Lecture Series

Fashion, Power, and the Presentation of the Everyday Self

Eduardo Pagán, Ph.D.
Bob Stump Endowed Professor of History
The New College at Arizona State University

Wednesday, September 21 at 5:30 pm
Arthur Levitt Room, Page Hall
University at Albany Downtown Campus

Who can spot a liar? Are police officers expert lie catchers?
Professor David Walsh, School of Law and Criminology, University of Derby [United Kingdom]
Saturday, March 2 at 3:30 pm
Husted Hall 106A, University at Albany Downtown Campus

Being candid, the reliance on emotion based deception detection methods, when combined with certain interrogation techniques and investigator bias, can undermine the notion of criminal justice, where the guilty are convicted and the innocent go free. Accusatorial methods of questioning of suspects may well increase stress. As such, this approach might lead to suspects showing fear and anxiety that may lead to them exhibiting behaviours and responses that reinforce the investigator belief in their guilt. In turn this may prompt investigators to strive more for confessions from those firmly believed to be guilty. Some of these elicited confessions are made by suspects quite probably guilty of the crime for which they are being investigated. On the other hand, confessions have been made by those who are later found to be completely innocent of the crime. This talk will examine the challenges of trying to discriminate between one group and the other. The talk will also examine the human cost of getting it wrong.

Labor and the Locavore: The Making of a Comprehensive Food Ethic
Margaret Gray, Ph.D., Political Science, Adelphi University
Thursday, October 17 at 5:15 p.m.
Husted Hall Room 214
University at Albany Downtown Campus

In the blizzard of attention around the virtues of local food production, food writers and activists place environmental protection, animal welfare, and saving small farms at the forefront of their attention. Yet amid this turn to wholesome and responsible food choices, the lives and working conditions of farmworkers are often an afterthought.

Labor and the Locavore focuses on one of the most vibrant local food economies in the country, the Hudson Valley that supplies New York restaurants and farmers markets. Based on more than a decade’s in-depth interviews with workers, farmers, and others, Margaret Gray’s examination clearly shows how the currency of agrarian values serves to mask the labor concerns of an already hidden workforce.

She also explores the historical roots of farmworkers’ predicaments and examines the ethnic shift from Black to Latino workers. With an analysis that can be applied to local food concerns around the country, Gray challenges us to consider how the mentality of the alternative food movements implies a comprehensive food ethic that addresses workers’ concerns.

Children of the Prison Boom: Mass Incarceration and the Future of American Inequality
-- Christopher Wildeman, Associate Professor of Sociology, Yale University

An unrelenting prison boom, marked by stark racial disparities, pulled a disproportionate number of young black men into prison in the last forty years. In Children of the Prison Boom, Professor Wildeman and co-author Sara Wakefield draw upon broadly representative survey data and interviews to describe the devastating effects of America's experiment in mass incarceration on a generation of vulnerable children tied to these men. In so doing, they show that the effects of mass imprisonment may be even greater on the children left behind than on the men who were locked up.  (Read more...)

Unintended Consequences? Explaining the Relationship between Paternal Incarceration and Food Insecurity
-- Kristin Turney, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of California - Irvine

Little research considers the effects of paternal incarceration on food insecurity among children. Food insecurity, defined as having limited access to adequate food due to lacking economic or other resources, is an especially acute and severe form of deprivation that is distinct from other indicators of economic deprivation or hardship. Professor Turney finds that paternal incarceration has deleterious effects on food insecurity among children, especially among children who live in disadvantaged social contexts prior to experiencing paternal incarceration.  (Read more...)

Racial Animus and Perceptions of Crime and Justice

Kevin Drakulich, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice
Northeastern University

Thursday, November 5 at 5:15 pm
Milne Hall, Room 200
University at Albany Downtown Campus