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By Kathy Quirk
Photos by Troye Fox

Is criminal justice as exciting as it looks on TV— full of car chases and shoot outs? Do all older people develop dementia? How can social workers collaborate with police departments to prevent drug overdoses?  

Student associations offer students a chance to learn more about the reality of their chosen fields.   

The Helen Bader School of Social Welfare has three student associations that sponsor activities and workshops, offering opportunities to learn and network with professionals in their fields. The groups are also a source of support for students as they plan their future careers.

Student groups at HBSSW:

• Criminal Justice Student Association
• Student Social Work Association

“I think one of the premises of the Criminal Justice Student Association is that we care about immersive learning,” said Lily Bretl, the group’s president. “Our emphasis is on connecting criminal justice students with local agencies and practitioners.”      

The student groups meet regularly and plan events to engage other students, not only in majors but in other related fields.    

For example, the Student Gerontology Association recently held a workshop on aging with Karyn Frick, distinguished professor of psychology and director of the Neuroendocrinology of Memory Lab, and Caitlin Bowman, assistant professor of psychology and director of the Cognition, Aging and Brain Imaging Lab. The two shared the latest research on memory and aging with the students.   

The gerontology group is also partnering with others on and off campus for “Artistic Representations of Aging,” an art and photo show with a film about older adults on April 19 starting at 4:30 p.m. in the Union Ballroom East.   

In the fall semester, the Criminal Justice Student Association held a session on careers in criminal justice, with a focus on the field of crime analysis. Experts, many of them alumni, from the Milwaukee Police Department’s Fusion unit and other Wisconsin agencies talked to students about their work.  

“We had really good feedback,” said Bretl. “People were engaged and asked a lot of good questions. I was able to talk to one of my peers who is interested in crime analysis and that really affirmed what she wants to do.” 

“Everybody thinks they know about it because of what they see on TV, but bringing in guests from these fields shows what it is truly like and gives students knowledge about what they could be doing in the future,” said Kaitlyn Fowlie, the group’s vice president. 

The group works closely with the 51���� Police Department to encourage and promote student attendance at the workshops and trainings the department offers. The student group also collaborates with the FBI Outreach to College and University Students (FOCUS) group.  

The Student Social Work Association held a workshop on LGBTQIA+ communities in November, focused on students who might be interested in the social work major. 

And the Social Work and Criminal Justice groups collaborated on a Narcan training and harm reduction event in November to help students understand the ways these two professions can work together on drug addiction issues. 

Students who power groups chose majors for various reasons. 

Lexy Lunger, the president of the Student Social Work Association, made a pivot from a former career as a tattoo artist. She is combining her social work degree with women’s and gender studies. She became involved in working with the queer community during the pandemic and recognized the lack of resources in that community. “I wanted to work with the LGBTQIA+ populations.”  

She chose 51����, even though she’s originally from Hawaii, because this is the city she wants to work in. 

Dariliss Nieves, the Student Social Work Association’s treasurer, started out in mechanical engineering, but in working with other students of color who needed help, realized, she said, that she wanted a career focused on helping people.  

Bretl was inspired to go into criminal justice by a middle school history teacher, and a high school field trip to the Green Bay Correctional Institute. The trip was part of an initiative the facility was running at the time to educate students. “It provoked me and inspired me to really want to make a change in the criminal justice system because every single person there had a lot of trauma in their upbringing.” 

Helping care for her aging grandparents sparked Ra’shida (Sadie) Rockette’s interest in gerontology, she said. She is president of the Student Gerontology Association and a psychology major.  

All three of the student associations bring in students from a variety of majors and minors, but the gerontology group, in particular, attracts students from diverse backgrounds and interests who may be interested in working with aging populations, according to Rockette.  

In addition to programs and support for campus partners, the members of the student groups support each other in their chosen major. Learning opportunities are part of what the organizations do, but there are also social events. 

“We rely so much on each other,” said Zoe Kearney, vice president of the social work student group. “We have a sense of belonging when we advocate and advance as a group. There’s a contagious energy.” 

Story by Kathy Quirk
Photos courtesy of Jayden Richards

An estimated 40 to 50% of victims don’t report crimes to police.

Jayden Richards was interested in the “why” behind that statistic. She is a doctoral student in social welfare with a focus on criminology in the Helen Bader School of Social Welfare. 

Because of her research on the topic, Richards was one of five students nationally who were invited to the celebration of the National Crime Victimization Survey in Washington, D.C. during the fall semester.

The goal of the conference was to highlight how the survey data could be used, Richards said.   

The National Crime Victimization information comes through the U.S. Census rather than police reports. “This is about the only way to look at crimes that aren’t reported to police,” Richards said.

In her , using data from 1994-2020, Richards studied factors like the victim’s gender; whether a weapon was used; whether the victim had previously been a crime victim; whether the crime involved property or included violence; how close to the victim’s home the incident occurred; and, whether the victim knew the criminal.

“The presence of a weapon was the most significant finding,” Richards said. “The odds of reporting a crime were over two times larger when the offender had a weapon.”

