Happy New Year! Please enjoy the spring edition of the DWC newsletter! This edition features several new section editors — as we say “thank you!” to some members rotating off the committee. Please help me in welcoming the new writers on board, and sending “thanks” to previous section editors for their contributions.
Stepping Down from the Newsletter Committee:
- Anne Kringen (section editor for Ask a Senior Colleague)
- Janne Gaub (co-section editor for Graduate Student Corner)
- Kyl Myers (co-section editor for Graduate Student Corner)
- Lisa Bostaph (co-section editor for Book Reviews)
- Prit Kaur (co-section editor for Teaching Tips)
Thank you for your service!
New Section Editors:
- Alison Cox (co-section editor for Graduate Student Corner)
- Aneesa Baboolal (co-section editor for Graduate Student Corner)
- Elaina Behounek (section editor for Ask a Senior Colleague)
- Sarah Bannister (co-section editor for Graduate Student Corner)
Welcome and thank you!
Finally, we have one vacancy open to assist in the editing of Book Reviews – currently led by Venessa Garcia. If you are interested in this position, please let Venessa and/or I know as soon as possible.
Best,
Jordana Navarro
Hello everyone,
A lot has happened in the four months since we gathered together in New Orleans. In December, Rosemary Barberet and I were joined by four DWC members for a research presentation at the UN Women headquarters in New York City. You can read about our experiences and see photos of that trip in this issue of the newsletter.
In January, our members voted to make one-time donations of $500 from DWC funds to four justice-serving organizations doing work on behalf of issues that DWC members value and that seemed especially important as we enter the new U.S. presidential administration. The organizations that received donations are:
- Battered Women’s Justice Project
- NAACP Legal Defense Fund
- National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women & Girls
- Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network
To accompany the donations, I emailed each organization introducing the DWC, explaining why we selected their group to receive support, and thanking them for their efforts to make the world a safer and more just place.
In February, in response to growing concern over the representation of and response to crime and justice issues by the new administration, ASC President Jim Lynch authorized creation of a task force to prepare an ASC policy statement and otherwise handle ASC’s response to the developments of the new administration. That task force is chaired by ASC Vice President Jody Miller and includes three ASC Executive Board members and three Division chairs, myself included. We are working on an official position statement, among other initiatives. If you have suggestions for our work, please let me know.
Finally, I have been working with ASC Executive Director Chris Eskridge over the last few weeks to develop a social media campaign for ASC. This campaign has two parts. The first part (as you will see in the March/April issue of The Criminologist that has just been published) involves use of the hashtag #realcrimedata to identify posts that link to research reports, data and policy analyses, or other reputable sources of crime and justice information. By using this hashtag on relevant posts, we hope to make it easier for social media users to find accurate information about crime and justice issues, while also increasing the visibility of criminologists on social media outlets.
The second part involves creation of social media directory, housed on ASC’s homepage, that provides links to social media accounts of crime-and-justice organizations, as well as for individual criminologists and practitioners. If you are active on social media and would like to add yourself to this directory, please do s0 at www.asc41.com/SocialMedia/socialmedia.html.
I feel so grateful for the opportunity to lead the DWC, and especially so at this particular time. I look forward to continuing our work together in the year ahead.
With gratitude,
Amanda Burgess Proctor
Chair, Division on Women and Crime
UN Women Panel Summary
By Rosemary Barberet (Editor, Feminist Criminology) & Amanda Burgess-Proctor (Chair, DWC)
This past fall, the American Society of Criminology Division on Women and Crime (DWC), in collaboration with the Editorial Board of the DWC journal, Feminist Criminology, was offered the opportunity to organize a research panel at the UN Women Offices in New York City, in celebration of the journal´s tenth anniversary. This was made possible by a Feminist Criminology editorial board member, Laura Capobianco, Senior Policy Specialist at UN Women.
