Sociology

How local journalists help Brazil favelas endure

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 20:12:09 +0000

How local journalists help Brazil favelas endure Rachel Sauer Thu, 04/09/2026 - 14:12

Cody DeBos

�Ͼ�Ʒ�� sociologist Molly Todd finds that community newspapers were vital for people living in Brazil favelas during the COVID-19 pandemic

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit Rio de Janeiro in early 2020, residents of the favelas Maré and Rocinha faced a crisis of communication. Public health messages in Brazil were contradictory—including the government denial of COVID-19. Like so many under-resourced and overlooked communities, the roughly 210,000 residents of these favelas received information laden with jargon, misinformation and directives that did not align with their daily realities.

Fortunately, inside the favelas, local newspapers like Maré de Notícias and Fala Roça were picking up the slack. They offered readers humor and solidarity while providing their communities with a shared sense of direction that helped them survive the pandemic.

For Molly Todd, an assistant teaching professor in the �Ͼ�Ʒ�� Department of Sociology and the International Affairs Program, this grassroots journalism stood out.

Molly Todd, a �Ͼ�Ʒ�� assistant teaching professor of sociology, and her research colleagues found that community newspapers were an important source of information in Brazil's favela neighborhoods during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We really wanted to understand what it was they were doing in the face of a global pandemic that made them such important pillars of their communities,” she says.

Todd and an interdisciplinary team of co-authors recently published a study in the Journal of Urban Affairs examining how these two community-run newspapers helped guide residents through the pandemic and endure it with dignity. The project, which included scholars from Brazil and the U.S., offers a new lens on crisis response and who gets to tell the ensuing stories.

City within a city

Brazil favelas are often misrepresented in the media. They tend to be depicted as chaotic and dangerous places that tourists to sunny Rio de Janeiro should avoid. While favelas do struggle with crime and drug trafficking, they’re also rich with social networks, political activism and neighborhood pride.

Speaking of the teams behind Maré de Notícias and Fala Roça, Todd says, “These are journalists who are rooted in the places they report on. They’re talking about things that are very much on the minds of folks living next door in these communities.”

Residents of Maré and Rocinha, which are densely populated urban areas often excluded from formal infrastructure, have long relied on information from community sources. When COVID-19 arrived, this network became even more critical.

“In many cases, favelas are characterized by both hyper surveillance and neglect. The state is failing to meet the basic needs of its residents while disproportionately policing them—even though they’re Brazilian citizens who should have the full rights that other citizens have,” Todd says.

During the pandemic, state-led responses were lacking. Official communication was slow and often misleading. Moreover, widely shared health advice was rarely tailored to the unique realities of favela life.

That where the community newspapers stepped in.

“They were very clear about the fact that they wanted to be sources of credible information, sources of timely information and sources of information that were contextualized for the community,” Todd says.

Stay safe, stay sane

Todd and her team of researchers collaborated to analyze how Maré de Notícias and Fala Roça responded to the pandemic. One team member, Vanessa Guerra, was interested in a central theme early on: resilience.

Fala Roça is one of the community newspapers that served as a vital source of information during the COVID-19 pandemic for people living in Rio De Janeiro's favela neighborhoods. (Photo: Fala Roça)

“We often talk about resilience as if it just ‘bouncing back,’ but that misses a lot of the bigger story behind-the-scenes of how people survive,” Todd says. She adds that discussions of resilience need to include a critique of the systemic oppression that produces the need to be resilient in the first place.

Informationally, the favela newspapers filled gaps left by the state. They ran myth-busting columns, answered readers’ questions and provided updates on local infection rates. They provided regular COVID updates and used WhatsApp to circulate infographics, FAQs and emergency contacts.

But information was just the start. The papers also nurtured archives of community culture and memorials for those who didn’t survive. One article collected portraits of neighbors lost to the virus. Another ran a photo series of the newly empty public spaces in Maré paired with poetic reflections from the community.

“They were doing this work of archiving sort of how a community comes through a moment like this together,” Todd says.

Who gets to speak?

Mainstream coverage of Brazil favelas often skews toward the negative, focusing on issues like violence and poverty. During the pandemic, that narrative sharpened to portray the neighborhoods as volatile, ungovernable zones where health guidance was ignored.

The favela newspapers told a different story—one of hope, community and organizing for a future. That was something Todd and her fellow researchers wanted to capture and preserve.

Todd has continued to explore questions of representation, voice and power in other projects related to Maré. At �Ͼ�Ʒ��, she organized an interactive visual and textual library exhibit called Maré from the Inside. Hosted in Norlin Library from September 2025 to February 2026, the exhibit was intended to “[c]enter and display the intellectual and artistic production of the mostly Black and indigenous residents of Complexo da Maré. . . . The project leverages art pedagogical potential with the hope to contribute to a more nuanced public understanding of favelas.”

“There so much history of academics just extracting from communities, writing about them and then leaving. It not really been a reciprocal process,” says �Ͼ�Ʒ�� scholar Molly Todd, emphasizing the importance of collaborating with local communities on projects that benefit their interests. (Photo: Wolf Schram/Unsplash)

Reflecting on the work her team put in, Todd asks, “How can we produce a memory of a place marked by so many erasures? Can this memory help us imagine a different future? How do we encounter unfamiliar places in ethical ways and relate across our differences?”

Visitors were able to walk through a favela story on their own terms, feeling immersed in the ways neighbors cared for each other and allowed creativity to thrive even in an incredibly dark time. They also took in workshops, panels and tours hosted by artists in residence surrounding the exhibit opening.

Artists participating in the exhibit included Henrique Gomes da Silva, Andreza Jorge, Paulo Vitor Lino, Wallace Lino, Dayana Sabany, Francisco Valdean and Antonello Veneri. Exhibit organizers included Nicholas Barnes, Andreza Jorge, Henrique Gomes da Silva, Desirée Poets and Molly Todd.

What we can learn from favela newsrooms

Though Todd study and the Maré from the Inside exhibit focus on Brazil, she believes the lessons within apply far beyond the borders of Latin America.

“If we want people to feel safe and informed in a crisis, we need to think about trust,” she says.

Top-down communication often fails to resonate with marginalized communities, breeding distrust and false narratives. Local journalism led by people with lived experience can be the link that builds enduring relationships in their communities.

As for her involvement, Todd reiterates the importance of collaborating with local communities on projects that benefit their interests.

“There so much history of academics just extracting from communities, writing about them and then leaving. It not really been a reciprocal process,” she says.

“To be fair, our project still wasn’t reciprocal in the sense that we have our names on the article and the journalists don’t. In my eyes, I would like to see even more collective kinds of scholarship in the future.”

Looking ahead, Todd hopes this work starts deeper conversations about collaborative knowledge production and whose voices shape our collective memory. In a world facing climate disasters and political upheaval, she sees an urgent need for models that put local knowledge and lived experiences front and center.

“If we’re going to build more just societies,” she says, “we need to pay attention to … people telling stories about their own communities and find ways to amplify their voices.”

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�Ͼ�Ʒ�� sociologist Molly Todd finds that community newspapers were vital for people living in Brazil favelas during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Top photo courtesy Maré de Notícias

Film addresses the dark side of aging

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 22:39:05 +0000

Film addresses the dark side of aging Rachel Sauer Tue, 01/27/2026 - 15:39

Megan Clancy

�Ͼ�Ʒ�� sociologist Laura Patterson makes screenwriting debut with short horror film “Silent Generation”

Laura Patterson of the �Ͼ�Ʒ�� Department of Sociology does a lot in her field, teaching courses in research methods and environmental sociology. She also teaches about the sociology of horror in courses such as Gender, Race, and Chainsaws and co-hosts the podcast “Collective Nightmares,” which examines the sociological implications of horror films.

Now she added screenwriter to her resume. After years of development, writing and filming, Patterson recently completed an eight-festival circuit, including the Denver Film Festival in late 2025, showing her new film, “Silent Generation.”

Laura Patterson, a �Ͼ�Ʒ�� assistant teaching professor of sociology, screened her short horror film "Silent Generation" at the recent Denver Film Festival.

“I think one of the things that horror can do well is make us look at the stuff that we don’t want to look at,” says Patterson.

“Silent Generation” is an eight-minute horror film that explores the dark side of aging and isolation. It follows an octogenarian as he goes about his day alone at home, watching TV and doing the laundry—a perfectly mundane task that turns bloody. And the inspiration for the film gruesome moment is rooted in a true story.

