NIU Shooter Researched Paper On Religion In Early US Prisons

The Chicago Tribune reported on Saturday that Steve Kazmierczak, the Northern Illinois University gunman who killed 5 students, wounded 16 others and then shot himself, had been honored with a dean's award for his sociology research. (Also see New York Times). He is reported to have written a paper with his advisor Prof. Emeritus Jim Thomas on the role of religion in the formation of early prisons in the United States. The paper may be one delivered by Thomas at the 2006 American Society of Criminology meeting titled "The Roots of Faith-Based Prison Programming: A Revisionist View." The paper is listed on Thomas' website.