Current Funded Research | School of Criminology and Justice Studies

The UMass Lowell School of Criminology and Justice Studies maintains a robust and vibrant interdisciplinary research enterprise. Faculty in the School of Criminology & Justice Studies have been successful in obtaining an additional $6 million in research grants this year.

Our research is fundamentally applied in its orientation, addressing vital questions related to public policy and criminal justice practice. Current research projects span a broad range of domains, including juvenile justice, policing, terrorism and security, institutional and community-based corrections, and crime prevention. Funders for recent faculty research projects include: the Minerva Research Initiative, the National Institute of Justice, the Bureau of Justice Assistance and the United Kingdom ministry of Defense.

Journals edited by our faculty:

Crime and Delinquency (Editor: Paul Tracy)
Victim and Offenders (Editor: Jim Byrne)
Democracy and Security (Editor: Arie Perliger)
Perspectives on Terrorism (Co-Editor James Forest)

View Past Research Projects

Global Community Corrections Initiative - James Byrne

It is estimated that there are currently over 10.2 million individuals incarcerated in prisons around the world today, and if the reports on the number of offenders in pre-trial or administrative detention in China and North Korea are accurate, the world prison population total is actually over 11 million. Despite increasing documentation of the utilization of prison-based sanctions around the world, we also need to know how alternatives to incarceration have been utilized globally. This knowledge gap begs numerous questions: How many offenders are placed in community corrections systems around the globe? What are the key design features of these community corrections systems? And what do we know about the effectiveness of community corrections? The Global Community Corrections Initiative will provide answers to these questions.

Global Community Corrections Initiative Website

NAME	PROJECT TITLE	ROLE	TIME	TOTAL AMOUNT	UMASS LOWELL AMOUNT	FUNDING AGENCY
Andrew Harris	Information Sharing and the Role of Sex Offender Registration and Notification	PI	2015/2019	$1,000,000	$1,000,000	NIJ
Christopher Harris	Police Early Intervention Systems: The State of the Art	Co-PI	2013/2017	$486,485	$57,611	NIJ
	Local Action Research Partner for the Shannon Community Safety Initiative	Research Partner	2017	$49,988	$49,988	Mass Gov
	Local Action Research Partner for the Shannon Community Safety Initiative (proposal in progress)	Research Partner	2018	$63,906	$63,906	Mass Gov
Melissa Morabito	City of Lowell/The best way out is always through: LEAD ME Evaluation	Co-PI	2017/2018	$75,000	$37,469	BJA
	Boston Police/BEST Collaborative Response Expansion to Serve Persons with Mental Illness	Co-PI	2016/2018	$200,000	$12,244	BJA
	Decision making in sexual assault cases: Replication research on sexual violence case attrition in the US	PI	2013/2018	$1,688,108	$1,109,622	NIJ
Wilson Palacios	City of Lowell Prescription Drug Monitoring Program	Co-PI	2017/2019	$567,440	$105,000	BJA
Wilson Palacios	City of Lowell Smart Policing Initiative	Co-PI	2017/2019	$700,000	$110,000	BJA
April Pattavina	Designing an Integrated Mobile Application and Case Management Tool to Promote Behavioral Change in Criminal Populations Supervised in the Community	April Pattavina (PI), Ronald Corbett (co-PI)	2017	$99,408	$99,408	NSF
	"Responding to Sexual Assault on Campus: A National Assessment and Systematic Classification of Scope and Challenges for Investigation and Adjudication"	PI	2016	$555,677	$65,227	NIJ
	UTEC - Community Reentry for Young Adults	UTEC PI/Pattavina (Research Partner PI) and Kimberly Kras (Co-PI)	2017	$1,000,000	$130,068	BJA
Arie Perliger	"Becoming a Domestic Terrorist: Modeling the Critical Role of Emotions in Decision-Making and Radicalization (proposal under review)"	Co-PI	2018/2019	$687,008	$687,008	NIJ
Arie Perliger	"Facilitating Policy Solutions by Exploring the Contextual Nature of the Settlements in the West Bank (proposal under review)"	PI	2017/2018	$26,295	$26,295	Samuel Rubin Foundation
Ryan Shields	"Evaluating Criminal and Juvenile Justice Responses to Commercially Sexually Exploited Youth: How Safe Harbor Impacts Youth Perceptions and Outcomes (proposal under review)"	PI	2018/2020	$552,938	$175,351	NIJ
Neil Shortland	"Seizing Optimum Opportunities for Action: Goal Conflict and Decision Inertia in Military Operations"	Co-PI	2017/2020	$531,496	$198,354	DOD
	"Hearts, minds and counter-messages: An experimental test of personality on reactions to extremist propaganda and counter-extremist messages"	PI	2016/2017	$8,400	$8,400	Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society
	"Bio-Markers and Counter-Messages: Measuring Individual Differences in the Influence of Extremist Propaganda and Counter-Messages (proposal under review)"	Neil Shortland (PI), Arie Perliger (Co-PI), Jill Portnoy	2018/2020	$794,181	$494,988	DOD
Sheldon Zhang	"An outcome evaluation and case study of an anti-sex trafficking program in Bangalore, India (PI: Meredith Dank, John Jay)"	Co-PI	2017/2018	$104,757	$37,191	Justice & Care
	"Understanding and Measuring Bias Victimization against Latinos (PI: Carlos Cuevas, NEU)"	Local PI (San Diego)	2017/2020	$558,575	$100,000	NIJ (2016-V3-GX-0001)
	"Longitudinal evaluation of victimization against Latinos (LEVEL): An extension of the Bias Victimization Study (PI: Carlos Cuevas, NEU)"	Local PI (San Diego)	2017/2020	$725,999	$100,000	NIJ (2017-VF-GX-0005 )
	"An Exploratory Study of Labor Trafficking Among U.S. Citizen Victims (PI: Meredith Dank, John Jay)"	Co-PI	2017/2020	$873,508	$199,719	NIJ (2017-VT-BX-0002 )
TOTAL				$11,349,169	$4,867,849

Global Community Corrections Initiative - James Byrne

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