School of Justice Studies Graduate Student, Haley Bates, Wins National Competition!

Haley Bates, graduate student in the School of Justice studies, has won a national competition for her paper titled “Standing Rock: The Erosion of Indigenous Sovereignty and Environmental Protections”. Haley is the recipient of the 2021 American Society of Criminology's Division on Critical Criminology and Social Justice's Best Graduate Student Paper Award. This is a national award that recognizes and honors outstanding theoretical or empirical critical criminological scholarship by a graduate student. 

Haley is in her second year of the Masters program in Criminology and Criminal Justice. Her award- winning paper argues for the events of Standing Rock to be labeled a state-facilitated, state-corporate crime and a crime against humanity. Specifically, she explores the events of Standing Rock as exacerbating environmental harm contributing to climate change. Haley plans to continue her work on state crime in her thesis where she explores state-perpetrated crimes and harms against the LGBTQ+ community. She hopes that the focus on this vulnerable and understudied population will increase the awareness of their systemic victimization by states, state organizations and their actors. Haley is looking to continue her education when she graduates from EKU by pursuing a PhD. As indicated by Dr. Victoria Collins, the Program Coordinator for the Masters program, “Haley is an exceptional student who is destined for great things. We are all so very proud of her achievements, of which I am sure there are many more to come.”

Published on October 22, 2021