Financed by Title III funds, I attended the American Society of Criminology\u27s (ASC) 2018 Annual Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. The Conference took place from Tuesday, November 13th through Saturday, November 17th. It was a large conference, with over 1,000 Sessions covering four floors of Atlanta’s Downtown Marriot Marquis Hotel. I attended sessions from Thursday through Sunday. Of note, the guest speaker at the Presidential Address was former mayor of Atlanta and representative to the United Nations under President Jimmy Carter Andrew Young, who gave a memorable speech with plenty of anecdotes from his civil rights days.
I concentrated on attending sessions related to classes I teach. One class I am teaching is on Gangs. I was able to attend a session by Boston Ceasefire, a very progressive anti-gang violence program. I was a little surprised by the diverse nature of those working in Boston Ceasefire, with ex-gang members working alongside researchers and administrators. In another presentation, I was able to hear Arizona State University Professor Scott Decker present his classic theory on the gang violence. I also teach Criminological Theory. In another presentation, Stephen Messmer presented on his classic Great American Dream Theory, showing a link between it a classic economic theory by Karl Polyani. Finally, I attended a session on qualitative research by one of the better qualitative researchers in the field today, Keith Hayward of Texas Christian University. Keith discussed researching street people. In all, the conference was very worthwhile
