Faculty & Research

FSU’s Institute for Justice Research and Development Uses Science to Transform Justice System

The numbers are the problem for Associate Professor of Social Work Carrie Pettus at Florida State University.

More than 12,000 people are released from state and federal prisons each week, and 77% of formerly incarcerated individuals return to prison within five years.

“If you can imagine going to a doctor and they say here’s this medical intervention that works 23 percent of the time, would we continue to use that intervention? No,” Pettus said.

Alumna Joins the College of Social Work in New Faculty Role

After graduating with her MSW in 1996 and her Ph.D. in 2006 from the Florida State University College of Social Work, Dr. Lisa Johnson returned in 2018 as an Assistant Teaching Professor and co-Program Coordinator for the College of Social Work at FSU Panama City.  In addition, she served as the area coordinator and faculty field liaison for the online MSW program. She returned to the College of Social Work in Tallahassee in 2020 as a Visiting Teaching Professor where she taught courses remotely due to the Pandemic.