In November 2016 the DWC announced a global competition for scholars to represent the DWC at this event, and chose four scholars to attend the panel on December 12, 2016. The panel’s goal was to showcase research that addresses gender-and-justice issues from a global perspective, and that holds promise for informing international policy or practice. It was titled “Trends and Issues in Ending Violence Against Women and Girls” and was co-chaired by DWC chair Amanda Burgess-Proctor and Feminist Criminology editor Rosemary Barberet.
The panel was well attended and generated good questions and discussion. We hope we can replicate this experience again, perhaps at other agencies or organizations that are interested in the practical applications of scholarly research on women and crime. Read a summary of their experiences below.
Vera Lopez, Arizona State University “Social and Structural Violence in the Lives of System-Involved Girls”
Presenting my research on violence in the lives of system-involved girls at the UN Women headquarters in NYC was an honor. I enjoyed meeting UN staff and listening to the talks of my fellow panelists. It was an intellectually stimulating and invigorating experience! I am grateful to the ASC-DWC and the Feminist Criminology editorial board for creating a space for feminist criminologists to share their research with key decision makers at UN Women. Such spaces can foster collaborations that can further strengthen our efforts to end violence against women and girls.
Alison Marganski, Le Moyne College (NY) “Violence Against Women in Public and Private Places: Cyber-Aggression and In-Person Experiences of Psychological, Physical, and Sexual Violence”
I am grateful to have had the opportunity to share my research on cyber-aggression and in-person experiences of psychological, physical, and sexual violence with UN Women. I believe that academics have a social responsibility to communicate their scholarly work with a wider audience if it has the potential to assist others in thinking about or responding to the issue. We need to translate knowledge so others can learn from us, and, at the same time, we can learn from others by considering the ways by which our research can be understood and applied. The presentations were all informative and enlightening, and I enjoyed the dialogue we had with the audience following presentations as they gave me much to think about. The conversations that ensued were undoubtedly my favorite part of the experience – they were inspiring and filled me with hope. It was easy to see how everyone is ultimately committed to improving the lives of others and achieving “justice.” Overall, this was a wonderful experience! Many thanks to Rosemary Barberet, Amanda Burgess-Proctor, the DWC and the ASC for providing us with this invaluable forum.
Sheetal Ranjan, William Paterson University (NJ) “Violence Prevention: A Coordinated Community Response Approach”
Presenting my research at UN Women seemed both a culmination and beginning of many years of professional and personal experience. I call it culmination because it tied the various threads of my research and academic career and brought it to a place where all the violence prevention work suddenly made a lot of sense. I also consider it a beginning because it gave me a very clear vision and future direction. I am an applied researcher and have spent much of my career creating violence prevention programs and implementing them. Most of my work has been within the United States but the past few years brought international exposure to my work on violence prevention using the coordinated community response approach. As a fellow at American University in Cairo, Egypt and The Democritus University of Thrace in Komotini, Greece, I had the opportunity to discuss this approach and help them plan violence prevention programming. Talking about these experiences at UN Women where everyone perfectly understood the context of doing international work was very thought provoking. It also provided validation for my applied research that is not typically recognized in academia. I enjoyed the discussions and look forward to future collaborations. I believe what we are doing at DWC and Feminist Criminology is very important. There is an urgent need to shift our focus towards translational and applied research. Talking about our work at such forums is crucial to making our research relevant to policy and practice around the world. Thanks to Laura, Rosemary and Amanda for making it happen! Love my DWCers!!!
Shelly Clevenger, Illinois State University “Online Victimization of Female Sexual Assault Survivors and Their Families”
Presenting my research at the UN Women was one of the best moments of my life. I had spent years doing interviews with sexual assault survivors and their families and it was very emotionally draining and exhausting. After hearing the stories of the awful experiences of these women, I was so glad to be able to share their stories with the UN Women as this is a group that can impact change. I am hoping that the presentation of my research will influence a campaign or educational materials relating to cyber victimization of women.