DEAN'S COLUMN
Science for the Betterment of Society

By Samuel H. Preston

By one recent estimate, crime in the U.S. consumes about $10 trillion each year— ten percent of the gross domestic product. The figure includes the cost of crime-related injuries, prison, insurance, law enforcement, prevention, adjudication, and much more. Altogether, there are more than 50 journals devoted to the scientific study of crime, which are cited in the scholarship of fields as varied as economics, neuroscience, genetics, political science, and psychology. National governments mine that vast body of knowledge to establish and evaluate policy, and cities from all over the world increasingly apply criminological research and data to guide their crime-prevention strategies. It is hard to imagine, in our founder’s word, a more “useful” subject to study.

I am pleased to announce that the School of Arts and Sciences
has established a Department of Criminology, the first new academic department in the School’s quarter-century lifetime and the first criminology department in the Ivy League. The reasons we’ve decided to embark on this exciting academic venture are compelling.

The University of Pennsylvania has a long and distinguished tradition of criminology scholarship on issues that include capital punishment, gun control, and juvenile delinquency. From 1929 through 1998, professors Thorsen Sellin and Marvin Wolfgang pioneered some of the most highly cited research in the field. Along the way, they trained generations of sought-after Ph.D.s, many of whom are still active and visible.

Britain’s Blair government has consulted with our faculty on matters of crime, as have the U.S. Congress and the Clinton and Bush administrations. Philadelphia’s Mayor John Street as well as the police department and some members of the city’s judiciary have also sought the guidance of our scholars.

Three years ago, Larry Sherman, the Albert M. Greenfield Professor of Human Relations and director of the Fels Institute of Government, came to SAS from the University of Maryland, where he had built a top-ranked criminology department. An extraordinary and energetic academic entrepreneur, Larry secured major funding through the generosity of Jerry Lee, president of Philadelphia’s B-101 radio, to establish the Jerry Lee Center of Criminology. The center has undertaken major research projects all over the globe, with grants and contract studies coming from Scotland Yard, the Canadian government, the U.S. Department of Justice, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the City of Philadelphia, and elsewhere. Larry, the most frequently cited criminologist in the world, will chair our new department.

The School has a firm tradition and a well established foundation on which to build this academic enterprise, and we expect that the new department will become a leader in the discipline of criminology and a resource that will continue bringing the world to our door.

In addition to a graduate program, which is already in place, the criminology department will offer a research-focused undergraduate major. The great advantage of an education at a research university such as Penn is that undergraduates can learn by working side by side with leading researchers as they open up new fields of knowledge. The department will also offer appealing general education courses that satisfy the School’s quantitative reasoning requirement and sharpen students’ analytic skills.

Creating a new Department of Criminology institutionalizes our commitment to research, teaching, and service in a discipline that promises far-reaching benefits for our students and for society.