Honors course views crime through sociological lens

James F. Short Distinguished Professor of Sociology Jennifer Schwartz encourages her students in HONORS 370, Global Issues in Social Sciences, to use statistics to examine global crime trends, patterns, and causes, and to assess societal responses and implications for individuals and communities. Or, as she states in her syllabus, to "demystify crime's complexities."

Schwartz created the course as the newest Elma Ryan-Bornander Honors Distinguished Chair, a two-year residency awarded to outstanding WSU faculty members at the forefront of research, pedagogy, and scholarship. The endowment offers two years of salary enhancement, plus funding for research, honors course design, and honors student assistantships.

Schwartz has examined crime patterns and trends for 20 years. She breaks her class into three-person "CSI teams" to investigate crime data from different countries, looking for big picture national trends and social characteristics. Teams apply and compare crime theories across venues for both broad and focused results.

Before doing that work, the CSI groups establish initial group values and norms and decide how to address problems when norms are broken. Building consensus around core values, anticipating problems, and using conflict resolution techniques, Schwartz said, leads groups to set realistic expectations and desired outcomes. Only then do CSI teams tackle their assigned nations, studying them as a whole before focusing on how crime problems or different social arrangements lead to certain types of punishments.

"We're trying to unpack how and why crimes occur and how societies respond to it," Schwartz said.

Comparing data across countries gives students perspective on how nations differ socially before looking at how punishment is enforced in different places. The class then focuses on the regional level, with Schwartz introducing students to the research she and WSU Professor Jennifer Sherman are conducting in six rural Washington counties to understand growing incarceration rates in these communities, despite the fact that crime rates are lower there. This follows a concerning national trend of increased incarceration rates in rural jails, with declining rates in urban areas. Schwartz found a lot of this has to do with recidivism or jail reentry trends and holding people who are considered flight risks.

"All these processes that we're unpacking should work at the nation state level, it should work at their team level, and it should work for eastern central Washington; working with these concepts across all different venues-that's what I'm trying to get them to do."

This work also allows Schwartz to realize the university's land grant mission, which she sees as very important. "Understanding that we're coming from a rural community, I think, makes stakeholders willing to work with us."

Once the data patterns are revealed, researchers and community stakeholders work together to find low-hanging fruit that can make a big difference in people's lives with small tweaks and changes, Schwartz said.

"The university's reputation and land grant mission are helpful-it makes us more trusted."

Schwartz will receive Bornander funding through 2025. In addition to the new course, she plans to further involve honors students in her research, potentially providing opportunities for students to visit rural communities to observe courtroom processes, to collect and analyze data and create reports, and to conduct interviews.

"I feel very lucky that I've been able to be at Washington State this long, to have this research support, and to get these opportunities to work with honors students; it's been super thrilling."