“It happened to my grandma, but she wasn’t living alone. My grandpa was there and my grandma was downstairs doing laundry,” Patterson recalls. “She calls to my grandpa and says, ‘Eddie, bring down the scissors.’ And so he brought the scissors down and she had got her hand stuck in the wringer washing machine, and it tore the top of her finger off. And she wanted him to just cut it off—which he wasn’t going to do. He took her to the emergency room, and they fixed things.”

But this incident got Patterson thinking about what would have happened if nobody else had been there. Thus, the idea for “Silent Generation” took hold.

“It stood out to me as a really important moment in life. The time when you notice that the people who were your caregivers now need care. And just the thin thread connecting older people to the rest of society, and how needed that connection is, because when that gets cut off there real danger just in the house where people are living,” says Patterson. “And you realize things that used to be normal become a threat.”

The idea stayed with Patterson for years, but she struggled to piece together how to make it into a movie.

“Since it is so short, writing the screenplay was not a big undertaking, because I kind of had the vision. But then to actually figure out how to make it, I just tried to take off like one piece at a time.”

One of the most difficult parts of creating the film, Patterson says, was actually finding the machine that would be centered in the climactic scene. The search took over a year. She eventually found the dated appliance in the 1,500-washing-machine collection of retired CSU professor, Lee Maxwell, who had curated the warehouse full of machines to represent the story of women liberation.

Laura Patterson's eight-minute horror film "Silent Generation" explores the dark side of aging and isolation.

Sitting with discomfort

To produce the film, Patterson connected with director Francisco Solorzano, producer Kenny Shults and cinematographer Kesten Migdal.

“They knew how to take this idea and put it onscreen. And they were amazing. Frank knew how to shoot the things and what sort of emotional tone I wanted. They knew how to actually evoke it on screen,” says Patterson. “Frank was really able to bring out the loneliness of the whole script. He was great at thinking about the timing and the way it was shot. Just to let you as an audience member really sit in that was very much something that I think he pulled out or leaned into very well.”

When it came to casting, Patterson turned to Leo Smith, the father of her podcast co-host, who readily agreed to be the film sole actor. Smith was making his film debut at 90 years old.

“He’d never acted before in a film, but he was excited about doing this project and kind of commenting on mortality. And this was just his house, and his laundry. We brought in the ringer washing machine, but otherwise, he just did what he does.”

Patterson sees her film as making an important comment on the peril that comes in the solitary life of a stoic generation.

“I wanted to make a film that would have a positive social impact,” she says. “The line on the poster for the film says, ‘When was the last time you called?’ I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from audiences. First you see people cringing when they’re watching the film. And then it kind of nice, because it seems to be accomplishing what we wanted it to accomplish. Afterward, they’re like, ‘I need to call my, you know,’ fill in the blank.

“We can all think of people—especially of that generation—that that sort of resonates with,” Patterson adds. “So, there's been a lot of audience discussion around that, and around this sort of generational divide between then and now.”

Patterson aimed to make audiences sit with the discomfort.

“It's like, no, this isn’t pleasant,” says Patterson. “But it even worse if you don’t look, because then this person sitting alone having to navigate this.”

As for whether she has another film in the works, Patterson says she unsure.

“I think the pieces came together so well for this to happen. And I had wanted to do it for so long, in part to inform the other things I do. I think it makes sense to have some idea what it like to be on the other side of the camera and just understand what that process feels like. I have a lot of film students who come into my class. Now I can have a little bit of a connection point with them, having gone through this experience.”

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�Ͼ�Ʒ�� sociologist Laura Patterson makes screenwriting debut with short horror film “Silent Generation."

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Scholar highlights the Venezuela-Cuba connection

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 23:37:58 +0000

Scholar highlights the Venezuela-Cuba connection Rachel Sauer Thu, 01/15/2026 - 16:37

Bradley Worrell

The two countries have developed deep ties over the past two decades, but it unclear what impact recent U.S. actions against Venezuela will have on Havana government, �Ͼ�Ʒ�� Latin America researcher Jen Triplett says

The United States military raid that snatched Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife from the presidential palace on Jan. 3 likely rattled the Cuban government in Havana as much as it did the Venezuelan regime in Caracas.

That because the two Latin American governments have become deeply intertwined during the past 25 years, says Jen Triplett, a �Ͼ�Ʒ�� political and cultural sociologist whose research is heavily focused on Cuba in the 10-year period following the Jan. 1, 1959, revolution led by Fidel Castro. She also has studied Venezuelan history from 1999 to 2013, when former President Hugo Chavez ran the country as a socialist.

“I study how leaders leveraged ideological projects to bolster their consolidation of political, military and economic power. Usually, we think of consolidation in terms of politics, economy and military, but ideology—especially when a transitionary government is motivated by it—is another important factor,” Triplett explains.

Jen Triplett, a �Ͼ�Ʒ�� assistant professor of sociology, notes that the governments of Venezuela and Cuba have become deeply intertwined over the past 25 years.

While many people in the U.S. tend to think about Cuba in connection with the Cold War and its relationship with the Soviet Union, Triplett says Cuban politics in the 1960s and 1970s was equally focused on what was happening in Latin America. Its relationship with Venezuela during those years was largely fraught, she adds.

The Castro-Chavez partnership years

“Cuba didn’t have much to do with Venezuela until Hugo Chavez came to power in 1998,” she says. “Once it became apparent that Chavez had socialist ambitions—nationalizing the oil industry and redistributing wealth—that caught Castro eye.”

By the early 2000s, the two men had forged a bond that was both personal and political. That alliance was pragmatic as well as ideological, Triplett says.

Venezuela, rich in oil, could provide Cuba with the energy resources it needs. In return, Cuba could provide Venezuela with something of value it had: human capital.

“Chavez wanted to focus on giving impoverished Venezuelans what they’d been missing—basic needs and resources—by investing in public education and health infrastructure,” Triplett says. “Cuban doctors allowed him to establish the Barrio Adentro program, bringing health care into urban slums for people who historically lacked access to primary care.”

For Chavez, the relationship was a way to deliver on promises for social justice, while for Castro it was a means to sustain Cuba economy and extend its influence in the region, she says. For a time, the two leaders envisioned their relationship could help inspire a wave of socialist-leaning leaders in Latin America that could reshape hemispheric relations and challenge U.S. dominance in the region, she adds.

Maduro struggle and Cuba deepening role

After Chavez died in March 2013, he was succeeded by his vice president and chosen successor, Maduro. Officially, the Venezuelan-Cuban alliance continued, but the dynamics of the relationship changed, as Maduro lacked Chavez charisma and legitimacy, Triplett says.

“Chavez had multiple sources of authority—traditional, rational-legal and charismatic,” she explains. “Maduro is a poor imitation. From day one, people recognized this.”

Lower oil prices and economic mismanagement exacerbated problems, Triplett says. As Venezuela economy spiraled downward, reports surfaced that Cuban military and intelligence personnel were actively supporting Maduro—a claim underscored by the recent U.S. raid to capture Maduro, which killed more than 30 Cuban operatives.

“It not surprising,” Triplett says. “Cuba meager resources include people power. Loyal Cuban military personnel would support efforts to create similar governments elsewhere.”

In 2002, Chavez survived a coup attempt by his own generals. Given Maduro precarious position, it perhaps not surprising he believed he could trust Cuban military personnel over his own military, Triplett says.

“Maduro paranoia likely intensified because he never commanded the same authority as Chavez,” she adds.

For Hugo Chavez, the relationship with Cuba was a way to deliver on promises for social justice, while for Fidel Castro it was a means to sustain Cuba economy and extend its influence in the region, says �Ͼ�Ʒ�� scholar Jen Triplett. (Photo: Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro and Nelson Mandela on a billboard in Cuba; Wikimedia Commons)

What comes next for Venezuela?

U.S. intervention in Venezuela—with attacks on reported drug boats departing Venezuela and the capture and extradition of Maduro to the United States—raises questions about the durability of the Cuban-Venezuelan alliance, Triplett says. Still, the removal of Maduro does not necessarily constitute regime change, she adds.

“Replacing him with his vice president, who is steeped in Chavismo, isn’t a real shift,” she says. “Cuba, meanwhile, is on high alert, wondering if they are next. If Venezuela new president were to play ball with the U.S., Cuba could lose petrodollars and a valuable lifeline. Whether that happens, I can’t say, but it could be an easy concession by Venezuela.”

Predicting what the future holds for Venezuela and Cuba is hazy at best, Triplett says.

