FACULTY SPOTLIGHT Humanizing the approach to CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM K KERRY RICHMOND, PH.D. ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND CRIMINOLOGY erry Richmond, Ph.D., has always been interested in criminal justice, but it took her a while to figure out how to translate that interest into a career. “While I didn’t actually pursue a career in criminal justice until I was in my mid-20s, I did participate in an internship at the Suffolk County Jail in Boston as an undergraduate that had a significant impact on me,” she says. “Social justice issues have always been important to me, and I have always been moved by Fyodor Dostovesky’s quote, ‘The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.’ How we treat people when they are at their worst says a lot about who we are as a society, and I’ve always wanted to try, in some small way, to address that.” Richmond’s primary areas of expertise are corrections (prisons), reentry from prison, and gender and crime. As a member of the Pennsylvania Reentry Council, she also assists counties in developing reentry coalitions and reentry programming. She explains that as a society, we have numerous stereotypes about who commits crimes. “In my work, I explore these stereotypes in greater depth and seek to change how people who have committed crimes are viewed and treated. Humanizing those who have committed crimes and understanding why they have engaged in certain behaviors, in my opinion, is an important first step in reforming our criminal justice system.” Explain how you and your students engage with Lycoming County, and how that work has been significant. I enjoy working with students on research projects, and much of the research conducted over the years would not have been possible without their assistance. Since 2015, I have conducted a recidivism study in Lycoming County and employ, through the support of a grant from the county, two to four students per semester. In this project, the students and I compile and track data on the recidivism rates (whether someone has committed another crime after they have been released from prison) of individuals who have been released from the county prison. While tracking recidivism rates is a common practice at the state and federal level, it is not done 18 LYCOMING COLLEGE 2024 SPRING MAGAZINE
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