On Thursday, March 12th, the Presley Center of Crime and Justice Studies and the Blum Initiative on Global and Regional Poverty will host Dr. Sandra Smith, Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. The seminar will delve into how pretrial detention informs future criminal justice involvement.

The event will be held at the University of California, Riverside in CHASS Interdisciplinary South 1109 on Thursday, March 12, 2020 from 12:15 p.m. to 1:45 p.m.

As a professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, Sandra Smith’s research focuses on questions of urban poverty and joblessness, social capital and social networks, racial inequality, and trust. She has recently expanded her research to include criminal justice issues, with special attention to the front-end of criminal case processing, a direct result of her membership in the Executive Session on Community Corrections at Harvard’s Kennedy School and her membership on the National Research Advisory Board on Misdemeanor Justice. In addition to her research activities, Smith has also recently served as a council member for the American Sociological Association (ASA), Deputy Editor and editorial board member of the American Sociological Review and American Journal of Sociology, and the chair of the ASA Section, Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility. 

“I have always been interested in the criminal justice system and how we can reform it to make it work for the betterment of individuals rather than against them. I am excited to learn more about this from such a prestigious speaker,” said Imad Jobah, a fourth year public policy student.

The event is open to all UCR students. For more information about the event, contact justine.ross@ucr.edu.