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Tamar King and Sherry Bot are making history. They are the first two students to ever earn a master’s degree at the University College of the Fraser Valley. The two were part of the first 15-student Master of Arts in Criminal Bot had earlier earned her BA in Crim at UCFV, but King was new to the institution, having done her undergrad work at Simon Fraser. She had worked for four years with PLEA, a non-profit community services agency, as a support worker for young offenders and more recently as the coordinator for a mentoring program when she decided to add master’s level studies to her already heavy workload. King continued working fulltime while taking the MA program. Her major research project was a program review of Onyx, a program offered by PLEA that provides support and protection to sexually King found the whole program to be an excellent experience and she’s enthusiastically recommending the new UCFV Crim MA to colleagues. “My favourite part was the learning environment. We were a group of working professionals from a range of fields, so we learned so much from each other in our seminars.” Sherry Bot’s research focused on the very topical subject of crime reduction, with a particular emphasis on the role of inter-agency partnerships at the local level. She was part of a City of Surrey fact-finding mission to England last summer, and did some comparisons between the two jurisdictions. “Part of crime reduction looks at targeting prolific offenders,” Bot says. “Since most crime is committed by a very small percentage of the criminal population, if you focus on them and changing their behaviour, it can result in real reduction in crime rates.” The crime reduction model encourages inter-agency cooperation, so that the education, health care, policing, probation, youth counselling, corrections, fire, and housing agencies are all working together,” she reports. “A big part of crime reduction is drug intervention, since so many crimes are committed by addicts desperate for money to get their next fix,” she adds. “So the British crime reduction model ensures that people who test positive for drugs upon arrest can be in treatment the same day. If they refuse, they face jail time.” Bot’s research highlighted some of the differences between the two countries with regards to information resource sharing, accountability, roles and responsibilities, and power differentials when looking at partnerships at the local level. Now that she’s finished her MA and among the first two graduates, she says that it’s “pretty exciting to be setting a precedent. The 18 months went by really quickly, and it was great to be in a class with people from so many different backgrounds. It was a discussion-based learning style as opposed to purely instructor-led.” Bot is returning to the New Westminster Police, where her latest posting is file quality reviewer. She is also applying to the RCMP and CSIS, and is considering teaching at the post-secondary level in the future. She sends thanks to her professors, Criminal Justice department staff, and UCFV librarians for the help they provided as the first crim master’ class pioneered graduate studies at UCFV. “Tamar and Sherry demonstrated how the MA program brought together practitioners and academics in a dynamic experience,” said Dr. Martin Silverstein, director of the UCFV School of Criminology and Criminal Justice. To find out more about the MA in Criminal Justice and other crim studies options at UCFV, visit www.ucfv.ca/criminology. - 30 -
News Archives For news published August 2011 and onward, search the UFV Today blog. Older news releases are below. UFV Today Archives For UFV Today e-newsletters published August 2011 and earlier, visit the UFV Today archives.
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