When it comes to reducing crime, there may be no better superhero than a loving wife.

Researchers have shown that male criminals can be coaxed out of their nefarious ways by the consistent routines and responsibilities that come with a steady marriage.

And while this positive correlation between low crime and strong marriages has been well-documented at the individual level, Assistant Professor of Sociology Michael Rocque wondered if that benefit of marriage also extended to the community at large.

In other words, do communities that have strong marriage rates also demonstrate lower levels of crime?

Turns out, they do.

Michael Rocque, assistant professor of sociology. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Using county-level data from the 2000 Census, and violent, property, drug, and juvenile arrest rates, Rocque and three research partners found a positive correlation between lower crime rates and household marriage rates.

While the causality of the marriage effect is in question, “marriage may be an anchor that pulls people back” from delinquent behavior, Rocque says. “Your routine activities change. You are less likely to encounter the negative influences that get you into trouble, and deviant social networks start to break down. You have all these effects that trickle down, not just on the man who got married, but onto neighborhoods.”

Rocque’s research, published recently in the Journal of Research and Crime and Delinquency, also determined that counties with high marriage rates also demonstrated significantly lower levels of juvenile crime.

In short, a good and healthy marriage not only reduces the husband’s penchant for committing crimes, but it also keeps his children on the straight-and-narrow as well, Rocque said. And all these benefits “roll up” in the aggregate to make communities safer places to live.

A strong marriage also keeps children on the straight-and-narrow.

If stable, healthy marriages help drive down crime rates across communities, are there public policy implications?

That’s tricky, Rocque said, because the marriages have to be meaningful in order to get the benefits of lower crime. It can, however, be argued that prisons and jails should examine their visitation policies to offer inmates more opportunities to build and maintain social relationships while behind bars.

“There’s a really interesting body of research that questions the effects of stringent visitation policies,” Rocque said. “Men who get visited in prison are much less likely to reoffend when they are released. It’s about their social relationships, that social connection to the pro-social world. Visitation is super important; we should be encouraging social relationships for offenders.”

Rocque’s research partners on this project were Chad Posick of Georgia Southern University, Steven Barkan of the University of Maine, and Ray Paternoster of the University of Maryland.

Photograph by Zuhayr Reaz '16, who is doing fieldwork in Dhaka, Bangladesh, as part of his internship with WaterAid, a nonprofit helping people gain access to improved water and sanitation facilities.

Photograph by Zuhayr Reaz '16, who is doing fieldwork in Dhaka, Bangladesh, as part of his internship with WaterAid, a nonprofit helping people gain access to improved water and sanitation facilities.

Photograph by Zuhayr Reaz '16, who is doing fieldwork in Dhaka, Bangladesh, as part of his internship with WaterAid, a nonprofit helping people gain access to improved water and sanitation facilities.

Photograph by Zuhayr Reaz '16, who is doing fieldwork in Dhaka, Bangladesh, as part of his internship with WaterAid, a nonprofit helping people gain access to improved water and sanitation facilities.

Photograph by Zuhayr Reaz '16, who is doing fieldwork in Dhaka, Bangladesh, as part of his internship with WaterAid, a nonprofit helping people gain access to improved water and sanitation facilities.

Zuhayr Reaz ’16 is doing fieldwork in support of WaterAid in in his home country of Bangladesh, where nearly one in five people — 25 million — do not have access to improved water.

Name: Zuhayr Reaz ’16

Hometown: Dhaka, Bangladesh

Major: Economics

Adviser: Dr. Khairul Islam, country director for the nonprofit WaterAid and a recognized expert on sanitation and water issues facing the millions who live in the slums of Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Research Funding: �ֲ���ý Environmental Internship funded by the Moses Feldman Family Foundation and the Phillips Student Fellowship program.

1. What motivated you to seek this internship?

Growing up in Dhaka, I’ve seen poverty firsthand, and the work that WaterAid does is remarkable. In these slums people live in “buildings” that are just corrugated metal walls with a thin board as a roof, with some electricity from a stolen or illegal line and little or no indoor plumbing or toilets.

Dhaka is one of the poorest cities in the world in terms of its infrastructure. It has terrible drainage systems.

2. What are your day-to-day duties?

I’ve been working to coordinate a program of installing sanitary systems in urban Dhaka, including inside slums where no one has access to any form of safe public toilet or any hygienic method to carry out the process.

I’ve also been helping to record their usage and doing some data keeping in Excel.

A lot of my work has involved hosting hygiene workshops in slum schools for underprivileged children and carrying out art competitions in these schools. The goal is to raise awareness about environmental sustainability and taking care of the latrines that WaterAid has set up.

I also monitor the use and setup of deep tube wells that extract clean water from aquifers deep underground.

