Loretta Stalans, PhD

Professor

Director, Psychology of Crime and Justice Minor

Loretta J. Stalans is a Professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology and of Psychology, and Director of the Psychology of Crime and Justice Minor.  She also is an affiliated Professor of Women's Studies and Gender Studies at Loyola University Chicago. She received her PhD in Social Psychology from the University of Illinois Chicago in 1990, and has taught at Loyola since 1994. Before coming to Loyola, she was an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice and Center Fellow at the Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Research at Georgia State University (1991 to 1994) and a Collaborating Scholar of the American Bar Foundation (1990–1999).

She has written two books, including Penal Populism and Public Opinion: International Perspective Across Five Countries (2004) published by Oxford University Press and co-authored with Roberts, Hough, and Indemaur. She has published extensively in the areas of public opinion about justice, police discretionary decision-making, predicting violent or sexual recidivism, taxpayer compliance, and lay and professionals’ stereotypes or expectations about crime and legal procedures. Her research has been supported through grants from the Ford Foundation, Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, and National Institute of Justice. She has published numerous articles in top refereed academic journals, many book chapters, and several technical and grant reports.  Her research skills are wide-ranging, including qualitative interviewing, coding of narratives, quasi-experimental designs, experiments, vignette survey designs, quantitative analysis, and cutting-edge statistical tools including optimal data analysis, classification tree analysis, and ROC analysis. In all of her classes and mentoring, students are encouraged to help the disadvantaged and to respect the environment.

Research Interests

•Victimization from and perpetration of fraud in cyberspaces, workplaces, and subcultures
•Role of emotions assessing credibility and deception
•Managing stigma and identities of victims and offenders
•Gender similarities and differences in facilitation of sex work and cyber-fraud
•Evaluation and implications of policies and programs related to cybercrimes

Specialty Area

Psychology and Law field; Women's Studies and Gender Studies

Courses Taught

Undergraduate
CJC 202 – Criminal Courts                                  
CJC 205 – Research Methods                              
CJC 312 – Popular Culture and the Criminal Justice System
CJC 345 – Social Justice and Crime
CJC 346 – Mental Illness and Crime
CJC 354 – Cybercrime
CJC 373 – Intimate Partner Violence
CJC 377/PSYC 372 – Psychology and Law
Graduate
CJC 403 – Research Methods and Program Evaluation
CJC 415 – Mental Health and Crime
PSYC 485/CJC 414 – Psychology and Law