, social support to people with cancer, their communications, public relations, graphics families and friends. In that role she doubled and design, and Web site management. “I the organization’s fundraising income, launched look forward to serving the students, faculty a planned-giving campaign and generated and other stakeholders of this very important more than $1 million through a new corporate institution.”

from a year ago. We have our core group of players returning this year along with a great incoming class, which is the perfect recipe for improvement. The veterans are excited about what they believe we can accomplish this season, and the newcomers are enthusiastic and eager to prove themselves.” The team is led by junior shortstop Danielle Bonici, a first-team CUNY Athletic Conference all-star, and senior catcher Marlenne Nuñez, a second-team all-star. They are among 10 returning players from the 2008 team, including sophomore starting pitchers Angela Lam and Nina Chao. Seven freshmen have been added to the squad. The softball team begins its home season on March 28 with a doubleheader against conference rival Baruch. The 2008 baseball team narrowly lost out in a bid for a second straight CUNYAC title, falling to the College of Staten Island 8-7 in the championship game. This year’s squad will feature five returning position players, including first-team conference all-stars John Massoni in right field and Xavier Perez at shortstop. When not playing the outfield, Massoni will

Luis Guzman (left) and Michael Colletta hope to be part of another championship season for John Jay’s baseball team.

help anchor a pitching staff that also includes fellow senior Michael Colletta. Catcher Luis Guzman, a second-team CUNYAC all-star, will return to his duties behind home plate, while centerfielder Edwin Hernandez and first baseman Johan Abad are also back for another season. All three are juniors. “This team is working incredibly hard right now,” Palumbo said in a pre-season assessment. “We have a better work ethic than I have seen in a few years and there is a great feeling of cohesiveness on the team.”

John Jay Delegation Takes ACJS Conference by Storm Sixty of John Jay’s faculty members, staff and students arrived in Boston on March 10 for the four-day annual meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS), to present the fruits of their current research efforts. “Once again John Jay will have more presenters at the ACJS conference than any other college or university in the country,” said Dean for Research James Levine, who is among the conference attendees. “This is yet another manifestation of our ever-expanding research agendas and our prominence in the world of criminal justice scholarship.” At the conference, Professor Staci Strobl was named as the winner of the Richard J. Terrill Paper of the Year Award. Strobl was honored for “The Women’s Police Directorate in Bahrain: An Ethnographic Exploration of Gender Segregation and the Likelihood of Future Integration.” This article appeared in the International Criminal Justice Review and was hailed by the journal’s editor as “an excellent piece of scholarship.” Underscoring the prevalence of faculty-student

research collaborations at John Jay, at least 20 students from a variety of undergraduate, graduate and doctoral programs attended the conference as presenters or panel discussants. John Jay faculty representatives at the ACJS conference included: Alissa Ackerman, Katarzyna Celinska, Serguei Cheloukhine, Todd Clear, John DeCarlo, Kristin Englander, Beverly Frazier, Lior Gideon, Maki Haberfeld, Joseph King, Charles Lieberman, James Lynch, Yue Ma, Kevin McCarthy, Frank Pezzella, Megan Sacks, Walter Signorelli, Eli Silverman, Staci Strobl, Hung-En Sung, Karen Terry, Carrie Trojan and Cecile van de Voorde (Law and Police Science); Elizabeth Jeglic, Cynthia Calkins Mercado and Gabrielle Salfati (Psychology); Rosemary Barberet and Brenda Vollman (Sociology); David Kennedy (Anthropology/Center on Crime Prevention and Control); Matthew Zommer (Government); Marvie Brooks and Larry E. Sullivan (Library); Richard Culp and Vincenzo Sainato (Public Management); Roberta Belli and Candace McCoy (criminal justice doctoral program).

