Hello, and welcome to the Summer 2010 edition of the Member Profiles section of the SARAH newsletter!
In this edition, we introduce you to Ericka Wentz, a doctoral student and adjunct professor at North Dakota State University who enjoys policing research with a strong focus on gender, and Randall Grometstein, a Professor of Criminal Justice at Fitchburg State College, whose work and projects focus on prosecutorial misconduct and wrongful conviction.
We choose people to profile using a random number generator (really!), but if you have suggestions for DWC members or significant contributors to the field of women and crime that you would like to see profiled, please contact Venezia Michalsen at michalsenv@mail.montclair.edu or Alana Van Gundy-Yoder at yoderal@muohio.edu This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. We would enjoy hearing from you!
Until next edition,
Alana and Venezia
ERICKA WENTZ
How did you become interested in the field of women and/or gender and crime?
As an undergraduate student, I quickly grew fascinated by the realm of policing in criminology. I became intrigued by the roles that race, social class, and gender play within the context of policing. Once I started collecting data for my Master’s thesis, I realized that my true passion involves studying the ways gender can impact the culture of policing, including the decision-making processes of police officers, criminals, and victims.
How do you define yourself as a scholar/activist/educator?
I honestly don’t think I could place more emphasis on one of the three choices when defining myself. I tend to view myself as more of a fusion of the three. As a PhD student, my role as a scholar comes very natural to me and I believe you need to develop as a scholar before you can become an educator or activist. I have always had a thirst for knowledge which has been enriched by all of the academic and research opportunities I have been offered at North Dakota State University. I believe the knowledge I have already attained and will continue to aquire over my lifespan will carryover into the classroom. My goal is to use my experiences as a scholar within the classroom to promote independent thought so that the students may realize and pursue their own personal goals.
Who is your favorite person (or animal!) to spend time with, and what are your favorite things to do when you are with them?
This is a tough question as I have been blessed by many supportive family members and friends and have always had an enormous love for animals. I have an amazing husband and an incredibly brilliant teenage daughter, as well as three loyal and affectionate cats. Ideally, my husband and I would be watching my daughter swim at one of her swim meets. She is amazing to watch and the travel involved to get to the swim meets allows for interesting family conversation. Since I live in the tundra of North Dakota, inclement weather sometimes makes travel impossible. In those instances I enjoy spending my time baking, playing wii, or watching a movie with my husband and daughter.
How do you wind down after a stressful day?
I employ many ways to unwind after stressful days. I really enjoy running, yet I also like to curl up on the couch with a good movie and a glass of wine. The manner in which I decompress just depends on the day I guess. I try to always remember that tomorrow is a new day, so I try not to carry the stress from the previous day with me to the next.
What obstacles do you feel you have overcome to be where you are today?
I wouldn’t really say that I have faced any specific obstacles along the way. Just as anyone who has ever pursued a goal will tell you, it can be challenging at times. I tend to see any challenges as opportunities to develop as a person, and believe they make your overarching goals even more worthwhile. One of the challenges I have faced throughout my academic career has been the balancing act between my roles as wife, parent, student, and instructor. Although it can be arduous at times to juggle these roles simultaneously, to me each of these roles compliment each other and enhance my motivation and dedication to become the best I can be in each of them.
What would you like to be remembered for?
Over everything else, I wish to be remembered as someone who is passionate and motivated in life. To me, the difference I can make in this world stems from being genuinely excited about my experiences. I hope I am remembered as someone who is always eager to learn and gain different perspectives on issues. Hopefully my motivation will encourage others in their own endeavors.
What is one of your lifelong goals?
I have so many goals in life, but first and foremost I would have to say that I strive to remain active, both mentally and physically. Aside from that, my primary goal is to provide my daughter the tools and inspiration to vigorously pursue whatever makes her happy in life. Other goals include the successful completion of the doctoral program at NDSU and beginning my teaching and research career at a university thereafter. Also, I love to travel and have always wanted to explore Egypt, so at some point I would really like to plan a trip in that direction.
Is there a website where we can send people for more information about you?
At this time a website is not set up, however I welcome all inquiries via email. ericka.wentz@ndsu.edu or ericka.wentz@gmail.com
What are one or two of your publications that you feel best represents your work?
I have a publication forthcoming coauthored by Dr. Carol A. Archbold entitled, “Police Perceptions of Sexual Assault Victims and the Handling of Rape Cases: A Test of the Intra-Female Gender Hostility Thesis.” This article is based on my thesis, in which I assessed whether there were differences in the way male and female police officers perceive and handle rape complaints.
RANDALL GROMETSTEIN
How did you become interested in the field of women and/or gender and crime?
