Penn State email: slt62@psu.edu
Biography
Thank you for visiting my page. I am Dr. Sandra L. Trappen, Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at Penn State University. I am a sociologist and criminologist with interests that span thematic clusters, including the sociology of violence and injury, policing, and drug use/misuse. I am intensely interested in understanding how trauma and violence are bound up with contemporary institutions and social structures. My current research examines the relation between traumatic stress exposure, health, and risk behaviors among probation and pretrial services officers.
I earned my Ph.D. in Sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and a Masters degree from Fordham University. Publications address problems in policing and advocate for trauma-informed approaches to criminal justice. My research is published in Perspectives on Politics, the Journal of Criminal Justice Education, and the Journal for Prevention and Intervention in the Community.
Research & Teaching Interests
- Community Corrections
- Trauma-informed Criminal Justice
- Policing
- Violence Risk Assessment
- Sociology of Violence
- Application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods
Expertise
- Trauma studies
- Community Corrections and Police health studies
- Program Evaluation
- Quantitative & Qualitative research methods: Interviews, Surveys, Focus Groups, Observational methodologies
Current Research
Policing and corrections researchers have over the course of recent years been focused on the problem of police stress and trauma. In community corrections, efforts to become trauma informed have almost exclusively been focused on justice involved persons, often overlooking the experiences of staff, including probation officers.
Presently, I am working on a project that examines the adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) among U.S. Probation and Pre-trial Services Officers (USPOs). We used a validated 10-category ACE questionnaire to assess USPO trauma exposure and compute their ACE scores (scored 1-10). Analysis and findings call attention to high levels of childhood trauma exposure that were documented for a sample (n=423) of officers. Significant between-group differences were found for men and women and for non-white officers compared to non-Hispanic white officers. Trauma experiences were found to be especially prevalent among officers who represent historically vulnerable groups.
This research produced base-line data that is presently being incorporated into program evaluation studies that are designed to inform policy and address health and wellness issues related to the trauma and stress event exposure of probation and police officers.
Adverse Childhood Experiences (or ACEs) are specific encounters that occur in childhood prior to the age of 18, which researchers consider to be traumatic.
Implications
The implications of this work are significant to the extent that the findings might be used to inform further efforts to understand how cumulative trauma exposures (early trauma combined with adult trauma) potentially interact with officer health and wellness. Likewise, findings can help address institutional concerns regarding officer morale, retention and turnover, and job satisfaction.
Recommendations
Corrections leaders should adopt a more comprehensive approach to assessing officer health and wellness. Targeted interventions should be developed to support officers who identify as members of vulnerable groups (female officers, officers of color, and especially female officers of color), as our research finds these officers may be at greater risk of experiencing negative health consequences due to early trauma exposure.
Ongoing Research
Continuing research is attuned to measuring not only primary (childhood) trauma exposure but also secondary trauma exposure experienced by probation and corrections officers on the job.
Book Project
Undead Histories: Manufacturing Inequality in Pittsburgh’s River Towns looks at social inequality, typified by uneven development and social problems associated with poverty, in the deindustrialized river towns of the Monongahela Valley, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The book reports data derived from ethnographic observation and qualitative interviews that call attention to social changes that took place in Pittsburgh since the 1970’s. This era was shaped by large-scale post-World War II social and economic developments that occurred in connection with a process of deindustrialization, as the region transformed itself from one that was materially, culturally, and symbolically associated with the steel industry to a more diversified economy, driven by healthcare and technology companies.
The transition that occurred here is indicative of a profound paradox that lies at the heart of Pittsburgh’s claims to be among the country’s “most livable” cities: that is to say more precisely, it became livable for some but not for all. Many of the region’s African American and white ethnic working class groups were socially and spatially excluded, despite their having played a central role in the city’s economic prosperity. This book will examine the community-level impacts of changes that took place here, as it argues that the different trajectories of development across the region, cannot be explained by the simple loss of the steel industry alone.
Industrial change was not a simple matter of replacing old-economy heavy industries with new ones, where the transition was managed to produce optimal livable outcomes for the area and its people. On the contrary, a combination of developments that involved corporate power and the private power of industrial workers collided in ways that resulted in real harm to bodies and lives of the people who lived and continue to live here. To this end, social change, much like history, is not linear. As such, it does not simply move in one direction; it comprises different intersecting narratives and counter-narratives.
