The study of crime now has a department all its own at Penn.

At their June 20 meeting, the Trustees approved the creation of the first criminology department in the Ivy League. The new department in the School of Arts and Sciences will have Albert M. Greenfield Professor of Human Relations Lawrence W. Sherman as its first chair.

Sherman is currently director of the Jerry Lee Center of Criminology and the Fels Institute of Government.

The new department will enable Penn to recruit more top scholars in the field of criminology. The Jerry Lee Foundation has endowed two assistant professorships with a $2 million gift for starters.

“ The [Jerry Lee] Center is actively engaged with the British, German and Philadelphia governments in reinventing justice based on scientific evidence of what works to prevent crime,” said Sherman. “That task will remain a central focus of all criminology at Penn and be strengthened by the new department.”