Emerging trends in Criminal Justice: A Special Issue in Honor of J. Stephen Wormith

AuthorDaryl G. Kroner
Published date01 April 2021
Date01 April 2021
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/0093854821999684
Subject MatterEditorial
/tmp/tmp-17qPDv2HWljvvP/input 999684CJBXXX10.1177/0093854821999684Criminal Justice and BehaviorKroner / short title
research-article2021
EmErging trEnds in Criminal JustiCE
a special issue in Honor of J. stephen Wormith
DARyL G. KRONER
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Keywords: criminal justice; criminal behavior; criminal thinking; criminal justice system; crime
This special issue is devoted to J. Stephen Wormith, who passed away March, 2019.
Through a series of research papers, we honor Steve’s contribution to criminal justice.
The first inclination is to highlight Steve’s contribution to criminal justice “psychology.”
But his impact was much greater than that, which in part is reflected by the breadth of arti-
cles in this issue.
True to a Polanyi view of science, there was a perceived fallibility, expressed by healthy
exchanges (i.e., support of the Aggression and Violence conferences), taking risks (consid-
ering machine learning), and a responsibility (a “this better be right” attitude in research) in
the development of our understanding. Steve understood this well. In addition to seeing this
impact on his work colleagues throughout the years, I had the honor to repeatedly witness
this as an external examiner in numerous Ph.D. defenses. Present was a kindness and gentle
mentorship style, yet hanging onto a strong academic standard. Through this commitment
to a strong academic standard, Steve motivated and compelled others to a similar vision of
research and scholarship. The articles in this special issue reflect the impact of his contribu-
tion to research and scholarship.
The Desmarias et al. (this issue) article acknowledges previous pretrial risk assessment
reviews (one of which Steve was a co-author), but points out that these reviews have not
directly examined predictive validity of the measures. This study examines predictive valid-
ity by instrument across outcomes of new criminal activity, new violent criminal activity,
failure to appear, and technical...

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