UC Irvine's Center in Law, Society & Culture is hosting "Covering the Law," a conference Nov. 9 and 10 exploring justice issues in the media. The event features a screening of "Outrage," a documentary about the gay rights voting records of closeted politicians and the media's complicity in keeping their secrets. Afterward, director Kirby Dick will talk with Lucas Hilderbrand, assistant professor of film & media studies. The screening and conversation will take place from 4-6:30 p.m. Nov. 9 in Pacific Ballroom C at the UCI Student Center.   More »

A new study has found that teens often lack the social and emotional maturity to control impulses. In contrast, intellectual abilities such as logical reasoning reach adult levels long before psychosocial maturity is achieved. "Many crimes committed by adolescents are done in groups and not premeditated. It's difficult for a 16-year-old to resist peer pressure and fully appreciate the riskiness of dangerous situations," says Elizabeth Cauffman (pictured), study co-author and UC Irvine psychology & social behavior associate professor. The study appears in the October issue of American Psychologist, a journal of the American Psychological Association.   More »

For almost 20 years, Marlon Boarnet has studied the links between land use and transportation networks - research generally of interest only to policy wonks. That's why the UC Irvine professor of planning, policy & design and economics relishes the current national debate over how to use $787 billion in economic stimulus funds to improve U.S. roads and communities. To articulate some of the planning community's ideas, Boarnet recently co-wrote and edited "Transportation Infrastructure: The Challenges of Rebuilding America," published by the American Planning Association. "The current economic and environmental crises have focused people's attention, and hopefully one outcome will be a transportation system that is greener and more efficient and that responds to the needs of the future," said Boarnet.   More »

Orange County has undergone several demographic transformations over the past four decades, and John Hipp has witnessed most of them. The associate professor of criminology, law & society at UC Irvine studies the social impact of neighborhood changes and recently focused on shifts in the county between 1970 and 2000. He discovered some unsettling trends: Orange County is more racially diverse than ever, but its neighborhoods are increasingly segregated. Job growth is led by low-paying industries, and median household incomes remain flat compared to the rest of the nation. His findings are reported in "The Orange Crush: The Squeezing of Orange County's Middle Class," released in June by UCI's Center on Inequality & Social Justice.   More »

Floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, mudslides, volcanic eruptions-Indonesians have seen it all. Now they're getting help with healing from a UC Irvine psychologist who specializes in stress and coping. Roxane Cohen Silver, who serves on Psychology Beyond Borders' board of directors, and Edwin Tan, UCI psychology and social behavior graduate student, are teaching coping skills to about 400 adults and their children in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The families are learning how to manage fear, and are given information on how to react calmly in stressful situations. "The goal is to help people deal with their emotions and identify factors that facilitate or hinder coping," Cohen Silver says.   More »

In Los Angeles' Skid Row district, homeless camps, shelters and drug treatment centers share the streets with upscale lofts and restaurants. This dynamic fascinates Michael Powe, UC Irvine planning, policy & design doctoral candidate, who heads a project to recommend development and policies to city officials and businesses that would foster economic diversity on Skid Row. This spring he won a $10,000 Public Impact Fellowship from UCI's Graduate Division that supports students whose research could have significant local, national or global benefit. Powe wants to shape a future in which longtime Skid Row residents and loft dwellers work together for the common good.   More »

Candice Odgers will catch a glimpse into preteen decision making using an unconvential research tool: text messaging. Odgers, UCI assistant professor of psychology and social behavior, will hand out smartphones to kids ages 10 to 13 and send them-via-text-two surveys daily. The goal is to determine settings in which they're most likely to encounter drugs and alcohol and help officials develop more effective intervention programs and public health policies. The five-year study is funded by the William T. Grant Scholars Program.   More »

Elizabeth Loftus, Distinguished Professor of Social Ecology at UC Irvine, will receive the 2009 Distinguished Contributions to Psychology and Law Award from the American Psychology Law Society at its annual meeting in March in San Antonio. The award is given to researchers who have made distinguished theoretical, empirical and/or applied contributions to psychology and law. Loftus studies the malleable nature of human memory, and her research on the reliability of eyewitness reports and memories “recovered” through therapy has affected how law enforcement agencies and the courts consider such testimony.   More »

Henry Pontell, UC Irvine professor of criminology, law and society, was inducted as a fellow of the American Society of Criminology at the organization’s annual conference in St. Louis, Mo., Nov. 12. The award recognizes major contributions to scholarship in the field, as well as to the career development of other criminologists and organizational activities of ASC. This year, Pontell was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Macau and gave the 17th Distinguished Lecture in the Jing Shi Forum Series at Beijing Normal University. He also delivered the keynote at the Australian-New Zealand Criminology Conference in Canberra in November.   More »

