Letters to the Editor

Criminology isn't 'CSI'

To the Editor:

Your headline on the proposed major in Criminology ("Miles Davis, fingerprinting await," DP, 2/21/07) said that Penn is likely to teach fingerprinting. Nothing could be further from the truth. Your report misquotes me as saying "Criminology is not just forensic science." I never said that. What I said was that Criminology is NOT forensic science. We do not teach methods of identifying criminals with physical evidence, such as DNA, bloodstains or fingerprints. Nor do we study other methods of identification, such as eyewitness testimony or facial recognition patterns.

Criminology is the science of prediction, prevention and processing of crime. Since 1922, Penn criminologists have studied and taught about the causes of law-making, law-breaking and law-enforcing. As the oldest Criminology program in any research university in the world, we use sociology, neuroscience, history and statistics, as well as many other tools, to study our research questions. We ask why crime or imprisonment rates rise and fall, whether programs for better parenting of infants prevent child abuse, why police patrols for illegal guns reduce homicide rates, and other questions of theory and policy. We do not study who is guilty or innocent in specific cases, we do not study detective novels, we do not do anything remotely like what is displayed on such TV shows as CSI, or on any TV show ever produced.

If the faculty of the College thought a Criminology major would teach fingerprinting, it would be right to disapprove the proposal for our major. What the faculty should vote for is the truth: our actual proposal for an intellectually rich, multi-disciplinary liberal arts major. If that proposal is rejected in the mistaken belief that it proposes to teach fingerprinting, the DP will have done terrible damage to Penn's pioneering attempt to integrate knowledge about crime.

Lawrence Sherman The author is the chair of the Criminology department

Fixing e-mail

To the Editor:

In regards to the DP's "count up" - it is evident that many students are dissatisfied with the delay in the introduction of a new e-mail service to undergraduates. As participants in the evaluation process of the two potential providers, we would like to rectify some misunderstandings.

The implementation of a new e-mail provider by the University is a very complex process. Negotiations play an important role, and Penn only has so much control over their course and duration.

Unlike other universities that have already outsourced their e-mail, Penn is insisting on certain contractual provisions that will protect student interests. There is no precedent for the type of solution the University is seeking to adopt.

For example, the administration wants guarantees that the service cannot be suddenly terminated or unexpectedly altered. It also wants to ensure that technical support is sufficient and that responsibilities are clearly defined between the University and the provider.

In the meantime, the administration has demonstrated sensitivity to student needs by reinforcing the current system. While the Dean's Advisory Board, too, is anxious to have a new e-mail service, students should acknowledge that the administration is doing its best to ensure that our needs are met.

Amy Rublin, Andrew Migdail & Brandon Egren The authors are co-chairs of the College Dean's Advisory Board and co-chair emeritus, respectively

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.