November 13, 2008
Criminology society honors two faculty members
CARBONDALE, Ill. -- Two faculty members in the Center for the Study of Crime, Delinquency and Corrections at Southern Illinois University Carbondale are award recipients at this week’s annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, being held in St. Louis.
Assistant Professors Rod K. Brunson and Christopher Mullins, both relatively new scholars in their fields, will receive division awards during the annual conference.
Brunson, who joined SIUC just this fall, specializes in administration of justice issues pertaining to class, gender and race, in particular as regards gangs and female gang involvement.
“It’s very humbling to receive an award like this, but very nice at the same time,” he said. Brunson will receive an award and recognition from the Division on People of Color and Crime in the American Society of Criminology.
He said his most recent research focuses on how urban youths interact with social institutions -- how they perceive school, how they define neighborhood, what they think of the criminal justice system. Some of his research involved young black men in East St. Louis. His work appears in journals such as Criminology, Criminology and Public Policy, Gender and Society, Justice Quarterly and the Journal of Crime and Justice, with publications forthcoming in Sociological Quarterly and Urban Affairs Review.
Mullins’ award is from the Division on Critical Criminology in the American Society of Criminology. Mullins, like Brunson a new faculty member, specializes in gender and crime, and how race, class and gender influence the perceptions of the offense. By way of example, he referred to his research on how race may influence the differences in how the criminal justice system treats possession of powder cocaine and crack cocaine. He also focuses on international perceptions of violence, particularly in the context of war crimes, genocide and other crimes against humanity.
Mullins said he was surprised to learn of his recognition from his national society, but was, of course, also pleased.
His publications include three books, “Holding Your Square: Masculinities, Streetlife and Violence,” and co-author of “Symbolic Gestures and the Generation of Global Social Control: The International Criminal Court” and “Blood, Power and Bedlam: Violations of International Criminal Law in Post-Colonial Africa.” His work also appears in journals such as Contemporary Justice Review, The British Journal of Criminology, Critical Criminology, Contemporary Justice Review and Crime, Law and Social Change, to name a few.
Kimberly Kempf-Leonard, director of CSCDC, said the accomplishments of these new members of the SIUC faculty bring recognition to the University and reflect well both on the individual scholars but also on the Center as a whole.
