"Can We Make Canadian Prisons Humane Places for Change?" - Endowed Chair in Criminology & Criminal Justice Lecture

7PM
Kinsella Auditorium
McCain Hall

Can we make Canadian prisons humane places for change? That’s the theme of a symposium taking place at St. Thomas University as part of the annual Endowed Chair in Criminology & Criminal Justice lecture series.

The event will take place on Nov. 19 at 7 PM in the Kinsella Auditorium. It will include lectures by Dr. Rose Ricciardelli, of Memorial University, and Dr. Michael Weinrath, STU’s Endowed Chair in Criminology & Criminal Justice.

Dr. Ricciardelli will speak about “Correctional Officers, Wellness and PTSD", whereas Dr. Weinrath will speak about "Prisoners and the Prison Environment."

About the speakers:

Rosemary (Rose) Ricciardelli is a Professor of Sociology, the Coordinator for Criminology, and Co-Coordinator for Police Studies at Memorial University of Newfoundland. She is a Director of the Canadian Institute for Public Safety Research and Treatment (CIPSRT; cipsrt-icrtsp.ca). She is also the Co-Director of Relationships First: Restorative Justice in Education [and Justice] with Dr. Dorothy Vaandering (www.relationshipsfirstnl.com/). Her research is centered on community and institutional corrections, gender, and wellbeing, including evolving understandings of masculinities, vulnerabilities, risk, and experiences and issues within different facets of the criminal justice system. Beyond her work on the realities of penal living and community re-entry for federally incarcerated men in Canada, her current work includes a focus on the experiences of correctional officers and police officers given the potential for compromised psychological, physical, and social health inherent to the occupations.

Michael Weinrath obtained his PhD from the University of Alberta in 1997 and began work as a professor at The University of Winnipeg that same year. He was coordinator and founding chair of the Department of Criminal Justice for 12 years and more recently the director of the Justice Research Institute. He is currently the Endowed Chair in Criminology & Criminal Justice at St. Thomas University. Dr. Weinrath has conducted research and evaluation for national and local criminal justice agencies. He teaches courses on corrections, victimology, and research methods. His work on prison environments includes correctional officer and prisoner interviews and surveys at correctional institutions in Atlantic Canada, the Prairies and British Columbia.