Above all else, I am interested in documenting not only this history but the narratives of people who continue to live here. Their stories put a human face on the structural, economic, and cultural changes that continue to be bound up within ongoing global economic changes. Put another way, these changes reveal the operation of an aggressive form of biopolitics; a biopolitics that fosters practices of self-harm (gun violence and drug-taking) as a reaction to these changes. In this instance, the story of Pittsburgh can furnish an explanation for what happened in many towns across the United States, particularly those in the “Rust Belt,” where a localized politics of pain, illness, and injury was corporealized and rendered “productive” to the U.S. political economy.
Study Abroad
I was fortunate to spend a number of my early years living abroad in Italy, which explains my deep involvement with programs to create study/live abroad opportunities for my students. In light of this, I am dedicated to helping students develop their global awareness while strengthening cross-cultural competencies through participation in study abroad programs. All things considered, I have taken about 40 students to Italy since the start of these programs.
In 2022 and 2023, I was a co-sponsor for two Spring break trips to Rome. In the summer of 2024, I will be co-leading a summer semester abroad, where the students will be based in Salerno. This interdisciplinary program combines Italian language immersion studies with cultural studies on the Amalfi Coast. Students will take classes in Italian language and cultural studies while they reside with Italian host families.
As a champion of these programs, I am particularly focused on securing funding for students. Likewise, I use the trips as an opportunity to promote Penn State’s diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, given how travel of this nature has historically tended to exclude underrepresented student groups.
Military Field Research
In addition to my academic work on police stress and trauma, I previously worked (during graduate school) as an advisor to the U.S. Army, where I performed program evaluation for social science research in Iraq and Afghanistan. I have held various government security clearances and am currently clearance eligible. My dissertation research, “Empty Metal Jacket: The Biopolitical Economy of War & Medicine” investigated how war shaped the social organization of medicine. Comparative historical case studies document how combat injury and casualty accounting was (is) bound up with the problem of military whiteness that is embedded in U.S. militarism and military service. Findings call attention to the social history of white groups hurting themselves and others in order to maintain economic, gender, and racial dominance.
Media/Press
I am local to the Pittsburgh area and am available for interviews on topics that fall within my research expertise: police stress and trauma, firearms, gun violence, and criminal justice policy issues.
It would be appropriate for officials to contact me if they are seeking local/regional expertise on police stress, gun violence, drug problems, and other community-based social problems. To arrange an interview, contact Penn State Academic Affairs, Ms. Connie Surman, (412) 675-9052; or contact me at my university email: slt62@psu.edu
Teaching Interest
My teaching interests address the intersections between culture, politics, economy, and society. Research and publications contribute to the intellectual discourses and sub-disciplines within sociology and criminology. At Penn State, I teach courses in Research Methods, Criminology, Policing, Race and Ethnicity, and Sociology.
Critical Pedagogy
All of my courses employ critical pedagogy. Here, the aim is not to “criticize” as much as it is to consider the world as one finds it, where we learn together how to critique it. These efforts are accompanied by a willingness to always question power relations, which should never be accepted as “natural.”
Put another way, I aim to teach students to recognize how “things are not what they seem” so they might, in turn, investigate and acquire a better understanding of how the world works.
Notably, in the realm of higher education, students may be engaging with these topics for the first time. I find my own students readily acknowledge that these topics sometimes make them feel uncomfortable. Yet they remain intellectually committed to becoming involved in the national conversation, in order that they themselves might become catalysts for social change.
Critical thinking cannot exist without autonomy and agency. Yet these are qualities that do not always occur naturally…they must sometimes be developed. Given this, a big part of what I aim to do in my classroom is to encourage students to use their “sociological imaginations” – to think broadly about the connections between past and present and history and biography. I want them to become mindful of the fact that the social problems we discuss in class didn’t just start with yesterday’s news; they have deep roots. Their own lives and stories may have a direct connection to the things we discuss in class. And so it is hoped that they will draw from their personal experiences as we take up study together.
