LINCOLN UNIVERSITY, Pa. – Emmanuel Babatunde, Ph.D., chair and professor of the Department of Sociology & Criminal Justice, is leading the initiative at Lincoln University and other historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are working towards a more just sentencing system.
“We need to socially engineer an equitable, diverse cultural approach to reduce recidivism,” says Babatunde.
Lincoln University is working with Judge Leon Tucker and Mr. Mark Bergstrom Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Sentencing Commission. Dr. Clare Strange, a post-doctoral research assistant with the Pennsylvannia Sentencing Commission, who is submitting a grant application to the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research will study race and ethnicity-related sentencing as she prepares to submit a grant application to the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. Prof. Babatunde is also assembling a small group of colleagues from Lincoln University to examine these sentencing issues and participate in the annual Villanova Sentencing Workshop slated from March 17 to 19, 2022. The workshop will bring together about two dozen participants—trial judges, law students, a prosecutor, defense attorney and a state Parole Board member—to explore sentencing issues through the lens of real cases.
The workshop is just one example of how Lincoln University is strengthening its criminal justice and law-related programs. In addition, the Sentencing Commission staff has agreed to teach undergraduate and pre-law school courses at no additional cost to Lincoln students.
In October, Prof. Babatunde; Judge Leon W. Tucker, the Supervising Judge of the Criminal Section of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, Trial Division, and a member of the State Sentencing Commission; and Mark H. Bergstrom, the Commission’s Executive Director, met with Dr. Brenda Allen, the President of Lincoln University, to apprise her of all of these efforts.
