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Hello. I'm Mike Benson. I'm the director of the distance learning program in the School
of Criminal Justice
at the University of Cincinnati
and I'm here today with professor Nick Corsaro, one of our new faculty
members
Professor Corsaro received his PHD in 2007 in criminal
justice
from Michigan State University and he's one of the instructors in our program.
Today I just want to give a, have, ask
Doctor Corsaro a few questions about how he got into criminal
justice and and the courses that he teaches
so Nick, um,
how did you become a professor of criminal justice, how did you get started in this field in
the first place
Well, thank you for having me Mike and um,
I actually started research in criminal justice when I was in elementary school
if you can believe that or not
um... there was a capital *** case uh... a serial killer who was executed
uh... Ted Bundy and uh... uh... I was in the sixth grade and I was
fascinated with the entire idea of a serial killer because I had never heard of
one before and
uh... state sanctioned executions
and then I found out that my home state of Indiana actually had the death
penalty which I didn't know about
uh... so what I did
was I rode
my bicycle down to the library
back in the old days prior to computers and Google and
they had clips of capital punishment, and death penalty and so there
were cases
in there that I would read about from newspaper clippings and
in the old newspaper clippings they would have the name of the city where
the the prison was
and so by elementary school logic it was well if that's where the state prison is
like Michigan City, Indiana then
that's where the state prison is
so then I will go over to the uh... to the post office
to get the zipcode
of the city
uh... because didn't have internet back then
and I would ride my bike up to my Aunt's house who had a computer and I would write a
letter and the only person I knew of that would be in a prison was a warden
so the warden
of the state prison wherever I was looking at
and I would ask you know how long have you had the death penalty in the state
I'm a seventh-grader
uh... because I was going in the seventh grade, writing a project about the
death penalty
and any information you can give me, uh, would be really appreciated for my
project
and I started getting letters back really thick packets and it was really
great
uh... so I will go to my brothers baseball games in the summer and I'll be
reading this this material everybody thought I was kind of weird right
uh... uh
the nuances of it uh... the final meals how many times
uh, people were executed and
and then I started spending a lot of time in the crime law and deviant
section of the library uh... over the summer
uh, reading about uh, conspirators, not so much terrorists but uh...
uh... what were they called uh... where they
uh... uh...
enemy of the state where the they, ...Rosenbergs, the, Where they traitors? Traitors.
Traitors, yeah, so
uh... so I read about those and serial killers and I thought this is
fascinating material
and so all through uh... growing up in school I wanted to
be a lawyer because I thought that's what I'd wanted to do because either option was open where
where I could go into federal law enforcement or
uh... prosecution
or defense because I was the only materials that I knew the only jobs that I knew were
available
so then I went to Indiana University and I was on that track to do that
uh... but then I got exposed into sociology and I loved sociology, I thought it was
uh... something that I would really like to make a career out of the studying
deviance and family development and uh... I was sort of a major in that
but uh... from happenstance
as an undergraduate junior I took a statistics course
uh... and I went to meet with the professor about my
exam to sort of see what I did wrong or right and
he asked me where I was from and I said ah, I'm from a small little town in southeastern
Indian near Cincinnati you've probably never heard of it
well he was from there, he was from (inaudible) uh... and
he had an opening
uh... as uh... teaching assistant to his under grad stats and it was me or
somebody else and he chose me because I was from his home town and
uh... we sort of hit it off and
then I started work with him on a paper
uh... we went to a conference presentation
and he convinced me that you know, criminal-justice over sociology mainly
because the job market was much better uh... that you could do the same sort of
research and so I went to the graduate program in Indiana and there was a lot of
innovative uh... activities going on at Indiana uh there was the
restorative justice project, directed patrol study, the Indianapolis violence
reduction partnership
all of these were steer-headed by professor (inaudible) who is the chair of
the department
and I became his research assistant as I went into the graduate program
uh... and then he went on to Michigan State and there were some uh... additional
projects that were
sort of spin-offs from the work that we did in Indianapolis and it was like
well if I'm going to do a PHD this uh... this makes the most sense to continue on with
these projects because I really loved the research work that went
along with it
uh... and
uh... that
uh... really sort of spearheaded me into the field but really uh...
