Award named in honor of criminology professor

Meda Chesney-Lind is not only the recipient of a new national award, but it has been named in her honor.

 

The professor of Women’s Studies at UH Mānoa will receive the Meda Chesney-Lind Award for her scholarly achievement and activism in the intersection of gender of crime from the Western Society of Criminology (WSC) in 2013. She is being recognized for her service to the organization and contributions to feminist criminology. 

 

Chesney-Lind will accept the inaugural award at WSC’s 40th anniversary meeting in February 2013 in Berkeley, California.                      

 

Throughout her career, Chesney-Lind has been nationally recognized for her work on women and crime. She received the Bruce Smith Sr. Award for outstanding contributions to Criminal Justice from the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences in April 2001. She was named a fellow of the American Society of Criminology in 1996 and has also received the Herbert Block Award for service to the society and the profession from the American Society of Criminology. 

 

She also received the Donald Cressey Award from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency for outstanding contributions to the field of criminology, the Founders award of the WSC for significant improvement of the quality of justice, and the University of Hawai‘i Board of Regent’s Medal for Excellence in Research. 

 

The author of eight books, Chesney-Lind has just finished two more titles on trends in girls’ violence: “Beyond Bad Girls: Gender, Violence and Hype,” written with Katherine Irwin, and “Fighting for Girls,” co-edited with Nikki Jones. “Fighting for Girls” recently won an award from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency for “focusing America’s attention on the complex problems of the criminal and juvenile justice systems.” 

 

Chesney-Lind also recently joined a group studying trends in youth gangs organized by the National Institute of Justice and was among the scholars working with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s Girls Study Group. In Hawai‘i, she has worked with the Family Court, First Circuit, advising it on the recently formed Girls Court as well as helping to improve the situation of girls in detention with the recent Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative.

 

She received her B.A. in 1969 from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, and both her master’s and PhD from UH Mānoa.