Richard Matthew, UC Irvine associate professor of planning, policy and design, addressed international policymakers at the World Conservation Congress Oct. 7 in Barcelona, Spain. Matthew and other researchers presented evidence that managing the environment and natural resources is key to improving security and building sustainable peace. Matthew was part of a panel of researchers sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the UN Environment Programme. His presentations were based on research conducted by UCI's Center for Unconventional Security Affairs.   More »

Elizabeth Loftus, UC Irvine Distinguished Professor of Social Ecology, will receive the 2009 John P. McGovern Award Lecture in the Behavioral Sciences at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in February. The lecture honors prominent behavioral scientists from around the world. Past recipients include Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman. Loftus studies the malleability of human memory and applies her research to the legal field.   More »

Cheryl Maxson, associate professor of criminology, law and society at UC Irvine, has been elected vice president of the American Society of Criminology. The society supports and promotes research on the prevention, control and treatment of crime and delinquency. Maxson's research interests include youth violence, street gangs and the juvenile justice system. She serves on the editorial boards of six academic journals in criminology and public policy, and as an adviser to the National Youth Gang Center, the National Evaluation of Safe Schools/Healthy Children and the Costa Mesa Police Department.   More »

Victoria Basolo (pictured), associate professor of planning, policy & design at UC Irvine, and Victor Becerra, director of UCI’s Community Outreach Partnership Center, are finalists in the National Urban Initiatives Competition. Their paper, “Sustaining Affordable Housing through Maintaining Stable Urban Neighborhoods,” proposes opportunities for nonprofits to purchase foreclosed homes and preserve the units as affordable housing. Basolo and Becerra, along with graduate student co-authors Arlene Granadosin and Michael Powe, argue that selling foreclosed homes to low- and moderate-income families could prevent neighborhood decline. The competition, which awards winners $20,000, is administered by Clark University, Community Development Training Institute, Freddie Mac, University of Massachusetts Amherst, and the National Community Development Association.   More »

Daniel Stokols, Chancellor’s Professor of Social Ecology at UC Irvine, is co-editor of the current special issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine on the “Science of Team Science.” The July 2008 supplement (volume 35, issue 2) is devoted to assessing the need and value of interdisciplinary research. The study of team science is aimed at understanding and enhancing the results of collaborative research and training programs. According to Stokols, complex problems like global warming, AIDS, cancer, food security and terrorism require greater collaboration among scientists trained in different fields. For more information, visit the AJPM or National Cancer Institute Web site.   More »

Justin Richland, assistant professor of Criminology, Law & Society at UC Irvine, explores the contemporary Native-American legal system in his new book, Arguing with Tradition: The Language of Law in Hopi Tribal Court. Based on Richland's extensive research on the Hopi Indian Nation of Arizona, the book explains how Hopi laws are shaped by Hopi cultural traditions. Richland studies the language of Hopi law to show how cultural politics influence indigenous legal and government practices around the world. He’s not only a scholar of Hopi law but a practitioner as well: In 2005, he was appointed Justice Pro Tempore of the Hopi Appellate Court, the highest court of the Hopi Nation.   More »

Nearly 400,000 Russians die each year due to heart disease, but a study by a recent UC Irvine graduate found that about 5 percent of such deaths could be avoided by the year 2025 if the country strengthens its environmental standards. "A poor environment can lead to a number of cardiovascular-related health problems, resulting in death at a younger age," says Natalia Milovantseva, a Demographic and Social Analysis program graduate. "In Russia, if laws for air, water and environmental quality continue to go unenforced, the cost will be measured in lives lost." A Russian native, Milovantseva received the 2008 Southern California Edison Award for Research on Energy and the Environment in recognition of her study. The $1,000 award will help fund her next research venture as she moves on to the UCI School of Social Ecology's environmental analysis and design doctoral program in the fall.   More »

Elizabeth Loftus, Distinguished Professor of Social Ecology at UC Irvine, will receive an honorary doctorate in philosophy from the University of Oslo. The university is honoring Loftus for her achievements in the study of memory -- specifically the malleable nature of the human mind. The doctorate recognizes significant scientific contribution or work of outstanding quality furthering the scientific endeavor. Loftus will accept the award at a gala dinner in Oslo in September.   More »

Stress and fear in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks may be making Americans sicker, according to a new study by UC Irvine researchers. Researchers Roxane Cohen Silver and Alison Holman (pictured) found that acute stress responses to the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon have been linked to a 53 percent increase in cardiovascular ailments over three years following the attacks. Most of the study participants watched the attacks on television and had no personal connection to the victims. "We must consider the potential public health impact of indirect exposure to extreme stress since the majority of our respondents were exposed to the attacks only by watching television,” Silver said.   More »

