Eastern Michigan University professor Gregg Barak has
found that crime does pay — at least for governments
and big corporations.
Barak, a professor of criminology and criminal justice,
was honored March 28 with the Ronald W. Collins Distinguished
Faculty Award for Scholarly/Creative Activity. The award
includes a plaque and a $3,500 honorarium.
"I've taught at eight universities and known several administrators
quite well, but there was only one whom I regarded as a
colleague, friend and confidant, and that was Ronald Collins," said
Barak. "To receive an award in his name is quite meaningful
to me."
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PUBLISHED IN VOLUME: Gregg Barak, an EMU
professor of criminology and criminal justice,
recently
was honored with the Ronald W. Collins
Distinguished
Faculty Award for Scholarly/Creative
Activity.
To date, Barak has produced more than 100
publications,
including articles, reviews, essays, book
chapters,
a video and authored more than a dozen
books. |
Barak was cited for his extensive work in the field of
criminology. To date, he has produced more than 100 publications,
including articles, reviews, essays, book chapters, a video
and authored more than a dozen books. In addition, he was
selected as a Fellow of the Academy of Criminal Justice
Sciences and the first Visiting Distinguished Professor
and Scholar in the College of Justice and Safety at Eastern
Kentucky University.
"Gregg is obviously not someone resting on his laurels
or accumulating publications by endlessly rehashing a single
good idea from many years ago," said Paul Leighton, associate
professor of sociology and one of Barak's nominators. "He
is constantly pushing himself into new areas of knowledge
and, by producing a series of quality works on areas typically
neglected by criminologists, he has expanded and enriched
the discipline."
In addition to publishing research, Barak has traveled
around the globe to speak at conferences in Canada, Finland,
Thailand and the United Kingdom. This week, he will be
traveling to Maastricht University in the Netherlands for
an expert meeting on international and state crime. Barak
will be one of 30 scholars — including seven Americans
— from around the world that will attend.
Barak will present his recent research on international
crime — a 15-nation collaborative study that looked
at the similarities and differences between crime in industrialized,
developing and post-colonial countries. The study included
the United States, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, Brazil,
Russia, Nigeria, the Navajo Nation and others.
"We found that crime worldwide was growing and expanding.
Globalization has introduced more opportunity for crime
in every nation studied," said Barak. "World crime is becoming
similar, with a growing emphasis on property and less on
violence."
In addition to global crime, Barak's professional interests
include criminal justice, media studies, homelessness and
housing, violence and nonviolence, state crime and the
areas of class, race and gender.
"I'm interested in looking at the reality and the myth
of crime and justice," said Barak. "I look at the differences
between what we think is crime, and what actually constitutes
as crime."
Though he originally wanted to be a lawyer, Barak fell
into criminology while an undergraduate student at the
University of California Berkeley.
"It was a popular major at the time. We were looking at
issues such as racism, sexism and equality and privilege," said
Barak. "We were beginning to examine the '-isms' as crime."
Barak has chosen to focus mostly on crimes committed by
governments and big corporations, as opposed to traditional
street crime.
"It's difficult to prosecute prosecutors or for police
to police themselves. When we take street crime seriously,
we'll pass a bill, allocate money and put more officers
on the streets," said Barak. "The more we deregulate, the
more we increase the likelihood of white-color crime, like
we saw with Enron."
Barak's work is often cited in other scholarly publications,
news publications and even Internet discussions. His recent
study on the "CSI effect" hit the "blogosphere" within
three days of its publication, just in time for the Lewis "Scooter" Libby
trial.
Anecdotal stories from judges and prosecutors seem to
support the idea that juries expect more physical evidence
(DNA tests, for example) due to watching shows such as "CSI." Barak
and Young Kim, an EMU sociology professor, polled
the viewing habits of jurors and presented them with scenarios
for different types of criminal trials and different types
of evidence.
Their study produced the first empirical findings that
the CSI effect does not exist. They found that jurors do
expect more levels of scientific proof, but that their
expectations cannot be tied to their TV viewing habits.
"People who watch those shows tend to have a better understanding
of different kinds of evidence, but they don't seem to
expect more than people who don't watch those shows," said
Barak.