This approach is highly relevant to the study of criminal justice institutions, where my classes regularly discuss some of the more controversial issues of our time: politics and public protest, police shootings, police use of force, the historical roots of police violence, policies like the death penalty and solitary confinement, crimes that involve guns, intimate partner violence, drugs, and suicide, and the list goes on. We will examine and discuss some of the most current evidence-based research that illustrates how these problems tend to disproportionately impact racially and economically marginalized social groups. Our work in this respect represents what I hope will be a shared commitment to help create a more equitable and just social world.
My own critical pedagogy is further informed by anti-racist and social justice pedagogy. Now before anyone gets nervous and starts throwing around the dreaded “socialist” word, I want to emphasize that critical pedagogy does not presuppose indoctrinating students into a particular world view.
Critical pedagogy aims to uncover how power and knowledge work hand in hand within institutional contexts to create a sense of “this is how the world is and this is where I fit within it.”
In short, critical pedagogy is both a practice and a habit of mind. The goal is to help students question the taken for granted assumptions that shape their worldviews as well as their own vision of their place within the world. We’ll work on this together, as it part of my accountability to you as a professor to help my students understand social problems at a deeper level than they may have been exposed to in high school.
Finally, I want my students to come away from their classes with a sense of the continuities as well as discontinuities of history. I want them to learn to appreciate that history carries with it an “affective resonance” that travels backward and sideways and across different trajectories of development.
How to Use this Site:
This site is meant to serve as an online interactive space and resource hub for my students and anyone else who would like to learn with us, even if you are not at Penn State University or able to take courses in person.
Along the left side of the website, you will find links to the different courses I teach that contain reading excerpts from course syllabi. Each course contains a series of media modules that explore different topics. At the bottom of each media module are links to many of the readings that are available online. The comment links in the modules provide students and others with opportunities to participate in discussion and exchange.
Educating Publics
I believe it is important for universities and academic researchers to look for ways to be publicly engaged with the exchange of ideas outside the academy so that we might foster and build learning communities. These learning communities are by their nature comprised of traditional learners (college-aged youth), learning in institutional residential settings, as well as non-traditional learners – people located outside the walls of academe, who might approach learning as part of a lifelong project.
Comments Policy
This website contains a curated selection of topics. The format showcases different forms of digital media – photos, videos, memes, and political cartoons. They represent an alternative approach to storytelling that is every bit as relevant as peer-reviewed research when it comes to engaging young people and helping them to acquire critical thinking and discussion skills.
Those who wish to contribute comments are welcome. Students can post in the form of comments or questions. And of course, they might consider responding to comments left by others. Comments must be relevant to the topic at hand, must not contain advertisements, degrade others, or violate laws or considerations of privacy. I strive to make this a safe space for all. I value a diversity of opinions but insist they are presented in ways that are respectful of others.
In order to maintain and support this diversity, all forms of trolling and aggressive posting are prohibited. Professional standards of decorum apply for all commenting activity. While I do not “censor” comments, abusive and unprofessional comments will not be retained for publication. Any obscene, violent, profane, taunting or antagonistic content will be removed. In this effort, I rely on my community members to support this endeavor through personal accountability and mutual respect.
Comments will only be posted when they are accompanied by a valid and functioning email address. These addresses are only visible to me (not to readers).
I encourage the use of real names but do not prohibit the use of pseudonyms, provided you do not impersonate a real person.
Non-students should bear in mind that these pages were developed to foster student interaction, both within and across the different courses that I teach. Your comments are welcome, but please be aware that you do so as our guest.
Here are some general rules of the road:
Rule 1: Does your comment pass the “Mother” test – that is, would you let your mother read it?
Rule 2: Don’t be a rage factory. IOW don’t insult people.
Rule 3: All ideas are welcome if they can survive. Clap-backs are encouraged.
Rule 4: This is my house; it’s not a free speech zone. Hate speech is not welcome here.
This is a work in progress and my first time attempting doing something like this, so feel free to leave feedback or questions, and I’ll be updating as we go!
Thank you!
Professor Trappen
slt62@psu.edu
Dr. Sandra L. Trappen, Assistant Professor, Penn State University (Rome, 2023)
Family visit with my nephews in Brooklyn, New York (2016).
Grading papers in the faculty lounge @ Hunter College, City University of New York. I miss these views and all my super-achieving radical students!
KEYWORDS: Penn State, Trauma studies, School Shootings, Firearms, Opioid Research, Gun Violence, Police studies, Probation Officers, Criminology, Italian Sociology, Greater Allegheny.
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