“Both countries share high discontent and outward migration. People are exhausted—too tired to overthrow their governments,” she says. “Cuba opposition is even less organized than Venezuela. The key difference is foreign intervention. Without it, Maduro would still be in power.”

Prior to Chavez, Venezuela did have a functioning democracy, so Triplett says it possible to envision that under the right conditions it could return.

“Neither Venezuelans nor Cubans are monolithic, but Venezuelans largely want democracy—and they remember having it. That something that been largely absent from U.S. conversations,” she adds, noting America has a long history of military involvement in the affairs of Latin American countries.

Triplett is a member of the Venezuelan studies section of Latin American Studies Association, which recently issued a statement chastising the Maduro government for not honoring the results of the country 2024 presidential elections and for cracking down on political dissent. That statement also condemned the U.S. government capture of Maduro in a military operation as a violation of international law because it does not appear to be designed to restore democracy to the country but instead seems to be part of efforts to control the country resources.

Humanitarian crisis deepens in Cuba

Meanwhile, the conditions in Cuba are disheartening, says Triplett, who has visited the country regularly since 2012, most recently spending four weeks there last summer.

“This last trip was palpably different—an unprecedented struggle for daily survival,” she says. “Blackouts are routine. Outside of Havana, electricity is rarer than outages. Running water is unreliable, forcing residents to pay privately for water trucks, and mosquito-borne illnesses have surged. Meanwhile, Cuba has lost about quarter of its population in four years, mostly working-age people, creating a demographic crisis.”

Triplett soberingly describes Cuba near-term outlook as enduring a “polycrisis” that includes economic collapse, political dissent and unmet basic needs, largely because the government has not invested in its infrastructure since the Soviet Union collapse.

“People are disillusioned with the government,” she says. “Some had hoped the passing of the Castro brothers would change things, but it hasn’t. Endogenous regime change seems unlikely—too few people, too exhausted and too much repression. Fixing the situation would require massive resources and political will that the government lacks.”

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Top image: iStock

Supporting survivors of sexual assault through community

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 03 Jul 2025 00:31:29 +0000

Supporting survivors of sexual assault through community Rachel Sauer Wed, 07/02/2025 - 18:31

Cody DeBos

CU PhD graduate Tara Streng-Schroeter's research offers a new way to support survivors of sexual violence

The first time Tara Kay Streng-Schroeter stepped into a sorority house to deliver her sexual assault support training, she hoped it would help students feel more prepared to support one another.

She didn’t anticipate the crowd of women lining up afterward to ask questions and offer thanks.

“At one chapter, many women came up to me and thanked me for being there, told me how important they think this training is,” she recalls. “Some said it was better than any training they’ve received from school or as an RA (resident advisor).”

�Ͼ�Ʒ�� scholar Tara Streng-Schroeter, who earned a PhD in sociology in May, designed a peer-based intervention program designed to help students respond supportively when someone they care about discloses they have experienced sexual violence.

That moment reaffirmed Streng-Schroeter belief in what she’d spent years building: a peer-based intervention program designed to help students respond supportively when someone they care about discloses they have experienced sexual violence.

Her program, called Building Support for Survivors (BSS), offers a promising new approach to how college campuses can support students who experience sexual violence.

“We know the majority of survivors never seek support from the police or formal support from a non-profit or university resources. They instead disclose to a close connection,” Streng-Schroeter says.

Yet most students haven’t been trained to handle such a sensitive moment. Even well-intentioned responses can backfire, leading to shame, self-blame or isolation for survivors.

That the gap Streng-Schroeter, who in May earned her PhD in sociology from the �Ͼ�Ʒ��, hopes to close.

Taking innovative research to the front lines

Streng-Schroeter has spent more than a decade working both professionally and academically in the field of sexual-violence response. She has coordinated sexual-assault response teams, trained volunteer victim advocates and witnessed firsthand the long-term effects of both harm and healing.

After talking with hundreds of survivors, she was acutely aware of the opportunity that existed to help college students support their peers who have experienced sexual violence.

Building Support for Survivors, a 90-minute training intervention that she designed to be implemented with peer groups of college students and has piloted with sorority chapters, combines education about the prevalence of sexual violence with hands-on learning around how to listen, what to say and what not to say.

As part of Building Support for Survivors, Streng-Schroeter also provides customized flyers listing local confidential and non-confidential support options.

“Even though there are so many victims within campus communities, students don’t necessarily know the right thing to say to someone who experienced this kind of violence unless they have received training,” she says. “And it those individuals that don’t have the training but need it that we’re trying to help.”

Over the course of her study, Streng-Schroeter partnered with sorority chapters at nine universities across the country, delivering her training in person at four of them.

A wake-up call

“We know the majority of survivors never seek support from the police or formal support from a non-profit or university resources. They instead disclose to a close connection,” says �Ͼ�Ʒ�� researcher Tara Streng-Schroeter.

One of the most striking findings of Streng-Schroeter research was just how many students have been affected by sexual violence. More than half of the sorority women who completed her surveys reported experiencing sexual violence in their lives.

That number is significantly higher than national averages had previously suggested.

“It could have happened in the week or the month or the semester leading up to when they took a survey,” Streng-Schroeter says, “but it also could have happened when they were a child, or when they were in high school.”

She notes that sorority members, as well as queer students, are disproportionately affected by sexual violence on college campuses. However, many studies only ask about incidents within a narrow time frame, obscuring the full picture.

“Knowing more about what the actual affected population looks like was very important to me,” Streng-Schroeter says.

The data from her study underscores the urgency of making peer support more effective. Fortunately, there are many promising signs that her intervention works.

Rethinking support for survivors

After completing Streng-Schroeter BSS training, students showed meaningfully improved responses in how they thought about and responded to sexual-assault disclosures.

Participants who received the training reported lower levels of rape-myth acceptance—the false or harmful beliefs about what “counts” as sexual violence or who is to blame.

“The program also increased how often participants in chapters that received the training actually provided positive responses to their friends’ disclosure of sexual victimization,” Streng-Schroeter says. “And the data also appears to show that the training reduced negative responses and reduced how often participants anticipate that they will use negative responses when faced with a disclosure of sexual violence in the future.”

Streng-Schroeter believes that her community-first training model is an essential part of why it so effective.

Unlike large, anonymous lectures, her program is delivered in already-formed social networks. She theorizes that within peer groups where trust already exists and that experience disproportionately high levels of sexual violence, individuals may be more likely to disclose being the victim of sexual violence to one another.

"Even though there are so many victims within campus communities, students don’t necessarily know the right thing to say to someone who experienced this kind of violence unless they have received training."

“The social community aspect is a really important aspect of why we saw promising results with this,” Streng-Schroeter says. “Deploying the exact same training in an orientation for new students … it wouldn’t have the same effect because those friendship networks aren’t there yet.”

In other words, the best way to support survivors may be to start with the people they already lean on by giving them the tools to respond appropriately.

Healing together

With her dissertation completed and defended, Streng-Schroeter now hopes to expand the BSS program. She believes the model could scale to more chapters—and other student communities where close peer-bonds exist—with more funding.

She says, “One goal is to secure funding so I can provide this training across a whole network of a sorority, every chapter. That could impact thousands of people lives.”

She also eager to adapt the training for queer student organizations, college athletic teams and other student clubs.

Streng-Schroeter knows institutional and cultural reform takes time. But helping students become better friends, listeners and supporters can happen right now.

“People just voluntarily sharing that they felt this training was impactful really meant a lot. It made me think, ‘Okay, something good is happening here,’” Streng-Schroeter says.

As her training and research show, the most important support doesn’t always come from an office or through official channels. Often, healing begins when one person is ready to talk and another is prepared to hear them.

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CU PhD graduate Tara Streng-Schroeter's research offers a new way to support survivors of sexual violence.

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Students are shaping (and leading) CU climate response

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 27 May 2025 18:12:47 +0000

Students are shaping (and leading) CU climate response Rachel Sauer Tue, 05/27/2025 - 12:12

Cody DeBos

Fueled by a passion for climate justice and a commitment to student involvement in the university future, interdisciplinary graduate student team designs and teaches undergrad course on climate action planning

As the �Ͼ�Ʒ�� continues to advance its Climate Action Plan (CAP), an interdisciplinary group of graduate students has championed a new way to involve students in shaping a more sustainable future.

Initially, the CU steering committee creating the CAP did not involve students. In response to the exclusion of student voices, a group of graduate students began work to give students a seat at the table and engage the undergraduate community in CU climate-planning work. First, the group launched a petition calling for student participation in the drafting of the CAP. Then the group helped pass a resolution through student government to grant student seats on the committee implementing the CAP in the future.

