School of Criminal Justice - University at Albany

10/21/2026

10/01/2026

How does gun violence near schools impact young students?

In this piece exploring gun violence near Buffalo schools, School of Criminal Justice Assistant Professor Brian Wade notes that it can affect educational outcomes and create long-term inequalities.

"It creates a sort of vicious cycle, wherein the neighborhoods themselves become sort of more and more vulnerable over time to more and more gun violence," Wade said.

Read more here:

For months, the 7 News I-Team has been digging into data, working to figure out which neighborhoods are seeing the highest number of school-adjacent shootings.

09/25/2026

09/23/2026

Has America’s shift away from capital punishment reached a turning point?

On the latest episode of The Short Version, Jim Acker, O'Leary Professor in UAlbany's School of Criminal Justice, explores the history of capital punishment in America through the lens of UAlbany’s National Death Penalty Archive.

He explains why the U.S. Supreme Court may be poised to reshape the legal landscape around the death penalty, including how we define cruelty and what it might take to finally remove race and class from the calculus of who is sentenced to death.

Listen to the episode here: https://tinyurl.com/SHORTVERSION2026

09/15/2026

School of Criminal Justice - University at Albany Associate Professor Matt Vogel answered today's "Ask an expert" question:

Why do I always see the same 5 people around campus?

"It might seem odd to keep running into the same handful of people on a campus with thousands of students, staff and faculty, but when you stop to think about it, it actually makes a lot of sense."

Read more:

Vogel answers today's question: Why do I always see the same 5 people around campus?

07/24/2026

School of Criminal Justice Professor Justin Pickett recently joined WAMC's Midday Magazine to discuss what the challenges facing local community police review boards can tell us about broader police reform efforts.

"They're an important part, but a small part of the reform," Pickett said.

Listen here:

In the immediate aftermath of George Floyd's death, police reform gained momentum across the country. But six years later, some of those efforts have lost energy.

07/14/2026

As cold case programs expanded across the country, Camela Hughes saw a chance to make an impact.

With the recent publication of "Cold Case Investigations for Colleges and Universities," the director of the University at Albany’s Cold Case Analysis Center (CCAC) has transformed a classroom need into a resource that could benefit far more than her own students.

“I needed something to frame my class around and so I was either going to do it for just me or I was going to publish it,” Hughes said.

Read more about the book and the important work that CCAC is undertaking in this 5 Questions feature:

As more colleges and universities across the county started to offer cold case programs, Camela Hughes saw an opportunity. “I needed something to frame my class around and so I was either going to do it for just me or I was going to publish it,” said Hughes, who, in 2024, became the director of ...

06/22/2026

Bringing in dozens of Capital Region students, the event was part of the UAlbany in the High School program

06/09/2026

Scenes from this spring’s Hindelang Lecture, featuring guest speaker Patrick Sharkey.

Sharkey joined students and faculty for a compelling discussion on the surges and declines of violence in the United States.

A leading voice in the field, Sharkey is the William S. Tod Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. His research centers on the challenges created by urban inequality, with a particular focus on community violence.

He is also the author of “Uneasy Peace: The Great Crime Decline, the Renewal of City Life, and the Next War on Violence.”