Melissa A Logue is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at St. Joseph’s University and a Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Violence Research and Prevention. She earned her Ph.D. in Crime, Law, and Justice from the Pennsylvania State University in 2003. Her research interests include courts/sentencing, corrections, violence against women, race/ethnicity and gender, and international issues/law. In 2004, she along with 2 colleagues, garnered a publication in the journal Crime and Delinquency. This publication dealt with an evaluation of the impact of a mandatory restitution statute implemented by the Pennsylvania State Legislature. In addition to this professional publication, this research resulted in a technical report being submitted to the PA legislature. She is currently continuing her research on courts/sentencing disparity, but with particular attention to the federal sentencing guidelines and the impact that offenders’ familial responsibilities plays in their sentencing outcomes and subsequent offending behavior. In furtherance of this research, she received a summer research grant from St. Joseph’s University in 2006 in the amount of $8,000. The grant assisted her in broadening the scope of her research in this area from a solely quantitative focus to a qualitative one. The first step in this process were interviews with federal judges that began in summer 2006. As a result, several publications are under review or in the process of completion using the information obtained to supplement several significant quantitative results. In the area of international issues/law, she received an invitation to present a lecture at Villanova University at the request of the sociology and peace and justice departments. Currently, she is working on an invited encyclopedia entry on Three Strikes Laws, has several articles under review, and has 3 papers in progress. In addition, she has an upcoming book review that will be published in the journal Violence Against Women in July of this year. She is also preparing for upcoming conference presentations at the Society for the Study of Social Problems and the American Society of Criminology meetings.
In addition to her current research interests, she received a 2005 course development grant from the university’s Diversity Commission, of which she is now a member. Using this grant, she developed a course on Race and Social Justice, which is cross-listed with the Faith-Justice institute and the recently enacted Africana Studies program. Furthermore, this Spring, she received a Faculty Merit Award for Teaching. She continually strives to incorporate the mission of the university in her teaching by making a variety of her criminal justice courses cross-listed with the Faith-Justice institute, which seeks to incorporate Catholic Social Teaching principles into traditional curriculums. She also teaches a variety of sociology courses in addition to her contribution to the criminal justice component of the department, and she teaches in the graduate program in criminal justice. She is a strong proponent of using technology in the classroom, and in her graduate faculty capacity, she has lived up to this philosophy by developing 2 online courses for the program: Diversity in Criminal Justice and the Criminal Justice System.
In terms of her involvement in service, she is very involved at the department, college, and university levels. At the department level, she has developed courses to provide students with a richer exposure to contemporary issues in globalization and social behaviors and more criminal justice courses such as Introduction to American Criminal Justice. She is also involved in a department sub-committee to evaluate the needs of the criminal justice component of the department and make recommendations to address any pressing issues. At the college level, she served as a member of the executive committee of the College Council of the College of Arts and Sciences for a 2-year term. At the university level, she has served as a member of the Rules and Compliance Committee, a sub-committee involved with working to ensure that the university received recertification from the National Collegiate Athletic Association. In addition, she currently serves on the Board on Athletic Policy, the university’s Institutional Review Board, and the Diversity Commission. In addition, she is a member of the advisory working group for the Gender Studies program. In her professional capacity, she has also served as a member of the Coser Award Committee of the Eastern Sociological Association, which evaluated dissertation proposals for an award. She has also served as a reviewer for several textbooks on criminological theory and thesis development. To date, however, her most cherished service contributions have been to the university’s Ignatian College Connection program. This program targets racial and ethnic minority students who demonstrate solid academic abilities in their educational pursuits and tries to prepare them for the major challenges and joys they will face as they consider pursuing a college education.
