Department of Sociology & Crime, Law and Justice

Eric Silver Associate Professor of Crime, Law, Justice, and Sociology; Associate Head 215 Oswald Tower Department of Sociology The Pennsylvania State University University Park, PA 16802-6207 Office Phone: (814)-865-8867 Fax: (814)-863-7216 Email: exs44@psu.edu CV

EDUCATION

Ph.D. Sociology, State University of New York at Albany, 1999

Areas of Specialization: Deviance/Criminology; Violence/Mental Illness; Urban Sociology; Research Methods

Dissertation Title: "Violence and Mental Illness from a Social Disorganization Perspective: An Analysis of Individual and Community Risk Factors"

M.A. Sociology, State University of New York at Albany, 1993
Master’s Thesis Title: "Testing the Limits of the Moral Order: A Multi-State Comparison of the Lengths of Confinement of Successful and Unsuccessful Insanity Defendants"

B.A. Psychology, State University of New York at Albany, 1989

RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS

Professor Silver specializes in the study of crime and deviance, including (1) the interplay of human agency and social structure in criminal and deviant behavior; (2) the relationships between violence, victimization, and mental disorder; (3) the effects of neighborhood context on crime, violence, and mental disorder; and (4) the development of risk assessment tools for predicting future offending among criminals and psychiatric patients.

PROFESSIONAL AWARDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS

Winner of the 2005 Outstanding Teaching Award for the College of Liberal Arts at Penn State University.

Winner of the American Society of Criminology’s 2002 Ruth Shonle Cavan Award for outstanding early career contributions to the discipline of criminology.

Winner of the 2002 Saleem Shah award for early career excellence, sponsored by the American Psychology-Law Society (Division 41 of the American Psychological Association) and the American Society of Forensic Psychology.

Co-winner of the American Psychiatric Association’s 2002 Manfred Guttmacher Award for the Oxford University Press book, Rethinking Risk Assessment: The MacArthur Study of Mental Disorder and Violence (Monahan, Steadman, Silver et al., 2001).

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

2008

Silver, E., VanEseltine, M., and Silver, S. (forthcoming). Tattoo Acquisition: A Prospective Longitudinal Study of Adolescents. Deviant Behavior.

Silver, E., Felson, R., and VanEseltine, M. The Relationship Between Mental Health Problems and Violence Among Criminal Offenders. Criminal Justice and Behavior 35:406-426.

2006

Silver, E., Understanding the Relationship between Mental Disorder and Violence: The Need for a Criminological Perspective. Law and Human Behavior 30:685-706.

2005

Silver, E., Arseneault, L., Langley, J., Caspi, A., and Moffitt, T. (forthcoming). Mental Disorder and Violent Victimization in a Total Birth Cohort. American Journal of Public Health 95:2015-2021.

Silver, E. and Teasdale, B.  Mental Disorder and Violence: An Examination of Stressful Life Events and Impaired Social Support.  Social Problems 52:62-78.

2004

Silver, E. and Miller, L.  Sources of Informal Social Control in Chicago Neighborhoods.  Criminology 42:551-583.

2002

Silver, E., & ChowMartin, L. A Multiple Models Approach to Assessing Recidivism Risk: Implications for Judicial Decision Making. Criminal Justice and Behavior 29: 538-568.

Silver, E., Mulvey, E. P., and Swanson, J. W. Neighborhood Structural Characteristics and Mental Disorder: Faris and Dunham Revisited. Social Science and Medicine 55: 1457-1470.

Silver, E. Mental Disorder and Violent Victimization: The Mediating Effect of Involvement in Conflicted Social Relationships. Criminology, 40(1): 191212.

Silver, E. and Miller, L. L. A Cautionary Note on the Use of Actuarial Risk Assessment Tools for Social Control. Crime & Delinquency, 48(1): 138161.

2001

Engel, R. S. and Silver, E. Policing Mentally Disordered Suspects: A Reexamination of the Criminalization Hypothesis. Criminology, 39(2): 225252.

Silver, E. Guest Editorial: Neighborhood Social Disorganization as a Cofactor in Violence Among People with Mental Disorder. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 45(4): 403406. (invited and reviewed by editor).

Silver, E. Extending Social Disorganization Theory: A Multilevel Approach to the Study of Violence Among Persons with Mental Illnesses. Criminology, 38(4): 10431074.

Silver, E., Smith, W. R., & Banks, S. Constructing Actuarial Devices for Predicting Recidivism: A Comparison of Methods. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 27(6): 733764.

Silver, E. Race, Neighborhood Disadvantage, and Violence Among Persons with Mental Disorders: The Importance of Contextual Measurement. Law and Human Behavior, 24(4): 449456.

1999

Silver, E., Mulvey, E. P., & Monahan, J. Assessing Violence Risk Among Discharged Psychiatric Patients: Toward an Ecological Approach. Law and Human Behavior, 23(2): 235253.

Books

2001

Silver, E. Violence and Mental Illness: The Importance of Neighborhood Context. New York: LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC

Monahan, J., Steadman, H. J., Silver, E., Appelbaum, P. S., Robbins, P. C., Mulvey, E. P., Roth, L. H., Grisso, T., & Banks, Steven. Rethinking Risk Assessment: The MacArthur Study of Mental Disorder and Violence. Oxford University Press