“Students have always been key drivers of sustainability and climate action on campuses across the U.S., including at �Ͼ�Ʒ��,” the team says. “As young people, our futures are jeopardized by the climate crisis, so we have a collective stake in rapidly reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.”

The graduate students and faculty who co-designed and now teach an undergraduate course on climate-action planning include (left to right) Brigid Mark, Nadav Orian Peer, Jonah Shaw, Sean Benjamin, Mariah Bowman and Sara Fleming.

But the group didn’t stop there. Fueled by a shared passion for climate mitigation and the belief that students should help shape the university future, the group of five graduate students from four different departments spent hundreds of hours co-designing and now teaching an undergraduate course on climate-action planning.

The course gives undergrads hands-on experience with CU campus emissions data, collaboration opportunities with university stakeholders and a chance to develop sustainability strategies that could be implemented campuswide.

Their efforts recently earned the group �Ͼ�Ʒ�� 2025 Campus Sustainability Award for Student Leadership. The group also won a $5,000 scholarship from the women-led nonprofit Zonta Foothills Foundation, in recognition for their groundbreaking work in climate education and advocacy. The CU School of Engineering, following advocacy from generous faculty members David Paradis and Carol Cogswell, was also gracious enough to provide funding for their work.

A more engaging climate classroom

The group of graduate instructors brings an interdisciplinary approach and myriad perspectives to the classroom.

The teaching team includes Mariah Bowman (law), Sara Fleming (geography), Sean Benjamin (mechanical engineering), Brigid Mark (sociology) and Jonah Shaw (atmospheric and oceanic sciences). Each has worked to tackle climate-related issues through the lens of their expertise, from Indigenous environmental justice to climate-change modeling.

The team diverse makeup is reflected in the design of their course and has fueled their success. But the road to this point hasn’t been easy.

“This is a labor of love,” the team says. “We are doing this because we care. Funding and the time required have been challenges.”

Before the course launched, each graduate instructor spent many unpaid hours creating the syllabus, listing the course and building campus partnerships to access emissions data. During the semester, they spend many hours a week on teaching responsibilities that come in addition to their regular duties.

Financial support from the School of Engineering and the Zonta Foothills award has helped, but long term, the team hopes to see the course institutionalized and funded.

The team says, “Institutionalizing the course so that it runs each year and guaranteeing funding for instructors and teaching assistants would ensure the longevity and sustainability of this course. It would ensure continued involvement of students in the Climate Action Plan, and a more robust, actionable plan.”

An interdisciplinary group of graduate students (holding plaques) who worked work to give students a seat at the table and engage the undergraduate community in CU climate-planning work received �Ͼ�Ʒ�� 2025 Campus Sustainability Award for Student Leadership.

Hands-on climate action

From the start, the group has viewed student involvement as essential, not symbolic.

At the start of the semester, students gain foundational knowledge on topics like climate justice, global carbon budgets and emissions accounting. From there, they split into teams to tackle different emissions categories on campus: commuting, waste, business travel and student/parent flights.

“Students work in four teams, each focused on a different category of campus emissions. They’re developing strategies to reduce emissions for their category, adding depth and student perspective to the high-level strategy suggestions in the CAP,” the instructors say.

Guest speakers, including administrators and national experts, round out the curriculum. Students have heard from Stanford University sustainability team and �Ͼ�Ʒ�� faculty like Professor Karen Bailey (environmental studies) and Professor Nadav Orian Peer (law). They also meet with stakeholders across campus to refine their proposals.

The team believes this approach is the best way to facilitate opportunities to create actionable, equity-centered climate strategies grounded in real data.

“Involving students in climate initiatives enables them to apply knowledge about climate change to their own institution, experience they will carry to become leaders in climate action in their future workplaces and communities,” says Mark.

The results are already visible on campus.

One student team is working with CU transportation specialist to revise the campus commuting survey. Another is working on a survey for better tracking of student and parent air travel. Others are collaborating with dining services and facilities to reduce waste and consulting with faculty to provide more accurate emissions calculations of flights taken by faculty and staff.

“Students often learn about the gravity of climate change without learning about solutions, which can be quite depressing,” says Mark.

An interdisciplinary team of graduate students teaches the climate-action planning course for undergraduate students.

“Involving students in climate-action planning and implementation can combat feelings of hopelessness and enable participation in creating real change.”

Impact on both sides

This student-led course has already sparked engagement on both sides of the classroom. One undergraduate took the initiative to launch a campus club to raise awareness about the CAP. Others hope to join implementation committees or pursue careers in sustainability.

“To me, this demonstrates that students are hungry for interdisciplinary courses that enable them to apply their skills and creativity to issues on campus and engage with solutions to the climate crisis,” Fleming says.

For Bowman, the most rewarding part of the experience is the students themselves. “They are passionate, knowledgeable, interested, hardworking and fun to be around! It has been deeply meaningful to get to train them on something I care so much about, and have them care about it in return,” she says.

And for Fleming, designing and teaching the course has also given her much. She adds, “Team teaching is so much fun, and I’ve learned so much from each of my teammates on both content and pedagogical skills.”

As for the future, the graduate instructors each plan to continue fighting for climate action in their respective fields, using their knowledge and experience to make a difference on campus, in state government and in the community.

They also hope CU continues what they started so future students can participate in a course that gives them a voice in the climate conversation through data, creativity and real-world collaboration.

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Rebuilding lives after the headlines fade

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 20:03:03 +0000

Rebuilding lives after the headlines fade Rachel Sauer Wed, 01/08/2025 - 13:03

Cody DeBos

�Ͼ�Ʒ�� researcher Lori Peek emphasizes that the impact of natural disasters can be multiplicative

Six-year-old Samantha new ballet slippers, ready for her first dance class, sat untouched as Hurricane Katrina tore through New Orleans in 2005. Five years later, another disaster—the Deepwater Horizon oil spill—compounded her family challenges.

“Losing everything and having to start over, that has happened to me so many times, it just feels like I lost my childhood,” she reflected when talking with Lori Peek, �Ͼ�Ʒ�� Department of Sociology professor.

�Ͼ�Ʒ�� researcher Lori Peek (center) with participants in the Gulf Coast-based youth empowerment program called SHOREline, which she co-created and that was designed to make fundamental changes in the lives of youth and their communities, including reducing inequality before and after natural disasters.

Stories like Samantha illuminate a deeper truth: The harm caused by disasters doesn’t fade when the news cycle moves on. Hers is one of many stories Peek has heard while conducting research for more than a decade in the Gulf Coast region.

Peek, who also serves as director of �Ͼ�Ʒ�� Natural Hazards Center, has dedicated her career to understanding how disasters shape the lives of children and families.

Out of the spotlight, families across the country are fighting against systemic challenges, emotional tolls and inadequate support to get their lives back on track. Peek research focuses not just on immediate devastation, but also on the long road to recovery that so many disaster survivors must travel.

The compounding effects of disaster

Most natural hazards leave visible scars when they sweep across a landscape—flooded homes, shattered schools and shuttered businesses. Peek ethnographic approach reveals the experiences of people and the hidden struggles they face while navigating the aftermath of major disasters.

Her long-term, collaborative research along the Gulf Coast, recently highlighted in a Journal of Child and Family Studies article titled “Adverse Effects of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Amid Cumulative Disasters: A Qualitative Analysis of the Experiences of Children and Families,” underscores how compounded disasters can upend entire communities for decades.

“One disaster can obviously wreak havoc on a young person life,” Peek explains. “But now we are living in an age of extremes, where families and communities may be affected by multiple disasters in a relatively short period.

“The impact of these events isn’t additive—it multiplicative.”

Peek longitudinal study of Gulf Coast children illustrated this phenomenon. After Hurricane Katrina, countless families were just beginning to rebuild their lives when the Deepwater Horizon spill once again devastated local economies and ecosystems.

Children like Samantha, Peek notes, are particularly vulnerable in such contexts. They absorb not only the immediate chaos of a disaster but also the long-term stress of financial insecurity, familial upheaval, displacement and disrupted support systems.

Peek and her co-authors use the term “toxic stress” to describe this chronic strain. Its effects can lead to serious health and developmental challenges that persist for years—or a lifetime.

Lori Peek, a �Ͼ�Ʒ�� professor of sociology and director of the Natural Hazards Center, conducts fieldwork with a child after Hurricane Katrina; the child was later affected by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill as well.