Like Sealy, Researchers at Annual Lecture See Education as a Weapon for Civil Rights Reducing Racial Bias by Police Is the Goal

The legacy of Lloyd Sealy — pioneering police commander and educator — lived on at the annual lecture event named for the late John Jay professor, in a lively discussion of how police leaders can use research to reduce racial bias. The event, co-sponsored by John Jay and the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE), featured Dr. Tracie Keesee, the Division Chief of Research, Training and Technology for the Denver Police Department, and Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff, a social psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. The two have been exploring how research and training can be applied together to address possible racial bias in police decision-making. “As police officers, especially black officers, we struggle to do the right thing, and to do right by the community,” said Keesee, a 20-year police veteran. To that end, the Denver PD conducted extensive research to determine the extent to which racial bias and stereotyped beliefs may influence officers’ handling of certain situations, such as the decision to stop, arrest or use physical force. “We brought in world-class scientists to ask pointed questions,” said Keesee. “After all, we in law enforcement often think we know all the answers.” The department created a partnership arrangement with university-based researchers,

giving them wide access to information and promising them autonomy in terms of publishing their findings. Using a high-tech virtual reality simulator, officers were measured for their reactions to and handling of various threatening situations. In general, racial bias was found to affect officers’ reaction time, but not the decision to shoot the suspect. The department created a feedback loop consisting of officers’ behavior, training evaluations and psychological testing, Keesee said, and researchers were able to conclude that “training does what it’s supposed to do.” Goff followed Keesee to the podium and noted that as an outgrowth of the Denver research, a Consortium for Police Leadership in Equity was established, consisting of 15 police departments nationwide and researchers from John Jay, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford and UCLA. “The challenge for researchers is how do we translate findings from the lab to the street,” he said. “Like Lloyd Sealy, we believe education is a powerful weapon for civil rights,” Goff added. Sealy was one of 60 founding members of NOBLE in 1976. His 34-year career with the New York City Police Department saw him become the department’s first black precinct commander, and retire at the rank of assistant chief inspector.

Tracie Keesee, a division chief with the Denver Police Department, explores the use of research to reduce police bias, while co-researcher Phillp Atiba Goff awaits his turn at the microphone during the annual Lloyd Sealy Lecture. (See story at left.)

Speech Sleuths Analyze Art & Science of Forensic Linguistics As the saying goes, it’s not what you say, but how you say it. According to forensic linguistics experts, however, it may be both. An all-day workshop on February 20, cosponsored by the Center for Modern Forensic Practice and the Department of English, brought together two of the top experts in the field to discuss “Forensic Linguistics for Investigative Practitioners,” with a focus on threat assessment, counterterrorism and criminal communications. The workshop was conducted in a splitsession format by Robert Leonard, head of the Hofstra University Department of Linguistics and director of the Hofstra Forensic Linguistic Project, and James R. Fitzgerald, a former FBI supervisory special agent who is now a violent crime consultant and a forensic linguist with the Academy Group Inc. Fitzgerald, a member of the FBI’s Unabom task force, described the investigation that ultimately led to the arrest and conviction of Theodore Kaczynski in 1996 as the “largest authorial attribution project ever undertaken by the FBI.” The task force, which at its peak considered roughly 2,500 suspects in the serial bombing investigation, pored over the 35,000-word

manifesto written by Kaczynski in search of clues. One of the phenomena spotted in the document, as in numerous similar communications, was what Fitzgerald called “contraindicators,” or words and phrases that actually mean the opposite of what they appear to suggest. “What kind of person wrote this?” Fitzgerald said, noting that 95 percent of threat letters handled by the FBI are anonymous, and the writers usually put as much effort into the threat as they do into maintaining their anonymity. Other tip offs spotted by investigators include whether an individual writes out dates numerically with hyphens — as in 9-11-01 — slashes — 9/11/01 — or periods — 9.11.01. The postmarks and return addresses on threat letters may also be contraindicators, Fitzgerald said, in an attempt to confuse investigators. Such was the case with the 2001 Americathrax case, in which anthrax poison was mailed to a number of different targets. Fitzgerald and Leonard first met during the course of the Americathrax investigation that led nearly seven years later to the FBI’s identification of chemist Bruce T. Ivins as the most likely suspect.

On the Margins

Alford Young Jr., a sociologist at the University of Michigan and author of The Minds of Marginalized Black Men: Making Sense of Mobility. Opportunity and Future Life Chances, interacts with the audience that packed the Gerald W. Lynch Theater Lobby during a February 23 discussion and book-signing event co-sponsored by Center on Race, Crime and Justice.

