Nicole S Fox

Racial inequities within the U.S. criminal justice system are well-documented, yet often inadequately addressed in undergraduate criminal justice (CJ) curricula. This study contributes to the literature on racial justice education and curricular reform by reporting on a pilot project that designed, implemented, and evaluated a set of sixteen one-week modules in a large CJ program. Developed for Canvas Commons, the modules were self-contained, evidence-based, and adaptable, with a focus on foregrounding marginalized scholarship and diverse pedagogies. Our findings address a gap in the literature regarding practical implementation strategies and outcomes of cumulative, curriculum-wide integration. Evaluation based on faculty experiences and surveys of over 1,000 students revealed that the modules were accessible, effective, and supportive for instructors, while student data suggested gains in understanding racial disparities. The project highlights the feasibility and impact of this approach, while also identifying adoption challenges. We conclude with recommendations for instructors and institutions.

This book introduces students to the challenges related to international crime and punishment and the ways that criminal justice systems have sought to confront them. The dismantling and opening up of borders by technology, transportation, international trade, and the global flow of labor and capital have allowed those engaging in criminal behavior to work across borders in ways that challenge the traditional nation-state and its criminal justice system, making the study of international crime and justice increasingly relevant. This book not only covers the nuts and bolts of international crime and law enforcement but also raises abstract, theoretical issues for debate and asks critical questions about the ideal ways to think about international criminal justice problems. Contemporary topics such as war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity, terrorism, drug smuggling, human trafficking, financial crimes, environmental crimes, and cybercrime are addressed, and connections between globalization, politics, and criminal justice reflect the modern realities of international and transnational crime. Following an introductory chapter that presents the dimensions of international criminal justice, the text is organized into two major parts, the first part discussing major international crimes and why people engage in them, and the second part laying out the central structures of the international criminal justice system, including international courts, transnational law enforcement, and aspects of United States criminal justice developed to deal with international crimes. Throughout the book, the authors place global crime within the context of contemporary politics and current events. Pedagogical tools such as summaries of significant international cases, discussion questions, and a thorough bibliography aid reader engagement and understanding. This text is suitable for students in global criminology, international crime, and comparative criminology courses, and researchers and policy-makers concerned with international and transnational crime.

Conducting research in post-atrocity settings contributes to broader societal efforts to address the legacies of genocide, promote justice, and educate the public in ways that foster a more inclusive future for affected societies. At the same time, such fieldwork requires a heightened level of care for research participants, researchers, and their team. By highlighting the complex dynamics of international research in communities recovering from mass violence, this fieldwork reflection aims to demystify aspects of fieldwork in such contexts. We collectively write this piece, drawing on decades of combined experience researching and writing about post-atrocity settings in more than fifteen countries [These countries include Armenia, Burundi, Cambodia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Germany, Honduras, Israel, Japan, Poland, Nigeria, Nicaragua, Rwanda, South Africa, South Korea, and Uganda]. Focused on our personal experiences, we offer five lessons that address dynamics of marginalization in the field, interrogation of researcher positionality, secondary trauma, trust building, and navigating research-related bureaucracy.

Following the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, women took on greater responsibilities as heads of households, lobbied for women's rights, and entered political positions at unprecedented rates. This article analyses the mass nationwide movement of women into roles as gacaca court judges following the genocide, through interviews with 55 women judges. Specifically, we emphasize both the highs and lows of this experience as compared to their male counterparts. Reflecting on the positive aspects of their service, women judges underscored empowerment, personal growth, and their active participation in nation-building post genocide. Yet, judging had its drawbacks, including uncompensated work that functioned like a "third shift" in light of women's rising responsibilities in the work force and an uneven household division of labour still dominated by patriarchal norms. Furthermore, women judges reported experiencing trauma from repeated exposure to accounts of genocidal rape and other violence. Despite these costs, women served from an overwhelming sense of duty to their communities and country and expressed pride for their contributions in the rebuilding of Rwanda in the wake of genocide.

ABSTRACT This article draws upon interviews with 50 Rwandan mothers who risked their lives to save others during the 1994 genocide. We position our study within a growing body of research examining women’s engagement in resistance movements, and we theorize rescue efforts by mothers during genocide as a case of political invisibility. Specifically, our findings show how mothers were able to capitalize on their political invisibility in strategic ways that shaped the form of the rescue. We posit that political invisibility may have insulated mothers from recruitment to the genocidal movement due to their occupation of the domestic sphere, since killing group members often knew these women were taking care of the home and engaging in domestic activities. We further highlight the care work (e.g., sheltering, feeding, supporting, calming, and managing emotions) that was foundational to these women’s rescue endeavors. Taken together, this article invites readers to walk through two secret doors that sociologists rarely have access to: actions tied to clandestine resistance and the private sphere of domestic care work during genocide.

This chapter provides an overview of how and why narratives that shape national collective memory of past atrocity neglect gender – a neglect that many find shocking given the ubiquity of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in all recorded wars and mass atrocities. These silences transform into contemporary inequalities as who a society remembers and values as a victim shapes access to resources such as education, financial support, and social capital. I suggest ways for scholars to remedy this oversight in research on gender and cases of contentious memory, and how to integrate a feminist lens in various stages of the research and writing process. This includes oversampling strategies, choosing subjects, qualitative data collection strategies, and approaches to analyzing data, including the analytical vitality of listening to the silences and gaps present in qualitative data. Finally, I address the personal cost for the researcher who adopts a feminist interpretive lens when studying gender and memorialization in the context of mass atrocity and SGBV. Gendered gaps in collective memory projects have significant consequences, including devaluing women’s place in the nation and delimiting their roles in the future (regarding leadership opportunities, decision-making positions, economic prosperities, and governing posts).

In this chapter, we draw from the case study of rescue during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda to theorize moral decision-making in contexts of mass atrocity. We provide an overview of a core debate regarding the relative influence of internal motivations and external opportunities in shaping rescue behaviors. Recognizing that individuals often explain both rescue and perpetration during genocide in moral terms—and given that some people who rescued also committed violence—we suggest integrating emerging evidence from studies about rescue with existing knowledge regarding the perpetration of violence to develop more holistic models that account for the complexity of individual behavior during genocide. Based on this review, we suggest a starting point for a more comprehensive model to explain moral decision-making during genocide. We conclude by exploring some of the implications of this working model for contemporary atrocity prevention and transitional justice processes.

Memory is at the center of a diverse array of political conflicts, moral disputes and power dynamics. This book illustrates how scholars use different interpretive lenses to study and explain profound conflicts rooted in the past. Addressing issues of racism, genocide, trauma, war, nationalism, colonial occupation and more, it highlights how our interpretations of contentious memories are indispensable to our understandings of contemporary conflicts and identities. Featuring an international group of scholars, this book makes important contributions to social memory studies, but also shows how studying memory is vital to our understanding of enduring social problems that span the globe. Includes bibliographical references and index.

In 1979, during an anti-racism march in the city in Greensboro, North Carolina, KKK and Nazi Party members opened fire on demonstrators, killing five and wounding eight. On the cusp of the 25th anniversary of these killings, efforts by community members culminated in the convening of the first Truth and Reconciliation Commission (GTRC) in the US. Drawing on a unique collection of public testimonies and private interviews with GTRC staff, we use a novel relational approach to array and compare discursive accounts offered in these distinct settings. We find that narratives offered in private were more varied, yet also cohesive in locating blame in social actors. Public testimony, in contrast, was more consolidated and singular, placing the majority of culpability on social structures. Based on these significant distinctions, we draw out implications for future research and policy around transitional justice initiatives.