Racial Profiling of Consumers to Be Focus of Oct. 9 Lecture at Pitt

PITTSBURGH-Noted criminologist, author, and Penn State University (PSU) professor of criminal justice Shaun Gabbidon will deliver a lecture from noon to 1:30 p.m. Oct. 9 in Pitt's Center on Race and Social Problems (CRSP), 2017 Cathedral of Learning, 4200 Fifth Ave., Oakland. CRSP is part of Pitt's School of Social Work.

Gabbidon's talk is titled "Shopping Under Suspicion: Consumer Racial Profiling and Perceived Victimization." The event, part of the Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney 2007 Speaker Series, is free and open to the public. Lunch will be provided; registration is not required.

"For good reason, over the past decade, social science researchers, police agencies, politicians, funding agencies, and citizens have centered their attention on racial profiling that occurs in automobiles and during traffic stops," says Gabbidon. "Unfortunately, this focus has left many unaware of another setting in which racial profiling is also likely to occur-retail establishments. My presentation will argue for both a paradigm shift in racial profiling research and, for those who have experienced such profiling, suggestions on what they can and should do about it.

Prior to his appointment at PSU, Gabbidon served as an adjunct assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Baltimore and assistant professor of criminal justice at Coppin State College. His new book, to be published by Sage Publications in spring 2008, is called "Race, Ethnicity, Crime, and Justice: An International Dilemma." Two other recent books are "Criminological Perspectives on Race and Crime" (Routledge, 2007) and "W.E.B. Du Bois on Crime and Justice: Laying the Foundations of Sociological Criminology" (Ashgate, 2007).

Gabbidon earned his master's degree in criminal justice at the University of Baltimore and his doctorate in criminology at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He has served as a fellow at Harvard University's W. E. B. DuBois Institute for African and African American Research.

In 2005, the American Society of Criminology's Division on People of Color and Crime presented him with its highest award, the Coramae R. Mann Award, for contributions to the study of race, crime, and justice.

For more information about the lecture, call CRSP at 412-624-7382.

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