Research Opportunities: Erin Horan's Life of Crime

By Greta Petry (September 17, 2007)

	Janet Stamatel of the School of Criminal Justice and undergraduate researcher Erin Horan look over the statistics on countries with low crime rates. (Photo by Mark Schmidt)

Erin Horan is up to her neck in crime -- research, that is. Erin, a freshman when she began her UAlbany undergraduate research project, works with Assistant Professor Janet P. Stamatel of the School of Criminal Justice to explain why some countries have low crime rates while others don't.

Horan's ongoing project takes an updated look at Nations NOT Obsessed with Crime, a groundbreaking 1983 study by criminologist Freda Adler. While many criminologists at the time focused on explaining the high U.S. crime rates by looking almost exclusively at the country, Adler instead examined countries with low crime rates, including Ireland, East Germany, Switzerland, Japan, and Costa Rica.

Horan, from Moriches, N.Y., is statistically revisiting those countries to investigate whether they have continued to maintain low crime rates, what factors contribute to the trends, and why other countries have not been able to keep crime down. Her job was to find relevant library materials and explore basic quantitative data about cross-national crime trends, findings that she presented at the University's Undergraduate Research seminar last spring.

"This has taught me so much about how to actually perform research," said Horan, an Honors College math and psychology major whose long-range goals range from teaching elementary school to going into space. "I understand how to use the library's resources, like the interlibrary loan system. Before this project, I thought research was much harder to go about than it actually is, so now I'm not afraid of taking on projects that involve research."

Horan was also the recipient of an Adrienne Zimberg, '83 Research Award.  The Zimberg endowment is one of the sponsoring funds for the UAlbany Foundation's Undergraduate Student Research Program.

"Working with Erin was a fun and enlightening experience," said Stamatel. "She was very enthusiastic and willing to learn. It was refreshing to share a research project with such an eager student."

Related Links:
School of Criminal Justice
The Honors College
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
Department of Psychology