HIGHER EDUCATION Professor to meet Queen of Sweden after winning criminology award
Sociology professor Peggy Giordano has technically been retired since 2009 from Bowling Green State University, but so far she hasn’t found the time to quit working.
There are too many good research topics for the 74-year-old to quit now. Years ago she co-authored a paper about why some young lawbreakers persisted in a life of crime while others abandoned it, using troves of interviews with area offenders whom Giordano and other BGSU researchers tracked over a period of years through oneon-one interviews.
Now those juvenile delinquents are adult parents in their 30s, giving Giordano and other BGSU researchers an opportunity to probe how past criminal behavior can affect a parent’s offspring.
But while Giordano’s research has earned her a lifetime of research work to continue if she chooses, it also recently earned her a prestigious award on-par with the Pulitzer Prize — the Stockholm Prize in Criminology.
The award is given to professionals who have dedicated themselves to criminological research that has impacted the world in reducing crime and advancing human rights. It comes with a cash prize of about $117,000 and an all-expenses-paid trip to Sweden where Giordano will be presented with the award by the Queen of Sweden herself.
When she got a call from Sweden about the award, Giordano said at first she thought it was a prank. Then as she listened, she believed that maybe she was simply nominated for the award. But discovering she had already won was a shock.
“This was just completely out of the blue, and I still don’t know who nominated me,” she said. “I thought it was terrific that way, because it was a complete surprise.”
Professionals who receive this award are selected by an international jury of practitioners and criminologists from around the world. In Giordano’s case, it was her life’s work of studying youth offenders and debunking common-held beliefs about why they offend that caught the eye of the judges.
For a long time, it was believed that marriage was a significant factor that could convince criminals to give up their law-breaking lifestyles, but Giordano discovered this was not the case.
“Researchers were positive that it was marriage largely, and to an extent employment, that got people out of crime and this made it seem like it was a matter of luck that if you got married somehow the spouse was able to control your behavior better and give you routines and so-forth,” she said. “But we to a degree petitioned against that idea marriage is not a panacea for desistance from crime just on its own.”
In fact, divorce and other marital issues can lead someone back to a life of crime, such as drug use, she added.
Her research shows that multiple factors play a role in whether someone will re-offend, including the person’s willingness and drive to deviate from drugs and other lifestyles. Disassociating with delinquent peers and other bad influences is also important, she said, as is having a support network, employment, and access to other resources such as housing and drug treatment.
Fellow BGSU academics say her research methods have set a high standard for others.
“She not only does some pretty high-level quantitative work, but she almost always then finds a space where the individuals who are part of the study are given voice,” Monica Longmore, a BGSU professor of sociology who also has co-authored research with Giordano, said in a BGSU news release.
According to the news release from Stockholm University announcing the award winners, Giordano is not the only Ohio academic to win the prestigious award, with research professor Francis Cullen from the University of Cincinnati’s School of Criminal Justice also selected for the prize. Both were credited for providing needed research to help policymakers better understand what’s needed to help young offenders turn away from crime early in their life.
“At a time in which prisons, probation and parole are threatened by COVID cases that can suspend rehabilitation programs, their work suggests the importance of maintaining close links to offenders by any means possible,” the release shows. “Their studies show that if governments cut back on such programs, they may do so at the peril of affected communities. Recent increases in homicide rates in the USA indicate the fragility of the current context. Decades of research by the Prize Laureates demonstrate the great value of sustaining rehabilitative services.”
But once the posh ceremonies are over next summer and Giordano returns to the United States, she said she plans to spend a few more years working until, maybe, stepping away for good. After all, she’s been working at BGSU since 1974. At some point all good things must end.
But as she ticks off the interesting research subjects she wants to tackle and has tackled — such as depression in teens, sexual behavior and romantic relationships, and of course look further at different aspects of criminal behavior — it appears it’ll be more than a few years before she can step away.
“I think I’ll always write and look to finish out projects, even if I’m not being paid,” she said.