At its winter conference in Phoenix, Ariz., this week, the American Correctional Association will honor Joan Petersilia, a professor of Criminology, Law and Society at the University of California, Irvine, for her dedication to correctional research, which has thrived for nearly three decades.  Petersilia began as a research associate at RAND Corporation, a non-profit research organization, and now works as both a professor and correctional consultant. 

Tuesday, at the Annual Conference Luncheon, Petersilia will receive ACA's Peter P. Lejins Research Award for her accomplishments in correctional and criminal justice research.  In addition to this honor, Petersilia has also received awards from the American Probation and Parole Association, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. The California Probation, Parole, and Corrections Association and the American Society of Criminology.

Additionally, Petersilia has authored many books relating to corrections and criminal justice, most recently When Prisoners Come Home: Parole and Prisoner Reentry (2003) and Reforming Probation and Parole in the 21st Century (2002). 

Last week, The Corrections Connection Network News talked with Petersilia about ACA award as well as some of her current endeavors in the corrections field.  She shared with CCNN how she found her way into the research field, as well as the accomplishments she has been most proud of in her career.

Q: When did you take an interest in criminal justice?

Petersilia: Well, I went to graduate school in the 1970s, during the Vietnam War.  That is when there was a great sense of personal responsibility for people who were disadvantaged in various ways.  I went initially in social work and pretty much had that kind of do-good, rehabilitative focus.  Midway through, I shifted to sociology and went to work part-time in the Ohio halfway houses, collecting data on the female offenders coming out of prison.  That was my entree into research and criminal justice and really my love of community corrections developed in that time.  That has always been my focus - supervision.

I went to graduate school at Ohio State University and University of California Irvine.  Midway through my career of getting my PhD, I decided that I did no want to be an academic.  I wanted to go out and work in the field.  I dropped out of my PhD program midway through, applied to become a probation officer in the Los Angeles Probation Department.  Unfortunately, they weren't testing at that time and it was going to be at least a year for testing to be given again.  In the meantime, I walked across the street and was hired by RAND [Corporation, a non-profit research organization], as a research associate.

That first job at RAND got me kind of hooked on research.  I became a research assistant and worked my way up and even became Director of the Criminal Justice Research Programs there.  [I worked at RAND for 23 years.]  In the meantime, I finished my PhD.  Then I saw a real connection between a PhD and what it would do for me.  I wanted to be a different type of PhD.  I wanted to be a professor who worked with line correctional staff to make their organization better by looking at evidence-based practices and policies.  I really have always [wanted to] kind of bridge the two worlds of academia and corrections.

Q: What do you like best about your current job as a professor of Criminology, Law and Society in the School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine?

Petersilia: I actually think I am at the best place I have ever been in my career.  I really am an applied criminologist.  Being a professor gets me into places where I might not get if I was actually an insider being in a university and being able to work from the outside to [influence] correctional policies puts you in unique position - [you are] more objective [and can] stay out of fray of politics.  My goal in my career has always been to infuse corrections with the best evidence that science can bring to bear.  That bridge is what I find most exciting about what I do.  I am always brought in as the outside consultant to help fix problems by looking at science.

Q: What are some of the accomplishments in your career that you are most proud of?

Petersilia: I think what means the most to me after 30 years of doing this [is that] I really think the work I have done has revived an interest in rehabilitation that seems to be a major accomplishment for a lot of people who have been working to reverse the trend in corrections.  My research has debunked a lot of popular myths - probably the most notable study I have done [is on the] effectiveness of intermediate sanctions, like electronic monitoring and boot camp.  In 1990, those things were all the rage and a lot of my research shows that they didn't work as people wanted them to work.  It kind of took the wind out of the sail a little bit. [That]  pushed corrections back to a middle ground where I think it is now.  I think through programs, if given right resources and program development, [we] can reduce recidivism.  [Bringing] rehabilitation back into correctional policy [is] where we are now going.  I think research studies have had a major impact on bringing balance back to correctional policy.

Q: What does receiving the Peter P. Lejins Research Award from the American Correctional Association mean to you?

Petersilia: To me, there is no greater honor than to be acknowledged by a group that you so highly respect.  I have always been somewhat of a corrections groupie.  The ACA represents to me the best and the brightest.  For them to turn around and value, with a formal award, what my work represents is gratifying. 

I actually knew Peter Lejins personally.  He is also one of the people who tried to sit on the fence between academia and the ACA.  He was the founding chair of one of the largest criminology departments in the country at the University of Maryland and president of ACA [in its early days].  This award is given in recognition of academic research that tries to bring studies and research findings into correctional practice.  The fact that I am getting an award after his name encourages me to continue to do the work that he wanted to do.  Many of us want to continue in his legacy.

Q: What are some of your plans for the future?

Petersilia: Well I actually have a lot of interesting [things] on the horizon.  I have really taken a leave of absence for the next year from the University of California to work on California prison reform under the new Governor Schwarzenegger administration.  I actually am being brought to the inside of the largest prison system in the nation to see how we can, in fact, use research to influence [policy and procedure] as they try to reform both institutional corrections and parole.  It's kind of the third phase of my career.  I have been a researcher, a professor and, now, I am going to be kind of an inside consultant working much more on the inside than I ever have. 

I have act been doing this for about the last six months.  I am spending about half my time in Sacramento in discussions about what kind of programs should be implemented, how we should reinvigorate the CDC's research department that was abolished two or three years ago, how should people be prepared for reentry, what should parole supervision look like, who should go back to prison - all of the issues that have been on the front burner nationally are now on the front burner in California and I am getting an opportunity to influence those decisions.

I think we are at a point now that is incredibly exciting for both correctional researchers and key level policy managers.  I do not think we have ever been more closely aligned.  We need each other more now than ever.  All the talk with evidence-based based practices, performance-based indicators, all of that now means that the front burner issues the ACA leadership is dealing with involves - in an integral sense - research.

I am just excited to be at the right place at the right time.