Samantha story isn’t isolated. Rather, it one of many narratives underscoring the profound sense of loss that lingers long after the immediate crisis concludes.

Peek believes these stories must be heard and addressed if communities and families are to build resilience against future disasters.

“Until relatively recently, the recovery phase of disaster was the most understudied,” she says. “That started to change after Katrina. But now we are in a new era, where disasters are becoming more severe and intense, and communities are being hit more often.”

This not only makes studying disasters more complicated, but it also can lead to recovery resources being averted just when they are needed most, she adds.

The role of support systems

Peek research emphasizes that recovering from a disaster cannot be an individual journey. Robust support systems are necessary.

“For children to recover from disasters, they need support from their family members, peers, teachers and broader community. Strong institutions—such as stable housing, quality health care and safe schools—are equally crucial,” she says.

Yet many children lack these foundational supports even before disaster strikes, Peek notes. When a catastrophe does occur, it magnifies pre-existing inequalities, and vulnerable families often find themselves in even more precarious situations.

On the bright side, Peek says, “disasters can be catalysts for change. But only if recovery funding is targeted toward the people and places that need it most.”

A call to action

Peek findings highlight the imperative to ensure that recovery efforts reduce inequalities both before and after disasters occur. She co-created a Gulf Coast-based youth empowerment program called SHOREline that was designed to make such fundamental changes in the lives of youth and their communities.

By bringing together policymakers, educators and community leaders, Peek aims to create frameworks that protect communities before the next disaster strikes.

She also emphasizes the importance of not just studying disaster recovery but acting before communities are devastated by the next hurricane, flood or wildfire. To achieve this, Peek advocates for policies that prioritize equity and resilience, emphasizing the need for long-term planning and cross-sector collaboration.

"One disaster can obviously wreak havoc on a young person life. But now we are living in an age of extremes, where families and communities may be affected by multiple disasters in a relatively short period."

“Recovery frameworks are still designed as if a single disaster is affecting a place, and as if recovery is occurring in a neat, stepwise fashion. That simply not the reality.”

Through her work, Peek hopes to reshape how communities and policymakers approach disaster recovery. As Samantha story reminds us, disasters leave marks that linger far beyond the headlines. The disruption of her childhood dreams reveals a profound need for systems that protect society most vulnerable.

With the right support, Peek notes, children like Samantha can regain their footing and even thrive in the aftermath of disaster.

Peek vision for the future—one where no child dreams are washed away by hurricanes or tarnished by oil spills— enters on resilient communities safeguarded by robust support systems and programs that address systemic issues rooted in poverty and racial inequality.

“If we can use the small windows for change opened by disasters to make progress in reducing—rather than exacerbating—inequality and suffering, that would be a real win for current and future generations.”

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�Ͼ�Ʒ�� researcher Lori Peek emphasizes that the impact of natural disasters can be multiplicative.

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Top image: Lori Peek with participants in the SHOREline program

Pursuing long-awaited justice for victims of Nepal's 'People's War'

Anonymous — Fri, 20 Sep 2024 17:59:39 +0000

Pursuing long-awaited justice for victims of Nepal's 'People's War' Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 09/20/2024 - 11:59

Tracy Fehr

Nepal revamped truth commissions will need to go beyond ‘ritualism’ to deliver justice to civil war victims

Nepal attempt to deliver justice and accountability following the country decade-long civil war froze more than two years ago with little progress—but a recent development has raised hopes that it could soon be revived and revamped.

In August 2024, the country parliament passed a long-awaited bill that sets the stage for appointing a third —and hopefully final—round of truth commissions to carry out investigations into the more than 66,000 conflict victim cases that have been collecting dust since the last commissions ended in July 2022.

The two main bodies involved—the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons—were created by Nepal government in 2015 to deal with crimes that were committed during Nepal conflict, commonly known as “The People War.”

Tracy Fehr (right, with a woman living in Gorkha, Nepal) is a PhD student in the �Ͼ�Ʒ�� Department of Sociology who researches Nepal's transitional justice process. (Photo: Tracy Fehr)

In 1996, Maoist rebels began an insurgency against the Nepali government in western Nepal that escalated into a 10-year civil war across the country. According to United Nations estimates, the conflict resulted in the deaths of 13,000, with 1,300 people still missing and an unknown number of torture and conflict-related sexual violence victims.

The People War ended with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Accord that, among other obligations, required the Nepal government to create a high-level truth commission.

To date, the commissions have completed two rounds. The first, which collected the majority of the victim cases, began with a two-year mandate in 2015 that the government extended by an additional year three times. The second round, mandated from 2020 to 2022, was shut down for months due to COVID-19.

The commissions were tasked with three main objectives: to reveal the truth about gross human rights violations; to create an environment of peace, trust and reconciliation; and to make legal recommendations for victim reparations and perpetrators from the conflict.

However, despite seven years of work, little progress toward any of these objectives has been made. No case investigations have been completed, no perpetrators have been held accountable, and no victim reparations have been distributed. Reconciliation in a country that still bears the scars of conflict remains a distant thought.

From 2022 to 2023, I conducted research in Nepal about the country transitional justice process. During my research, I heard people refer to Nepal prolonged process as “a judicial merry-go-round,” “Groundhog Day” and “transitional injustice.”

Many Nepali people I spoke to believe that the government has strategically prolonged the transitional justice process to avoid accountability, hoping that people will eventually tire of the process and forget. Indeed, a heavy cloud of hopelessness and frustration had settled over the commissions as legal and resource limitations and political biases plagued the first two rounds, severely slowing progress and impairing the commissions’ functionality and local trust.

Justice ‘adjourned’

In 2022, I interviewed a conflict victim in the rolling hills of Rolpa, in the country west, where the conflict began. She had submitted her case to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission seven years before but had heard nothing since. “In a way, our complaints are in adjournment,” she said. “They have not ended, yet they are not being forwarded either.”

She was one of approximately 300 women who officially submitted a case of conflict-related sexual violence to the TRC.

A woman looks over the village of Thabang, Rolpa, Nepal. (Photo: Tracy Fehr)

However, a former truth commissioner told me that this number may be as high as 1,000 because some victims of sexual violence submitted their case as “torture” to distance themselves from the stigma and shame often associated with sexual violence in Nepal.

I also met leaders at several women organizations who have documented thousands of cases of conflict-related sexual violence in Nepal, but they have not yet submitted these cases to the TRC due to ongoing concerns of confidentiality and trust.

The lack of progress by Nepal truth commissions suggests that they are being used to carry out what I refer to as “transitional justice ritualism”—the act of a state creating hollow institutions designed without the support to produce actual consequences.

As part of this transitional justice ritualism, I believe that Nepal post-conflict coalition government has, up to this point, been using the truth commissions as a political tool to show the international community that it is upholding its obligations under the 2006 Comprehensive Peace Accord and to avoid universal jurisdiction—that is, the international legal principal that allows other nations to prosecute individuals for serious human rights violations regardless of where the crimes took place.

The threat of universal jurisdiction has been a particular concern for alleged perpetrators in Nepal since 2013 when Colonel Kumar Lama, a former Royal Nepal Army commander during Nepal conflict, was apprehended in the United Kingdom on charges of torture and war crimes. While Lama was acquitted there due to a lack of evidence, the threat of universal jurisdiction for war crimes perpetrators in Nepal still looms for those in positions of power during the civil war.

A contested step forward

But a recent change in the political leadership of Nepal and the passing of the new law, which amended the Enforced Disappearances Enquiry, Truth and Reconciliation Commission Act, mark an opportunity for the government to move beyond transitional justice lip service.

Under the amended law, a third round of appointed commissioners will operate for a period of four years – hopefully enough time to complete their unaccomplished mandates. A government committee is working to appoint new truth commissioners before the country major holiday Dashain in October 2024. The amended act also provides for creating specialized subunits within the TRC—concerning truth-seeking and investigations, reparations, sexual violence and rape, and victims coordination—that could potentially improve the streamlining of resources and move some of these stalled parts of the commissions forward.

Maoist victims protest in Kathmandu, Nepal, in 2023. (Photo: Tracy Fehr)

Nonetheless, hope has been tempered by apprehension and uncertainty. Some victim groups support the legislation, while others protest provisions they argue could undermine justice, especially by protecting perpetrators with decreased sentencing.

International human rights groups have recognized positive and long-awaited amendments to the existing law, but also warn of serious accountability gaps that could undermine the transitional justice process.

