January 2017

Michael Kent, MAS '15 and a lieutenant at the Irvine Police Department, is featured by The Orange County Register for being a part of the "40 Under 40" list by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. The award recognizes 40 law enforcement professionals younger than 40 years old who exemplify leadership and commitment to their job.

January 2017

Mona Lynch, Professor of Criminology, Law and Society, is a guest contributor for The Huffington Post as she appeals to President Obama to grant clemency on prisoners who have fallen victim to the abuses of "prosecutorial power that are possible under our current drug laws" before the end of his presidency. In her article, she elaborates over the unfair circumstances that led to a particular prisoner's life sentence, as part of the research for her book Hard Bargains: The Coercive Power of Drug Laws in Federal Court.

January 2017

C. Ronald Huff, Professor Emeritus of Criminology, Law and Society, is quoted in People as he weighs in on whether Jeffrey MacDonald is innocent for the murder of his wife and two children, after being convicted of the crime nearly 47 years ago.

January 2017

Jodi Quas, Professor of Psychology and Social Behavior, and Keramet Reiter, Assistant Professor of Criminology, Law and Society, joined 3 other scholars to celebrate Life of the Law's 100th episode. They were invited to the NSF Headquarters in Washington, D.C. to share their stories, personal experiences, professional challenges, and discoveries about free speech and the judiciary, children and the legal system, imprisonment and culture, family law and poverty, and hate crimes and incivility in society.

January 2017

Charis Kubrin, Professor of Criminology, Law and Society, and Adam Dunbar, Ph.D. candidate of Criminology, Law and Society, present their definitive findings about rap music on trial on KUCI: Ask a Leader. Their research highlights the intersection of art, race, and the law.

January 2017

The Master of Advanced Study (MAS) degree in Criminology, Law and Society has been named the No. 3 online graduate criminal justice program in the country by U.S News and World Report. The MAS degree program was created in 2002 and it was the first online degree program in the University of California system. Teresa Dalton, Associate Professor of Teaching of Criminology, Law and Society, is director of the program. 

January 2017

Celebration will include music, beer garden, food trucks, fireworks and basketball game

The University of California, Irvine’s 180,000-plus alumni will have a chance to celebrate their alma mater at the university’s annual homecoming event, from 3 to 7 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 25. Party in the Park will take place on campus in Aldrich Park. Crowds regularly top 5,000 alumni, students, faculty, staff and members of the community.

New this year, attendees can bring food for a picnic on the grass or purchase food from alumni-owned and/or -operated food trucks. Live music will play from every Anteater era, and the ever-popular beer garden will be open throughout the event. Other attractions include a family fun zone, an Art in the Park arts and crafts fair, and the Innovation @ Home Anteater entrepreneur marketplace. Schools and departments will host interactive demonstrations and welcome alums back to campus.

January 2017

Peter Ditto, Professor of Psychology and Social Behavior, is quoted in The Orange County Register over the tendency of voters taking sides based on their party's position, despite the merits over specific laws and measures a candidate may propose.

December 2016

UCI alumna Erin Morris, who earned a Ph.D. in psychology & social behavior in 2006, is the subject of UCI associate professor of literary journalism Erika Hayasaki’s story “The Investigator,” published in the Dec. 1 issue of The California Sunday Magazine. The Los Angeles County public defender’s office created the position of behavioral sciences research analyst for Morris in 2007. It’s her job to keep on top of the latest academic literature on forensic evidence and determine which studies and theories are valid. She then confers with the attorneys on how to best pursue or challenge a line of inquiry based on what is “scientifically defensible” about the evidence. The use of forensic evidence in the criminal justice system is undergoing a radical shift. What was once considered to be incontrovertible evidence – such as bite marks, eyewitness accounts, expert testimony and even fingerprints – has come under intense scrutiny and has, many times, proved faulty. According to the Innocence Project, more than 340 defendants since 1989 who were convicted on the basis of flawed forensic evidence were later exonerated through DNA analysis, and in September, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science & Technology released a report questioning many of the methods used by law enforcement and prosecutors. This is where Morris comes in and why her role is so crucial. She estimates that she has consulted on more than 200 cases, including one that relied on work she had done while at UCI, where she studied under Elizabeth Loftus, Distinguished Professor of psychology & social behavior and professor of law, and William Thompson, professor of criminology, law & society. The defendant, charged with assaulting a group of high schoolers, had been identified by one of them as the attacker. Drawing on the latest research on eyewitness testimony, Morris advised the public defender of its many flaws – that head injuries often affect memory and how easy it is to confuse people wearing similar clothing. The jury acquitted him.

December 2016

What drives decisions by autonomous vehicles in dire situations?

Despite dramatic reductions in accident-related fatalities, injuries and damages, as well as significant improvements in transportation efficiency and safety, consumers aren’t as excited about the promise of autonomous vehicles as the auto industry is. Research shows that people are nervous about life-and-death driving decisions being made by algorithms rather than by humans. Who determines the ethics of the algorithms?

Bill Ford Jr., executive chairman of Ford Motor Co., said recently that these ethics must be derived from “deep and meaningful conversations” among the public, the auto industry, the government, universities and ethicists.

Azim Shariff, Assistant Professor of Psychology & Social Behavior at the University of California, Irvine, and his colleagues­ – Iyad Rahwan, Associate Professor of Media Arts & Sciences at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Mass., and Jean-Francois Bonnefon, a Research Director at the Toulouse School of Economics in France – have created an online survey platform called the Moral Machine to help promote that discussion.

Launched in May, it has already drawn more than 2.5 million participants from over 160 countries.