Darkest Night Performers from the Ruth Kanner Theatre Group at Tel Aviv University stage a scene from Cases of Murder (November 9, 1938: A protocol of fear brutality and death) during a special presentation at John Jay on February 27. The theatrical work reconstructs acts of violence committed against Jews during the night between November 9 and 10, 1938, known as Krystallnacht. Using a montage of documentary and literary devices, the scenes from Cases of Murder exposed the mechanisms of moral evasion, vague and ambiguous talk and turning blind eyes that made the atrocities possible. “It was significant that this work occurred at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The larger discourse on genocide, war crimes, human rights abuses and the struggle for social justice is clearly served by events such as this,” said Professor Seth Baumrin, who facilitated the event for the Department of Communication and Theatre Arts. The presentation also included readings of new work on the investigation of war crimes, enacted by John Jay Professor Ric Curtis and student Luis Guitierrez, and a discussion led by Professor Itai Sneh.

FACULTY / STAFF NOTES PRESENTING

Justice: Overcoming the Tyranny of the Funnel.”

MIRIAM EHRENBERG (Psychology) gave an invited address at the annual conference of Globalisation for the Common Good, held in Melbourne, Australia. Her paper, “Applying Psychotherapy Techniques to Religious and Ethnic Conflict,” covered both western and Islamic psychotherapy approaches and the implications of each for conflict resolution.

GEORGE ANDREOPOULOS (Government) delivered a series of lectures on “The Evolution of International Human Rights Norms” at the University of Bologna in January. The lectures were part of the university’s graduate program in human rights and humanitarian intervention.

JEREMY TRAVIS (President) was the keynote speaker at the Public Service Conference on the Future of Community Justice in Wisconsin at Marquette Law School on February 20. His remarks focused on “Building Communities with

PETER MOSKOS (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) was a panelist at the New York Academy of Medicine’s “Harm Reduction” conference on January 23. He was also a featured speaker at the annual conference of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, held in College Park, MD, on November 23.

PATRICK COLLINS (Communication & Theatre Arts) had two books released in January by Sterling Publishers, a Barnes and Noble imprint. Negotiate to Win! is a tactical guide to achieving success in negotiations, and features a unique chapter on cross-cultural negotiation. The second book, Speak with Power and Confidence, is an updated and revised edition of Collins’ comprehensive guide to maximizing public speaking skills, originally published in 1998. Both works attracted the attention of foreign publishers at the Fall 2008 Frankfurt Book Fair.

R. TERRY FURST (Anthropology) presented “A Qualitative Exploration of Suboxone Opioid Maintenance in a Harm Reduction Setting in New York City,” a paper cowritten with Herman Joseph, and Sharon Stancliff, at the Columbia University Seminar Series in New York in December. Furst was also one of the authors, along with Stancliff and Joseph, of “Low Threshold Buprenorphine,” a paper presented by Stancliff

JOSEPH KING (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) published his article “Policing after Peel: the Government Moves to Centralize” in the Turkish Journal of Police Studies in 2008. His article “Police Problems: Labor Relations in the Early Police Service of the United Kingdom” appeared in the January 2009 issue of Police Forum, published by the Police Section of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences.

@ John Jay is published by the Department of Institutional Advancement John Jay College of Criminal Justice 899 Tenth Avenue, New York, NY 10019 www.jjay.cuny.edu Editor Peter Dodenhoff Submissions should be faxed or e-mailed to: Office of Communications fax: (212) 237-8642 e-mail: pdodenhoff@jjay.cuny.edu

at the 7th National Harm Reduction Conference in Miami last November.

BETWEEN THE COVERS

educating for justice

ALISSE WATERSTON (Anthropology) has had two new edited volumes published: An Anthropology of War: Views from the Frontline (Berghahn Books, 2009) and Anthropology Off the Shelf: Anthropologists on Writing (Wiley Blackwell, 2009, Maria D. Vesperi, co-editor). An Anthropology of War includes Waterston’s introduction, “On War and Accountability.” Anthropology off the Shelf includes a chapter by Waterston titled “Writing Poverty, Drawing Readers: Stories in Love, Sorrow and Rage.” Waterston serves as chair of the American Anthropological Association’s Committee on the Future of Print and Electronic Publishing to guide the digital transition of scholarly publishing. In November, Waterston presented a talk at the association’s annual meeting on “The Academy, the Market-State and the Dissemination of Anthropological Knowledge in the Digital Age.” PETER MOSKOS (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) had his book review of Hugh Holton’s The Thin Black Line: True Stories by Black Law Enforcement Officers Policing America’s Meanest Streets published in The Washington Post on January 11.