U.N. Human Rights Chief Volker Türk said the revised law was “an important step forward” but added: “It is imperative that the legislation is interpreted and implemented in a manner that upholds victims’ rights, including to truth, justice and reparations, and that guarantees accountability in full compliance with international human rights standards.”

Potential for international support

Although it seems the transitional justice process will still be Nepali-led, doors may be opening for international support in the form of financial or technical assistance—marking a significant shift in the process.

The amended act provides for a “fund” to finance the investigations process and victim reparations that will be supported by the Nepali government and is open to contributions from other national and international organizations.

Sushil Pyakurel, a former member of Nepal National Human Rights Commission, is among a group of human rights defenders, lawyers and victims establishing a civil monitoring committee to serve as a watchdog for the revived process. Pyakurel stressed the need for Nepali civil society, alongside the international community, to pressure the government to fulfill its promises of a victim-centric implementation.

“You can make whatever law you want, but it is how you implement it that really matters,” Pyakurel told me. “Although the law is different, if the mentality remains the same, then nothing will change.”

The revival of Nepal truth commissions provides the government a chance to demonstrate a commitment to a transparent and legitimate process. But I believe it must move beyond the transitional justice ritualism of the previous two commissions to actually provide justice and acknowledgment for the country civil war victims.

Top image: A Nepali man looks at photographs of people 'disappeared' during Nepal's civil war in Kathmandu Aug. 30, 2017. (Photo: Niranjan Shrestha/AP Photo)

Tracy Fehr is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at the �Ͼ�Ʒ��.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Nepal revamped truth commissions will need to go beyond ‘ritualism’ to deliver justice to civil war victims.

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Violence underpins American life, sociologist contends

Anonymous — Wed, 22 May 2024 23:08:07 +0000

Violence underpins American life, sociologist contends Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 05/22/2024 - 17:08

Clint Talbott

In new book, �Ͼ�Ʒ�� researcher Liam Downey argues that different forms of violence produce both consent to the social order and divisions among subordinate social groups, which helps to maintain the power and wealth of economic and political elites

Violence in America causes incalculable suffering, but it also supports the nation social order and helps the country elites maintain their control, argues Liam Downey, a �Ͼ�Ʒ�� associate professor of sociology.

Downey makes this case in a new book, The Violent Underpinnings of American Life: How Violence Maintains Social Order in the U.S., published in October by NYU Press.

In the work, Downey examines several kinds of violence: sexual and sexualized violence against women and police and political violence against Black people. He contends that these and other types of violence bolster the social order and preserve the power of elites.

�Ͼ�Ʒ�� sociologist Liam Downey argues that violence in America causes incalculable suffering, but it also supports the nation social order and helps the country elites maintain their control.

Downey notes that the United States sees itself differently—as inherently peace-loving, harming others and resorting to violence only when absolutely necessary, “often in the name of freedom, human rights and democracy, and only when provoked or threatened by external enemies or deviant populations within its borders.”

On the contrary, he contends, U.S. social order is buttressed and maintained by violence. Further, he writes, “unless we believe that humans’ primary trait is a propensity for violence and that violence does not harm the psyches of those who engage in it and are victims of it, then relying on extremely high and sustained levels of violence to maintain our lifestyles and social order is alien to our innate humanity.”

The role of violence

His analysis expands upon existing research and builds from his definitions of “violence” and “social order.” Downey defines “violence” as “any action, inaction or property of the social structure that severely harms an individual, community or society, either physically, emotionally or psychologically.”

Downey underscores his interest in the role violence plays in producing a social order that benefits elites—those who have the greatest influence in economic power networks, political power networks, military power networks and ideological power networks.

He defines “social order” as existing when social relations are “stable enough within that society that elites can regularly (though not necessarily always) achieve their goals and maintain or increase their advantaged position within society.”

“You can think of a social order as a set of economic, political, social and cultural rules and relationships. And these rules and relationships and the institutions that create them can produce more or less equal and violent outcomes,” Downey says.

“What I’m arguing and what the evidence demonstrates is that, along these different dimensions (economic, political etc.), we have very high levels of inequality in this country, and this inequality benefits certain groups,” he adds, noting, for instance, that men benefit from patriarchy and whites benefit from racism.

“But you also have a set of economic and political elites who benefit from the entire social order. … So, while men benefit from patriarchy, many men are poor. Many belong to the working class. Many are unemployed. They’re not benefitting from capitalism,” Downey says.

“Elites benefit from all these systems.”

Liam Downey's The Violent Underpinnings of American Life examines several kinds of violence and how they and other types of violence bolster the social order and preserve the power of elites.

Gaining some benefit

Downey notes that some might wonder why subordinate groups accept a social order that harms them. One argument is that many subordinate groups consent to the social order because they gain some benefit from that order that leads them to ignore or accept the harm they experience.

Men, for instance, derive an emotional and psychological benefit from the highly sexualized and violent portrayal of women in the media. “And that helps non-elite men to accept the social order.”

�Ͼ�Ʒ�� sexual harassment and rape, which are extremely widespread in the United States, he adds, “These forms of violence reinforce patriarchal discourses that say, ‘Women are of the body and men are of the mind and women are there to be used and objectified by men.’ These and other forms of violence against women also reinforce patriarchal discourses that say that women are emotional, irrational and unable to control themselves.”

But, Downey points out, violence against women also reinforces “capitalist and racist discourses that make the same arguments about working people and racial and ethnic minorities. So, when you reinforce patriarchal discourses through sexual and sexualized violence, you also reinforce capitalist and racist discourses and therefore the overall social order that these discourses justify, thereby benefitting not just men and Whites but elites, too.”

Downey book also cites research about the extremely high prevalence of police violence against African Americans, arguing that that violence helps to reduce competition between them and White people. “It makes it more difficult for Black people who have gone through the criminal justice system to get good jobs,” he says, “and for their children to do well in school due to lack of resources and the emotional and psychological difficulties faced by young people who have a parent in prison,” adding:

“This means that many African Americans have difficulty competing with Whites for jobs and for higher-priced housing in neighborhoods with quality schools. White people benefit materially and socially from this reduced competition, leading them to support the social order more than they otherwise might.”

He further notes that police violence against African Americans is “justified by a whole set of violent and racist political discourses that denigrate Black people and elevate White people, that say that the former are inferior in some ways, and the latter are superior.”

“If White people think they’re superior, that a psychological benefit that increases their support of the social order. Moreover, violence against women does the same thing: it both benefits men and reinforces discourses that say that men are superior, and women are inferior.”

‘Fully and equally human’

Another way that violence supports social order is that it divides groups, Downey says. “White people and Black people are divided over the issue of police violence, for example, and in fact, many Whites are divided over this issue, too.”

It is thus in the long-term interests of the vast majority of the world people to eradicate violence and to treat every person and group in the world as if they are what they truly are: fully and equally human, deserving of human rights and dignity, full and healthy lives, and the chance to develop their abilities, talents and creativity to their fullest.”

So why would that matter? “When subordinate groups are divided, they have less power to challenge elites,” Downey observes. “So, creating divisions between African Americans and Whites, and between different groups of White people, makes it harder for these groups to achieve common goals and to weaken elite power, thereby promoting overall social order.”

Similarly, men and women are divided through sexual and sexualized violence, “making it harder for them to work together to challenge the elite-driven social order.”

In the end, Downey contends, “we live in a world and society that depend fundamentally on violent harm being done to others and, in many cases, to ourselves.” Further, he says, “violence is not solely a characteristic of subordinate groups and the deviant but is instead a key property of the U.S. and global social systems that helps elites oppress and exploit non-elites both in this country and around the world.”

Downey concludes: “It is thus in the long-term interests of the vast majority of the world people to eradicate violence and to treat every person and group in the world as if they are what they truly are: fully and equally human, deserving of human rights and dignity, full and healthy lives, and the chance to develop their abilities, talents and creativity to their fullest.

“Treating people in this way is, of course, also the morally correct thing to do. It is thus time that we start doing it.”

Top image: Kerem Yucel/AFP/Getty Images

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Gang ties don’t always bind

Anonymous — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 19:35:26 +0000

Gang ties don’t always bind Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 04/09/2024 - 13:35

Bradley Worrell

Research from �Ͼ�Ʒ�� sociology professor shows that for many prisoners, gang affiliation tends to drop off once they are released back into their communities

Nearly everyone who enters prison in the United States eventually leaves. In fact, every year about 600,000 people are released from federal and state prisons, according to U.S. Department of Justice data.

Meanwhile, other data suggest that nearly 20% of the prison population belongs to a gang, which prompts the question: Do prisoners who are gang members maintain their gang affiliations after being released?

