Contact: Karen Bradley, Sociology Department Chair and professor, (360) 650-3001, or karen.bradley@wwu.edu.
BELLINGHAM – Western Washington University’s Department of Sociology will host guest speaker Joseph Weis from noon-1:15 p.m. on Friday, July 31 in Science Lecture Building 130, in a presentation titled “‘Just the Facts Ma’am’: Investigating Murder Myths.”
The presentation, which is free and open to the public, will draw on research on murder from
- The belief that the Pacific Northwest is the serial-murder capital of the world
- Thousands of children are abducted every year by strangers and killed
- The violent crime rate, particularly for murder, continues to spiral upward
- The most dangerous time to live in the history of the United States is now
- Gangs are responsible for a significant percentage of murders
- Murder is a crime of minority groups and the poor
Many people carry preconceptions about murder, Weis said. His presentation aims to de-mythologize conceptions about murder or at least what people think murder is about.
“Murder is very mysterious and something we don’t understand very well,” Weis said. “People are curious about murder — in media it attracts the interest of readers, viewers and so forth.”
Weis, a professor of Sociology at the University of Washington, has taught courses in crime, delinquency, social control, deviance and murder.
For more information on the event, contact Sociology Department Chair and Professor Karen Bradley at (360) 650-3001, or e-mail karen.bradley@wwu.edu.
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