Another key finding was that victims were more likely to report the crime if they didn’t know the perpetrator. “The odds were 1.6 times greater that they would report the crime if they did not know the criminal. So, essentially, they were less likely to report the crime if they knew the person,” she said. “That was consistent with prior literature and what we would expect.”

While those two factors had the strongest significance, Richards also found that females were more likely to report crimes. When the crime occurred closer to home, victims were also more likely to report it. In addition, violent crimes were more reported than property crimes. Those who had been crime victims fewer times previously were also more likely to report a crime.

“You would think that if someone had a large number of crimes committed against them, at some point they would be more likely to report the crimes but that was, in fact, not true.” It’s possible, she said, that the population that generally has more crimes committed against them is also more distrustful of police. “That could be a discussion for future research,” she said.

Richards, who is from Wausau, earned her bachelor’s in psychology from UW-Madison in 2019, then completed her master’s in criminology and crime analytics from 51���� in 2022. She started the doctoral program right after she completed the master’s degree.

“I’m interested in the psychology behind criminal behavior and that’s what really drove me to look at criminology as a field. It’s so interesting and much more about statistics than the crime shows make it out to be.”

She came to 51���� because of her interest in statistics and research. “I really liked the fact that 51���� is a Research 1 institution, and they just have so many opportunities for students.” The fact that the university offered the criminology program also impacted her decision, she added.

Currently, Richards is starting work on her dissertation, which will focus on rape myths and how they impact both victims and perpetrators, but she is hopeful she can eventually continue the crime victim research.

 “The great thing about me being able to present this research at the conference was that I got to share my findings and where I thought research could be headed. I was able to offer suggestions to a lot of very consequential people within the criminal justice system. That was extremely neat.” 
 

by Kathy Quirk

Preventing substance abuse among teens is a continuing concern. 

51���� researcher, Ai Bo, assistant professor of social work, has focused her research on how programs can be most effective, especially among Black, Hispanic and Native American adolescents. 

The meta-analysis of substance use prevention programs that she and a team of colleagues developed has been selected by the at the University of Oregon to be featured in their latest report. 

HEDCO made a booklet based on a paper she published last year in on the topic. Her findings showed that culturally sensitive prevention programs are effective in preventing or reducing substance abuse among Black, Hispanic/Latinx and Native American adolescents. 

Bo’s research has focused on the multiple factors that influence teens’ substance use and effective ways to help adolescents avoid those issues. There are various determinants at the individual, family, and sociocultural levels that impact substance use among adolescents, she said. Culturally sensitive prevention programs generally target a combination of these factors to prevent adolescent substance use.  

The most immediate determinants of adolescent substance use are their cognitions related to substance use, including their perceived benefits of substance use and their beliefs that substance use is common among their peers. Mental health problems may also lead to substance use.  

Parental influence is critical, she added. While it is commonly believed that peer influence is the most important factor during adolescence, research indicates that parents can maintain a steady influence on adolescents and emerging adults. A positive parent-child relationship, consistent parental monitoring, support, and parents’ disapproving attitudes, along with clear rules of teen substance use, can act as protective factors against adolescent substance use. Conversely, parent substance use, family conflict, and a lack of these protective parenting mechanisms are associated with an elevated risk of adolescent substance use. 

Among adolescents of color, sociocultural factors such as racial and ethnic discrimination is a robust risk factor for substance use; whereas cultural socialization practices are associated with enhanced self-identity and protect adolescents of color from risky behaviors including substance use.  

Bo became interested in the topic through internships and practicums at elementary, middle and high schools and community youth centers while working on her undergraduate and master’s degrees in social work. 

She found that many substance use prevention programs were helpful, but not always as effective as they could be. 

“I used to work with youth in positive youth development programs,” she said. “While these programs are valuable, they may not always be specific enough to effectively address the elevated risks of substance use among adolescents.” 

“The traditional approach of prevention has been relying on a ‘kitchen sink’ approach,” she said, incorporating all the relevant risk and protective factors in a program without determining which ones are the most effective.  

Her research aims to make substance use prevention programs more effective and accessible. 

One key way of increasing the usefulness of these programs is to make them more “resource respectful.” This involves addressing the most influential factors based on empirical findings and ensuring that they do not become overly complex or resource-intensive for implementation, she said.  

Using culturally sensitive approaches, either developing culturally grounded programs or adapting existing effective programs, can increase efficacy and accessibility of prevention programs for adolescents of color. A program serving Latinx teens, for example, could use both Spanish and English-speaking facilitators and examples and activities rooted in the teens and their families’ culture, she said. Such program may also address acculturation gaps between immigrant parents and their children as well as immigration stressors the parents and children may be experiencing. Stressors like racial discrimination are prevalent among people of color but not addressed enough in prevention programs, Bo added. 

The good news for parents according to Bo:  

“Peer groups are a major influence, but research has found that for adolescents and even college students, parents play a key role in their substance use decisions and other health decision making. Good parenting strategies can buffer the negative influence of deviant peer affiliations and other risk factors of adolescent substance use.”