Perhaps surprisingly, there has been very little empirical research into that topic until now, according to David C Pyrooz, a �Ͼ�Ʒ�� professor of sociology whose research focus includes gangs, incarceration and reentry, and criminal justice policy and practice.

David C Pyrooz, a �Ͼ�Ʒ�� professor of sociology, researches gangs, incarceration and reentry, as well as criminal justice policy and practice.

“In terms of gangs, it a harder topic to study,” he explains. “For one, there a lot of sensitivity around it. Information about gangs is generally treated as intelligence in the sense that it privileged information that law enforcement and correctional agencies don’t necessarily want to share with the general public.”

Additionally, tracking an inmate after their release can be challenging because, as Pyrooz notes, “former prisoners often live chaotic lives. Once they’re out, they’re worried about food insecurity, about family reunification, about jobs, about housing and all these other things. So, it a tough population to study. Research obviously ranks low on their list of priorities.”

Convinced there was value in knowing whether people maintained their gang ties once released back into their communities, Pyrooz and his fellow researchers conducted a survey of 802 men in Texas prisons—representing a mix of active gang members, ex-gang members and non-gang members—who were interviewed once prior to their release and reinterviewed twice afterward. Their research findings were published in Justice Quarterly, the flagship publication of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences.

The study findings showed that gang activity declined for all three groups—including active gang members—as the pressure to maintain gang involvement subsides, contrary to what some speculation and anecdotes would indicate, Pyrooz says.

While some active gang members do maintain their involvement after being released, “it simply doesn’t occur in a manner that we expected—it not like it a straight line from the prison to the street. There something specific to the prison environment that gives rise to this sort of excess gang activity,” he says.

Pyrooz recently spoke with Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine about this research. His responses have been lightly edited for style and condensed for space considerations.

Question: Why did you choose to focus on Texas prisons for your study?

Pyrooz: It the largest state prison system in the country. It large and it diverse in terms of race and ethnicity. The prison population is about a third Black, a third white and a third Hispanic. So, it gives a good racial ethnic representation. …

And it got a large gang population as well. There a large number of white, Black and Hispanic gangs with a lot of variation in how they’re organized and structured, which gives us an opportunity to examine whether patterns of behavior are consistent across gang types.

Question: Do you have thoughts about why prisoners were open to speaking with you, particularly when sharing details about gang activity?

Pyrooz: There was the longstanding belief going into the study that prisoners would not be open to speaking with researchers, much less telling the truth. In fact, it one of the major reasons that people have offered us to as to why we don’t know a lot about prison gangs, even setting aside the reentry issue.

Every year, nearly 600,000 men and women are released from state and federal prisons. Up until now, little empirical research has been done on whether prisoners who are active gang members maintain their gang affiliations after they are released. (Photo: Tom Pennington/Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

So, we treated the prison interview like an exit interview, in the sense that we tried to target a period of time where we thought ties to gangs … could be waning, such that gangs couldn’t exercise as much influence over a prisoner … as much (because prisoners are removed from the general population prior to their release). Interviewing prisoners about 48 hours prior to their release is something that we targeted. That was strategic. …

As to why they spoke with us, we’re a neutral party. It not like speaking with a correctional officer, where incriminating information might be used against them. It not like a girlfriend who is making decisions about whether she wants to stay with you, an estranged child or anything of that sort with incredible emotional baggage.

There no past history between us and the person. It like a blank slate. So, it just gives them the opportunity to be able to reflect on things that they felt comfortable sharing with us.

There were times during interviews where prisoners would say, ‘I haven't told anybody about this in the entire time I’ve been incarcerated. It felt great to just get it off of my chest to talk to someone.’

Not everybody was like that. There were some interviews that were difficult.

Question: In your paper you say, ‘Not all gang members are created equal.’ What do you mean by that? Does it relate to what you refer to in your paper as ‘gang embeddedness’?

Pyrooz: A lot of people have this black or white view of, you’re a gang member or not. But that doesn’t really tell the full picture; it doesn’t really capture the different dimensions of involvement…

Gang embeddedness captures immersion in gangs. In the same way that you could differentiate people who are really religious—they’re going to church more than one time a week, they’re praying at home and they may be a church volunteer for church activities. In contrast, you have people who are sort of the Christmas and Easter crowd, or agnostic or completely atheists. These two groups aren’t the same, and there are many shades of gray between them.

There a belief that, just like you give religion importance, you give the gang importance, and just like people fall away from the church, people fall away from gangs.

Question: As part of your research, your team interviewed prisoners once while in prison and two separate times after their release. Why was that format important?

Pyrooz: We really wanted to get a first interview while they were inside of prison. We wanted to understand, while they were in that environment, what they were thinking.

But we also wanted to understand, for continuity and change, what spills over from the inside to the outside, versus what stays inside. So, what sort of this remnant of their past life, of being an incarcerated person, versus returning back to the community. …

That what we really were trying to understand, and then to differentiate between, the short-term changes, like within a couple of weeks of getting out, versus how did you start to settle in your life 10 months later? And what percent of them went back to prison, got arrested or were killed after their release?

Question: How does this latest paper on gang involvement in and out of prison fit in with your overall areas of research?

Pyrooz: I’ve been studying gangs for upwards of 15 years, focused on the contours of gang involvement: when people join, how long they stay, when they leave and what the long-term consequences are.

There was this longstanding perception that once you join a gang, you can never get out of these groups—which is a myth. Since I’ve been doing my research, we’ve found that not only does it happen, but that the norm—as opposed to the exception—that people do leave.

I took my first job out of grad school at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, which is known colloquially as Prison City, USA, because there so many prisons within not just the city limits, but within Walker County, Texas, including one that was just about two blocks from my office.

There was this longstanding perception that once you join a gang, you can never get out of these groups—which is a myth. Since I’ve been doing my research, we’ve found that not only does it happen, but that the norm—as opposed to the exception—that people do leave."

And not only is that where the state conducts all of the executions, but it also one of the major (prisoner) release centers in the state of Texas. So, continuing with the theme on continuity and change, prisons represent this next frontier to understand whether these gang associations spill out of the prisons to the street and also, when these transitions occur, are (ex-prisoners) able to leave these associations behind when they return to the community?

It fits within a broader agenda of focusing on gangs, but also on this broader criminological interest in continuity and change in the life course.

Question: What can corrections officials and law enforcement gain from your latest research, both as it relates to felons while still in prison and once they are released?

Pyrooz: To me, what it suggests right off the bat is that the prison systems need to do something about gangs in their institutions. And by do something, I’m not just talking about housing them differently, akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. … I’m talking about actual prevention and actual intervention. In other words, blocking the onramps and widening the offramps to gang involvement. Housing might be a part of it, but it could also be work programs; it could be therapeutic interventions; it could be religion; it could be a whole host of different things that are done to keep people occupied, to change mindsets and to alter risks and threats to their livelihoods.

Given that prisons are operating as this vector of gang activity, (prison administrators) need to be doing something more than just business as usual, because that certainly hasn’t put a dent in the activity or the violence behind bars. …

You want to keep (prisoners) occupied, versus stewing and getting into trouble. It like the saying, ‘Idle hands are the devil workshop.’ And behind bars, there a lot of idle hands. …

Once people are released, one factor that can determine gang involvement is if they go back to a gang-active neighborhood. If they do, they are more likely to be gang active. So, there a lot of practical relevance here that matters for parole officers and anyone involved with the supervision of people after their release.

Question: Is there anything else from your research that you would like to share?

Pyrooz: I think that for a lot of people, when it comes to prisoners, they’re sort of out of sight, out of mind. They may not have a lot of concern for people who are behind bars, in part because they believe that they’ve earned that prison sentence.

But when you really start thinking about the fact that (ex-prisoners) do return home—and we don’t want them to go back to prison—it really starts reshaping the public calculus with regard to the sort of humanity afforded to people in prisons.

And once you realize that they can be your neighbors, that they could go to your church and work similar jobs, for most people, it starts to give you a different meaning behind imprisonment. What are we willing and what aren’t we willing to do? And just how much we care about what happens to these people in prisons?

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Research from �Ͼ�Ʒ�� sociology professor shows that for many prisoners, gang affiliation tends to drop off once they are released back into their communities .

