Harvard Sociologist to Speak at RIT on Neighborhood Crime Issues

Will deliver inaugural Thomas Castellano Memorial Lecture on Justice

The impact of crime and violence on communities and the methods government institutions can use to strengthen and preserve city and suburban neighborhoods will be the topic of Rochester Institute of Technology’s inaugural Thomas Castellano Memorial Lecture on Justice.

Robert Sampson, a noted criminal justice scholar and pioneering researcher on the impact of crime on city neighborhoods, will present “Communities and Crime” at 7 p.m. Oct. 15 in RIT’s Ingle Auditorium.

Sampson is the Henry Ford II Professor of Social Science and chair of the Department of Sociology at Harvard University. He is also the longtime scientific director of the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, a multi-university, multi-year research initiative that is one of the first to study how families, schools and neighborhood crime affect child and adolescent development.

The Castellano lecture series is named in honor of Thomas Castellano, longtime professor and chair of the Department of Criminal Justice at RIT, who passed away earlier this year. It is co-sponsored by RIT and Partners in Restorative Justice Initiatives.

WHAT: “Communities and Crime”

WHO: Robert Sampson, Henry Ford II Professor of Social Science at Harvard

WHEN: 7 p.m. Oct. 15

WHERE: Ingle Auditorium, Student Alumni Union, RIT campus


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