I was part of the wave of women who went to law school in the 1970s, and I recall the mutual culture shock experienced by the female students and the almost entirely male faculty and administration. For example, the administration was nonplused when a female student asked to postpone her exams because she was due to deliver a baby. In the cases we read and discussed in class, all the parties were male – plaintiff, defendant, judge, etc. – except for victims, who were often women. As a young lawyer, I wore suits with skirts and string ties, which neatly summarizes the contested terrain I was entering.
In graduate school in the late 1990s, therefore, I found the masculinist assumptions of criminology unremarkable. It was not until I taught my first course in Women in Criminal Justice that I read widely in feminist criminology. I think my students have wondered at the occasional vehemence in my tone when we discuss these issues. Still, young students regardless of gender assume that feminist criminology is recounting a history long over and done with; only the occasional older student is not so sure.
I asked my students to read a chapter on sex discrimination in the workplace and then interview three older female relatives or friends about their job choices and career paths. Student after student described women choosing from limited options but nonetheless building satisfactory lives of hard work in the workplace and at home. Although the students were reluctant to connect words like “discrimination” and “unequal pay” with the lived experience of their family members, they will likely have different standards for their own lives. This, after all, is a generation that takes women’s aspirations seriously. As I contemplate the recent proliferation of women in elective and appointive office, I think my students are right to believe that women are finally beginning to achieve social and political equality. As a scientist, however, I’m interested in some of the really interesting questions that remain, for example, the so-called women’s liberation thesis. If women achieve political and social equality with men, will their crimes come to resemble that of men in type and frequency? And if not, why not?
How do you define yourself as a scholar/activist/educator?
Recently I’ve begun a project involving experimental research, as I describe below. I’m not sure we do enough experimental research in our discipline; to some extent, we have been captivated by the reams of data generated by others. As a result, it is easy to overlook basic questions of theory and methodology (see, e.g., Doris L. MacKenzie, What Works in Corrections, Cambridge U. Press, 2006). My research partner, a psychologist, marveled to me recently that economists have just “discovered” experimental research. The evidence-based practices movement may push our discipline in that direction as well.
What are your current projects or interests?
I’m interested in the development of moral reasoning. I teach ethics to criminal justice students, many of whom plan to become police officers and corrections officers. Some students soak up the course and the discussions we have, while others appear unaffected by a semester’s worth of discussion and reading and end the course expressing the same opinions as they did at the beginning. Why the difference? According to research based on the work of Lawrence Kohlberg, and continued by the neo-Kohlbergians James Rest and Darcia Narvaez, moral reasoning is both a developmental process and one that is teachable. Along with a cognitive psychologist, I am conducting an experiment testing the hypothesis that a person’s score on a test of executive functioning (the ability to plan, to focus on a task, and to hold information in working memory) predicts one’s score on a test of moral reasoning. (I presented the results of our pilot study at ASC in 2009.) We hope to develop better teaching methods, but other research questions suggest themselves as well. Moral development has been studied in a variety of professions (cf. Rest and Narvaez 1994), but not in the criminal justice professions, for example.
I’m also interested in wrongful conviction. In the twentieth century scholars sought to establish that wrongful conviction occurs often enough to constitute a problem worthy of attention. With the advent of DNA testing, evidence has mounted that wrongful conviction is neither rare nor trivial. The problem of wrongful conviction is particularly acute in death penalty cases, but it will not go away even after the death penalty falls into disuse. Courts and legislatures will turn increasingly to scholars for guidance in how to make the system work better. Lawyers led the way in establishing the fact of wrongful convictions, but it will be the work of scientists to distinguish among workable and unworkable solutions.
Who is your favorite person (or animal!) to spend time with, and what are your favorite things to do when you are with them?
My family (husband, two grown children, and parents) keep me nurtured and supported. I enjoy walking my paralyzed dog, who gets around with the help of a cart for his hind quarters. People stop to ask me about the dog, who ignores all the attention in favor of exploring the world around him. His example reminds me not to sweat the small stuff.
What obstacles do you feel you have overcome to be where you are today?
I remember the years when I had young children as particularly stressful. In my department today, many of the younger faculty struggle to balance work and home life, and I offer encouragement and help where I can.
What would you like to be remembered for?
I’d like students to remember a question that started them thinking along a new path. I would also like to think that they will remember some of the issues we talk about in ethics.
What is one of your lifelong goals?
To write for the New Yorker! 🙂
Is there a website where we can send people for more information about you?
There is a page about me on the Fitchburg State College website: http://web.fsc.edu/facultyprofiles/index.cfm?a=profile&ID=168.
What are one or two of your publications that you feel best represents your work?
Click on the links below for access to the articles.
Prosecutorial Misconduct and Noble-Cause Corruption
Wrongful Conviction and the Moral Panic About Organized Child Abuse