A new study by UC Irvine psychologist Elizabeth Loftus shows that digitally altered photos influence our memories and attitudes toward public events. In the study, 299 participants viewed doctored and original photos depicting the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest in Beijing and a 2003 anti-war protest in Rome. Those who viewed the digitally altered photos remembered the events as being bigger and more violent than they really were, suggesting that viewing doctored photographs might affect people’s memories of past public events.The study, published in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology, was designed by Loftus along with University of Padua researchers Franca Agnoli and Dario Sacchi.   More »

Henry Pontell, Criminology, Law & Society professor at UC Irvine, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to lecture and conduct research at the University of Macau, China. Pontell will research economic crime and the region's casino gambling industry, teach a course on international white-collar and corporate crime, and advise the university's sociology department on curriculum issues. Pontell is one of about 800 U.S. faculty and professionals who will travel abroad through the Fulbright Scholar Program. The purpose of the program is to build mutual understanding between people of the United States and the rest of the world.   More »

John Dombrink, professor of Criminology, Law & Society at UC Irvine, has co-authored a book examining morally and politically charged issues titled Sin No More: From Abortion to Stem Cells, Understanding Crime, Law, and Morality in America. The book explores laws and attitudes regarding gay rights, assisted suicide, stem cell research and legalized gambling to show how public opinion of these issues has evolved over time. Dombrink co-authored the book with Daniel Hillyard, assistant professor of Law & Society at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. The book is published by New York University Press.   More »

James Diego Vigil, professor of criminology, law & society at UC Irvine, will receive the Robert B. Textor and Family Prize for Excellence in Anticipatory Anthropology from the American Anthropological Association. The association will recognize Vigil’s fieldwork focusing on poor youth in Latino immigrant communities in Southern California. Vigil studies gang membership, patterns of educational achievement and parental involvement. He will receive the award at the association’s 106th annual meeting Nov. 28 in Washington, DC. The 10,000-member association is the world’s largest professional organization of anthropologists.   More »

Despite years working with troubled teens, psychologist Elizabeth Cauffman was surprised by the results of her new survey of kids in juvenile detention centers. Detained girls face very different psychological issues than average teen girls and, in some ways, more severe problems than incarcerated boys. Although girls generally internalize problems, Cauffman found that girls in detention are twice as likely as boys to externalize problems with aggression or anger, and just as likely as boys to report worrisome levels of alcohol or drug use. The study, which appears in the July issue of Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, will help state officials and staff members at youth correctional facilities better understand the mental health of troubled teens in their care.   More »

A study by researchers at the Center for Evidence-based Corrections found that 4 percent of the 322 surveyed inmates report being sexually assaulted in California prisons. Among transgendered inmates, 59 percent reported being sexually assaulted while incarcerated -- 13 times more than the general prison population. In general, inmates were at greater risk of being raped if they were non-heterosexual, black, had mental health problems or were of smaller stature. The researchers found that most sexual assaults in prison were not related to gang or racial dynamics. By helping officials better understand the rate and causes of assault in prison, the study contributes to the goal of the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003, which is to reduce, prevent and respond to inmate-on-inmate sexual assault in California correctional facilities. Valerie Jenness, study author and professor of criminology, law and society, is presenting the research in a San Francisco trial for a transgendered inmate who reported being assaulted repeatedly in state prison.   More »

Scott Bollens, respected for his research in the world’s most conflicted and chaotic regions, assumed UC Irvine’s endowed chair dedicated to researching pathways to peace and international cooperation effective July 1. Bollens, a professor of planning, policy and design, has traveled the globe interviewing more than 220 urban professionals in places such as Jerusalem, Belfast, Johannesburg, Sarajevo and Spain’s Basque region. His research reveals how local city planners can help ameliorate major inter-group conflicts nationally. The Drew, Chace, and Erin Warmington Chair in the Social Ecology of Peace and International Cooperation -- which Bollens will fill -- was created in 1989 by a donation from Robert and Lori Warmington of Corona del Mar, and was named for their three children.   More »

Susan Turner, professor of criminology, law and society, and associate director of UC Irvine's Center for Evidence-Based Corrections, has been appointed to serve on the new California Rehabilitation Oversight Board. Created by the state legislature, the 11-member board is responsible for examining the various mental health, substance abuse, educational and employment programs for inmates and parolees operated by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Turner was appointed by University of California President Robert C. Dynes, who was asked to select one faculty member from the UC system who has expertise in rehabilitation of criminal offenders. The board meets for the first time Tuesday, June 19.   More »

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has appointed UC Irvine professor Joan Petersilia to a “strike team” to implement statewide prison reform. Petersilia, an expert on prisoner re-entry, will serve on the Rehabilitation Strike Team, which is charged with developing rehab classes for prisoners and evaluating existing education, training and substance abuse programs. Petersilia directs UCI’s Center for Evidence-based Corrections and has advised the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations in recent years.   More »