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Understanding crime through both victims and offenders

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Apr 2024 00:04:45 +0000

Understanding crime through both victims and offenders Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 04/03/2024 - 18:04

Blake Puscher

The new edition of �Ͼ�Ʒ�� Professor Jill Turanovic book explains how and why victimization happens, as well as what can be done about it

Understanding why crime happens and how to prevent it depends on taking into account both victims and offenders, including their behaviors and decisions, and the factors that lead to increased vulnerability.

This is one of the themes highlighted in the recently released second edition of Thinking �Ͼ�Ʒ�� Victimization by Jillian Turanovic, a �Ͼ�Ʒ�� associate professor of sociology, and University of Cincinnati fellow Travis Pratt. In it, they explore victimization and its study in detail, addressing how victimization is measured, the theories explaining victimization, why crime is committed, how to respond to it and myths about particular types of crime and victimization.

Measuring victimization

One of the most basic issues facing the study of crime and victimization is getting accurate data, Turanovic says. For example, police reports only tell part of the story, because only a fraction of all crimes are reported to police.

�Ͼ�Ʒ�� researcher Jillian Turanovic, an associate professor of sociology, studies victimization and why crime happens.

To more accurately gauge the true amount of crime happening in society, researchers in the 1960s developed self-report victimization surveys. The prime source of survey data is the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS).

As NCVS data came out, the so-called “dark figure” of crime was revealed: Nearly twice as much crime is committed than is reported by official sources.

“We are able to capture more victimization through self-report surveys than we can capture through official police records—especially for crimes like sexual assault and intimate partner violence,” Turanovic says. Rape and sexual assault are less often reported to the police than any other crime, with just 21.5% of incidents recorded by the NCVS also reported to the police, according to a figure from the book. This speaks to several factors that stop people from reporting crimes: shame, fear of retaliation, and hesitance to involve law enforcement.

Even for less serious crimes, people may hesitate to involve law enforcement, which is why only 26.1% of petty thefts are reported. In many cases, Turanovic explains, filing a police report does not seem worth the effort because of the low value of the stolen goods and the slim chance of their recovery.

Competing theories

Although national crime rates of the late 1960s were not especially high in comparison to those of the ‘80s and ‘90s, Turanovic says, most forms of crime were rapidly increasing during this period. This spurred theoretical development among academics, as criminologists had previously believed that crime would go down as economic conditions improved, as they did in America after World War II. To help explain why the United States could be both rich and crime ridden, criminologists developed two new theoretical frameworks to better understand the phenomenon: lifestyle and routine activity theories.

Lifestyle theory is based on observations of demographic trends—namely, that young men victimize others and are victimized most often. Behavioral differences are one explanation, according to Turanovic, as young males expose themselves to greater risk through their activities, the situations they enter and the people they associate with than either females or older males.

Routine activity theory was established to explain why people are victimized when they aren’t doing risky things. It is based on the idea that as certain routine activities increase over time in society, people risk for victimization also increases. For example, it was theorized that women increasingly participating in the labor force could lead to an increase in burglaries because it left more houses empty during the day.

Both theories have limitations, Turanovic says, so both must be applied to answer the fundamental questions of criminology and victimology.

Thinking �Ͼ�Ʒ�� Victimization addresses how victimization is measured, the theories explaining victimization, why crime is committed, how to respond to it and myths about particular types of crime and victimization.

Why do people commit crimes?

“A well-established fact in criminology is that a small proportion of people engage in the majority of crimes,” Turanovic says. Research indicates that more than half of all crimes are committed by less than a tenth of the population. Recognizing the characteristics of these habitual offenders is necessary for preventing crime on both the individual and systemic levels, she says, given that the former entails avoiding dangerous people and the latter involves restraining or rehabilitating them.

So, what do criminals tend to have in common? One answer is a lack of self-control, Turanovic says.

“People with low self-control have a hard time thinking about the long-term consequences of their actions, and they tend to react impulsively in the moment without stopping to think if what they’re doing is the best,” she says, adding that it not hard to see how this can lead to crime. For example, most people have wanted something that wasn’t theirs at one point, and the less self-control a person has, the easier it is for common feelings like this to turn into theft or another type of crime.

In keeping with the overlap between victim and victimizer seen in demographic trends, people with low self-control are also victimized more often, according to Turanovic. “It not like such individuals are choosing to be victimized,” she explains, but “people with low self-control have a hard time assessing risks around themselves.”

However, Turanovic says, self-control is just one factor: “There’re a lot of other environmental, cultural, and social factors that also play a role in why people are engaging in crime or are disproportionately likely to be victimized.” Low self-control is “typically developed in youth who are subject to dysfunctional home environments,” she says, and it “is also found to be lower in socially disorganized, disadvantaged communities, so it important to also take into account those factors.”

How can crimes be prevented?

Considering that people of a certain age are particularly likely to commit crimes, a simple response is to avoid giving them opportunities to offend.

There is another approach to decreasing crime that doesn’t involve avoiding risky people or contexts, however: capable guardianship. This can take the form of anything from security cameras to guards. Essentially, even if someone is in a risky situation, like a mall where people in their peak offending years congregate that is located in a state where the rate of shoplifting is high, establishing defenses against crime can thwart or even prevent it, Turanovic says.

“From a situational crime prevention standpoint, if you assume that a crime is occurring because there are motivated offenders around suitable targets with a lack of capable guardianship, you can increase guardianship and reduce target attractiveness by making crime seem more difficult, more risky, and less rewarding,” she explains. She adds that this is just one example of how the same theoretical framework and evidence base can lead to different conclusions.

Another is the broken windows theory.

“Broken windows theory assumes that if there are visible signs of disorder in a community, it gives a signal to would-be offenders that no one cares, and so it acceptable to move into that community to start engaging in crime,” Turanovic says. So, if a building windows have been broken and remain so for a while, for example, it may seem that breaking more windows, stealing from the building, or using it for some illicit purpose would be less risky.

Despite recognizing these important criminological facts, broken windows theory has fallen out of favor, along with the aggressive policing of disorder and minor offenses that it inspired. This is partly because of new evidence suggesting that people are not very afraid of small signs of disorder and partly because of negative reactions from affected communities.

To best prevent crime and understand why crime happens, you have to take into account the behaviors and decisions of both parties, and the factors that lead people to be in risky situations or situations where they’re more vulnerable."

“There seem to be a lot of consequences of broken windows policing,” Turanovic explains. “It erodes community trust and clogs the criminal justice process. Finding and arresting people for minor things can ultimately result in more consequences for them, disrupt prosocial aspects of their lives, and even increase their future likelihood of further contact with the criminal justice system,” adding that such practices may also impact community collective efficacy.

“Collective efficacy is essentially this feeling of mutual responsibility to look out for each other and to take care of the community. When that breaks down and there is no real informal social control of youth or willingness to intervene if crime is happening, that when crime develops in the community,” Turanovic says.

Myths and misconceptions

Aside from these theoretical and systematic considerations, people need to understand how different crimes typically happen to prevent victimization, Turanovic says, adding that the public perception of crime is often distorted by the news and entertainment media tendency to focus on particular sorts of incidents. Rape and sexual assault are major examples.

“This crime is most likely to occur between people who know each other, and often both parties are involved in some form of consensual interaction prior to the assault,” Turanovic says. “Especially in the news and on crime shows, we see sexual assault typically depicted as a stranger attacking a woman, maybe in a dark alley alone at night. While that can happen, it does not reflect the majority of these kinds of crimes.”

Popular concepts of school violence have also been biased by the media, she says: “School violence in general hasn’t actually been increasing at the rate that you may expect based on what you see on the news.”

The idea that school violence is completely unique from other forms of violence is another misconception, Turanovic says, noting that “a lot of violence that starts in the community bleeds into the school context.”

Understanding why crime happens

Turanovic emphasizes that “the study of crime is almost exclusively focused on offenders’ behaviors and decisions, and it leaves victims out of the equation a lot of the time. As the victimization literature developed, it became highly focused on the victim, the victim behaviors and their risk factors or vulnerability factors, and the offender side of things is left out.

“To best prevent crime and understand why crime happens, you have to take into account the behaviors and decisions of both parties, and the factors that lead people to be in risky situations or situations where they’re more vulnerable,” she says. “We can better understand and study the situations and contexts by which victimization happens, and who most vulnerable, without engaging in victim blaming. Although broad social and cultural changes may be needed to eliminate crime, there are also things that we can learn or do in our daily lives that make it less likely that we may be targeted. It is important to keep in mind those things as well to best prevent victimization.”

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The new edition of �Ͼ�Ʒ�� Professor Jill Turanovic book explains how and why victimization happens, as well as what can be done about it.

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