I got to see a lot of different strategies and innovative approaches
that were used to
uh... reduce crime and and that was something I wanted to focus on
Well that's interesting so you've been in the field a long time so to speak. Well
ah... but not knowing ah, you know, I didn't know uh
Well you started out with the the death penalty and an interest in that have you
maintained that or what are you currently working on now, what's your research?
Uh, I still have an interest in it but uh... the the the primary interest uh... has
been
uh... getting exposed to new ideas and strategies from graduate school
because
and I think that's one of the the strength of the graduate program is that
you really get exposed to the different things that are going on in criminal
justice and it's one of the things that I think our program offers to students
as well as they can see what's happening and where they think they may have an
interest that sort of goes into a different
uh... direction
uh... i'm interested in innovative police strategies and and
uh... some of my research has focused on the types of of strategies that have effects
you know,
there was a long time in criminal justice where we said
policing can't have an effect on crime
and we
we've moved past that and we've realized that it can have an effect on crime if
if only modest and if only sort of temporary
but how much do you have to do how
uh... what types of strategies with what ones work what ones don't uh... what
are the components that are necessary that's
where my research has uh... really been focusing on and will continue to do so
over the years. Okay, well that's very interesting
now you're, this is about the DL program and you're an instructor here so what
course do you teach in our program and
why should students bother to take your course, what are they going to get out
of it?
well well I teach research methods
and uh... as a three-part answer to that uh... the the first answer is it's a
core requirement so you have to take it and
uh... but that's that's a simple answer
uh... because uh... the reasons why it's a core class in our curriculum and
the reason why I think it's an important course to take is
it will provide a different body of students students that are
interested in
practitioner based work or
innovative thinking or people who are just sort of interested in methods for the
purpose of doing it
it will provide that wide array of students uh... opportunities to
understand
the analytical strategies that are necessary either in practice or in
theory
uh... and that's really the way that I try to teach my course
uh, um, using
you know some of the latest sophisticated software that we have and
powerpoint presentations and extra credit opportunities for students
uh... to apply the research that they read about
uh... in addition to being exposed to the materials so the third part of that
answer is
you know, why my class is because I really put a lot of uh... thought into how I can
make this
material that can be sometimes
uh... little boring uh... when it comes to research methods when you simply read
it out of the book and show this is how it's been applied in actual settings
this is how it's been applied in research and here ways that you can
use it
uh... not everyone who goes into the program is planning on
uh... simply doing research they're planning on making a difference in the
field
and one of our recent graduates of the masters program
uh... used the data uh, that he
found in his study from the cincinnati police department
and came up with an innovative way to reduce traffic accidents
so the material he learned in the class he used methods and data to come up with
a strategy
uh... and it's it's been published in peer review journals and uh... the
Police Chief which is a top uh... ranking a magazine in uh, his field
and so I want to provide students an opportunity where they can take data and
actually do something with it
uh... but in order to do that they have to understand the kind of data that they
have and
uh... strengths limitations and uh... to understand the variety of data. Well you know
that's excellent and that really is one of the main points of this program is to
help practitioners use the latest techniques and do better in their own work
well just one final question um,
do you have any tips for students on how to do well in your course
I do, I do, um, you know, I,
uh... this is I'm sort of new into the distance learning but
I've been teaching graduate classes for years now, and uh, I think
you one of the things that our DL program offers is there is not a huge
distinction in the material we cover in the way we cover it
on campus or DL and the material and the same things that you will do
well and and on campus you're gonna do well with DL
which is to stay on top of the material
make sure that you read the material before
you start the powerpoint presentations and the extra opportunities
so that when you get exposed to uh... the presentations it's not the first
time you've heard it it's the second time it's it's now refining the the knowledge
and then
it really starts to
to sink in and then you take that and you apply it to the homework assignments in
the tasks where you're using data in an applied way
and you really get a nice gamut
uh... of of knowledge that way and I think that
is the best way to do well.
Alright well thank you that's very good advice and I'm sure it applies to a lot more
classes then just yours. Right.
You know stay on top of things. Alright, well thank you very much Nick, it's been a pleasure
talking with you today. Thank you Professor Benson, I appreciate it. Alright.