The department welcomed five first-year PhD students into the program for 2024-2025. Abby Novotny and Abby Judge were awarded College Recruitment Fellowships. Dani LaPradd was awarded a Graduate Scholars Fellowship by the University.

• These students successfully defended their Capstone project in December, completing the substantial paper portion of their M.A. degrees.
  • Anna Filoso, Cathy Hu, Yanette Martinez, Juliana Sarwacinski, Yucen Lin
• Chase Heslop’s qualifying examination (QE) served as the substantial paper needed to earn a M.A. in Criminal Justice.

• Allison Pierce successfully defended her dissertation prospectus titled, “Mapping the Nexus: Exploring the Interplay of Time, Space, and Connectivity in NIVIN-linked Firearm Incidents.”
• Megan Novak successfully defended her dissertation prospectus titled, “Corporate Environmental Crime Victims and Procedural Justice.”
• Chase Heslop successfully defended his QE titled, “Caught Empty Handed: Information Loss in Criminology and Criminal Justice.”
• Chandlier Hulse successfully defended her QE titled, “Beyond a House: Application of Distance Decay to People Experiencing Homelessness.”

• Tyeisha Fordham is a quantitative and qualitative analyst at Resource Development Associates (RDA) Consulting. She started in January.
• Allison Pierce will start in August as a Lecturer at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan.
• Mitchell Farrell will start in August as an Assistant Professor at The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina, in Charleston, South Carolina.
• Carmen Diaz will be a Senior Research Analyst with the Kansas Sentencing Commission in Topeka, Kansas starting in June.

Graduate students presented and attended several conferences over the past year 2025

• Jack Haring, Charlotte Lee, and Jill Mitchell attended the annual Midwest Criminal Justice Association (MCJA) conference in September. The purpose of MCJA is to foster communication and collaboration among criminal justice researchers, academics, and practitioners within the Midwestern United States and beyond.
• Carmen Diaz, Allison Pierce, Hannah Ridner, and Mitchell Farrell presented research at the annual American Society of Criminology (ASC) conference in November. This year’s theme was “Criminological Research and Education Matters: People, Policy, and Practice in Tumultuous Times”.
  • Carmen Diaz presented her work on a panel “Pretrial Diversion, Recidivism, and Race: An Impact Evaluation of Prosecutor-Led Pretrial Diversion Program”.
  • Allison Pierce presented her work titled, “NIBIN Lead Networks: A temporal and Geographical Analysis”.
  • Hannah Ridner presented her work in conjunction with Dr. Bonnie Ernst and fellow graduate student, Carmen Diaz, titled, “Cartographies of Struggle: A Geographic Story of Convict-Leased Black Women in the American South”.
  • Mitchell Farrell presented his work titled, “Mind Your Measures and Mechanisms: Adjudicating Normative Influence on Adolescent Delinquency Through Meta-Analysis”.

• Allison Pierce, Hannah Ridner, and Amber Richey presented research at the annual Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS) conference in March. Allison Pierce and Hannah Ridner attended as participants in the ACJS Doctoral Summit. The Summit’s highly competitive scholarships fund participants’ travel and lodging for a portion of the trip, while also providing additional workshops and networking opportunities for those in attendance.
  • Allison Pierce presented her work titled, “Exploring Prosecutorial Discretion and Practices in Direct Files of Juveniles.”
  • Hannah Ridner and Amber Richey presented their work titled, “Military Academies and Community Crime: An Exploratory Study.”
• Jill Mitchell presented her work titled, “Queerness on Trial: How Perceptions of Queer Identities Can Influence the Decision Between Life and Death”.

• Mitchell Farrell was awarded a College of Arts +Sciences Grant-In-Aid to help cover costs associated with his dissertation research and data processing.
• Carmen Diaz, Mitchell Farrell, Jack Haring, Jill Mitchell, Allison Pierce, Kelsie Powell, Amber Richey, and Hannah Ridner received funding from the J. Steven Lung Fellowship. This funding broadly supports graduate students’ need.
• Hannah Ridner was awarded the Center for Studies of Law in Action Robert F. Borkenstein Summer Dissertation Fellowship.
• Hannah Ridner was awarded the Dissertation Research Fellowship from the College of Arts + Sciences for the 2025-2026 academic year. The 10-month fellowship provides support while she conducts research and writes her dissertation.

• Hipple, N. K., Allison, K., Campbell, K., & Farrell, M. A. (2024). Police responses to people experiencing homelessness. Police Quarterly, https://doi.org/10.1177/10986111241289390
• Diaz, C.L., Lowder, E.M., Northcutt Bohmert, M., Ying, M. Hatfield, T. (2024). A retrospective study of the role of probation revocation in future criminal justice involvement, Journal of Criminal Justice, 93, 01225 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2024.102225.
• Bailey, C. M., Hylton, S., Henry, T. K. S., Diaz, C. L., & Grommon, E. (2025). Exploring racial disparities across prosecutorial decision points: evidence from a Midwest prosecutor’s office. Journal of Crime and Justice, 1–19, https://doi.org/10.1080/0735648X.2025.2483329
• Diaz, C., Northcutt Bohmert, M., Grommon, E., Henry, T. K., & Ying, M. (2025, May 15). Community views on prosecutor-led diversion programs in Monroe County, Indiana. Public Policy Institute. https://policyinstitute.iu.edu/research-analysis/research-findings/faculty-research/community-views-pldp.html

• Two of our PhD students, Hannah Ridner and Abby Judge, worked to revamp the Center for Studies in Law and Action’s (CSLA) website. The primary goal of the project was to streamline their online presence and provide information on their alcohol and drug courses in one place. In addition, historical information about the organization will be added to the archives, showcasing the achievements of the center. The site relaunched in early May.