Vol 14 No 17
Sam Houston State University - A Member of the Text State University System
Dr. Cortney Franklin is the first to receive the New Scholar Award from the Victimology Section of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences for her extensive publications in the field.
Dr. Cortney Franklin received the inaugural New Scholar Award from the Academy of Criminal Justice Science’s Victimology Section at the association’s 2012 annual meeting in New York.
"I am honored to be recognized in this capacity,” said Dr. Franklin. “I love what I do, and I believe it is a privilege to be able to engage in policy-relevant victimization research and teach students about the correlates and consequences of victimization. It is especially meaningful that these efforts have been recognized by one of our national organizations."
The New Scholar Award is given annually in recognition of the achievements of a scholar who shows outstanding merit at the beginning of their career in the area of victimology. To date, Dr. Franklin has published 16 scholarly articles in peer-reviewed journals, including Criminal Justice and Behavior, Aggressive Behavior, Feminist Criminology, Journal of Criminal Justice, Violence Against Women, Journal of Family Violence, Victims and Offenders, and Women and Criminal Justice. Ten of these articles are related directly to the study of victimization.
Additionally, Dr. Franklin teaches an undergraduate course on Violence against Women and a master’s level course on Controversies in Victimology in the College of Criminal Justice at Sam Houston State University. One of her more noteworthy accomplishments, Dr. Franklin chaired a committee for Victim Studies at the College which led to the revamping of the undergraduate degree program and the preliminary assessment of the online Master of Science degree in Victim Services Management.
Dr. Franklin, who joined the SHSU faculty in 2008, has participated in honor’s and master’s theses and dissertation committees in Criminal Justice and Psychology that pertain to violence against women, elder victimization, gender role ideologies, perceptions of prostituted minors, and sexual assault. She is currently the dissertation committee chair for doctoral candidate, Tasha A. Menaker, whose dissertation will investigate commercially sexually exploited girls in the custody of the juvenile justice system.
Finally, Dr. Franklin has been involved with the Crime Victims’ Institute for the past three years as a research analyst investigating victim-related data and producing technical reports designed for the Texas Legislature, including “Risk Factors Associated with Women’s Victimization,” “The Effects of Family-of-Origin Violence on Intimate Partner Violence,” and “The Intergenerational Transmission of Intimate Partner Violence.”
In addition to her research for the Crime Victims’ Institute, her current work focuses on the impact of college women’s subjective sex expectations in clouding their danger cue recognition in interpersonal settings among college women, the gene-environment contributions to general victimization-related vulnerabilities, and the role that Greek affiliation may have in producing enhanced victimization risk for sorority women on university campuses. She is also involved in collaborative research with her doctoral student, Tasha Menaker, on perceptions of girls forced into prostitution.
“My passion for victimology in general and violence against women specifically, began through my coursework in Women’s Studies as an undergraduate student at Gonzaga University, a private Jesuit Catholic university in Spokane, Washington,” said Dr. Franklin. “I always strive to instill that same passion in the students that I teach and mentor.”
Dr. Franklin earned her Ph.D. in Criminal Justice from Washington State University in 2008. Before joining the faculty at SHSU, she was an adjunct professor for Washington State University and was recognized as the 2008 winner of the Harriet B. Rigas Outstanding Women in Graduate Studies at the Doctoral Level, by the Association of Faculty Women at Washington State University.
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