PHILADELPHIA- The University of Pennsylvania has become the first Ivy League institution to establish a criminology department.

Lawrence W. Sherman, director of Penn's Jerry Lee Center of Criminology and the Albert M. Greenfield Professor of Human Relations, will chair the new department in the School of Arts and Sciences.

Since the founding of Penn's Jerry Lee Center of Criminology in 2000, criminology research at the University has grown geometrically, with research projects being conducted from Australia to England.

"Penn faculty have long made seminal contributions to the study of crime, said Samuel H. Preston, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences.  Establishing a department dedicated wholly to criminology allows us to make permanent our commitment to research and teaching in a subject that has far-reaching implications for many sectors of our society. We are fortunate that Larry Sherman, one of the world's most eminent criminologists, will be the leader of this new venture."

Sherman is currently leading field tests in three countries of victim-centered restorative-justice programs to repair and reduce serious crime.  He is president of the International Society of Criminology and past president of the American Society of Criminology.

The criminology department will ultimately add an undergraduate major to the Jerry Lee Center's existing Ph.D. and M.A. programs in criminology.  The new department will recruit its own fulltime faculty, as well as make secondary appointments of professors from other departments in the School of Arts and Sciences and other schools at Penn.

Already, two assistant criminology professorships have been established through a $2 million endowment from the Jerry Lee Foundation, which bears the name of Jerry Lee, foundation trustee and president of Philadelphia's B-101 Radio.  The Foundation has contributed more than $7 million to Penn for criminology research.

Penn's decision is a giant step for criminology, Sherman said.  The intellectual resources and multi-disciplinary culture at Penn offer enormous potential for major discoveries in crime causation and prevention.  With the vision of supporters like Jerry Lee, this new department will be able to make the most of that potential.

Since the 1920s, Penn has pioneered in research on such issues as capital punishment, gun control and juvenile delinquency.  More than 100 people with Penn doctorates who specialized in criminology are leading the scientific study of crime worldwide.