3. How do you see your coursework connecting to this internship?

I plan to major in economics with minors in mathematics. So far, I’ve taken two courses in physics, and courses in microeconomics, macroeconomics, atomic and molecular chemistry, chemical reactivity, calculus, and linear algebra, plus courses in acting and French.

This diverse coursework helps me make a reasonable impact in the implementation of projects by WaterAid — and help Dhaka become more environmentally sustainable.

4. The future?

I want to work in the sectors of environmental and human development.

• July 4th social at the Air Force Academy.
• Orientation at Bowdoin.
• Homecoming at Colorado College.
• Two swine flu vaccine clinics at �ֲ���ý.

During a vaccine clinic in October 2009, Miljan Zecevic ’10 receives his vaccine injection. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College.

“The SIR model did not match the reality we observed,” Greer says.

Mathematician Meredith Greer found that the standard model for tracking the outbreak of disease didn’t work for the �ֲ���ý H1N1 outbreak of 2009. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College.

Karen Palin, an epidemiologist and lecturer in biology at �ֲ���ý, discusses the H1N1 outbreak at �ֲ���ý in October 2009. With her is is Associate Professor of Biology Lee Abrahamsen. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College.

Kate Paladin ’15 has seen first-hand how the mismanagement of industrial pollutants can exacerbate issues around community health.

She points to the residents of Bayview Hunters Point, a neighborhood in San Francisco burdened by high crime rates, lack of medical care and an overdose of toxic waste.

San Francisco’s two major freeways, I-280 and U.S. 101, merge over Bayview Hunters Point. Residents struggle with the confluence of poverty, crime and disease exacerbated by harsh pollutants and industrial development. Photograph by Kate Paladin ’15.

With Greenaction, Paladin explored the effects of Bayview’s two Superfund sites, industrial facilities identified by the Environmental Protection Agency as potentially hazardous polluters. One is the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard; the other the Yosemite Creek sediment site.

Kate Paladin ’15 speaks about her experience as Otis Fellow during an EnviroLunch in New Commons on Jan. 17, 2013. Photograph by Mike Bradley/�ֲ���ý College.

Picking up on a Greenaction community survey project, she noted that the reported rates of health problems among Bayview’s residents were well above the national averages.

Despite Bayview’s long history of pollutant-related health issues — particularly asbestos poisoning — Paladin says the government and corporations have been slow to act. She believes that for Bayview and other impoverished communities, change will come when activists partner with an empowered citizenry.

The Otis Internship and Fellowship, funded in honor of Phil Otis ’95 by Margaret V.B. and C. Angus Wurtele in memory of their son, is awarded to students of any major who demonstrate an interest in the ethical stewardship of the environment.

As an environmental studies major, Paladin says that her experience in Bayview has inspired her to “keep fighting for those whose voices tend to be ignored.”

Moving forward, Paladin is interested in sustainable development and reducing consumption.

“If we use less power, plastics and other ‘stuff’ in general, we will prevent future communities from becoming the next Bayview Hunters Point,” she says.

To accommodate later arrivals to campus, today’s traditional AESOP opening ceremonies have been moved later in the afternoon, to 6 p.m., at the college’s Keigwin Amphitheater.

AESOP co-directors Mike Sagan ’12 and Kellen MacFadyen ’12, along with the Dean of Students, are monitoring river levels across western Maine and New Hampshire, where rainfall totals were highest. The college will make any adjustments needed to maintain the highest levels of safety on all trips.

The official for Maine and New Hampshire for the next several days is for calm winds, mostly sunny skies, and temperatures in the 60s and 70s as a “quiet pattern sets up for the rest of the week.”

Access to residence halls

Access to residence halls is available to incoming AESOP students well into Monday evening. Access Control staff will be on hand in Perry Atrium, Pettengill Hall, until 7 p.m. to provide room keys and access cards to arriving students, and AESOP trip leaders will be available to let later arrivals into their dorms.

For later arrivals

Alternative trips have been arranged for students who arrive too late to join the trips they signed up for.

Students are urged to inform AESOP leaders of changes to itineraries and arrival times, whether you’ll need to be picked up at a transportation facility, and especially if you expect to arrive much later than initially planned.

• Email aesop.bates@gmail.com or call Kellen MacFadyen at 207-330-0610. If you can’t reach Kellen right away, be sure to leave a voicemail with your plans and a contact number.

�ֲ���ý is closely following weather advisories regarding Irene, and will change plans if necessary to assure the safety of all students involved. Given the predicted pace of the storm, we currently anticipate that the trips will be able to leave campus on Tuesday, Aug. 30, as scheduled.

Any adjustments necessary to maintain the highest levels of safety on all trips will be made in the coming days as this situation evolves and the storm impact becomes known. Due to the storm’s possible impacts on travel plans, we’ll attempt to work with students to facilitate their arrivals and AESOP participation to the greatest extent possible.

Predicted weather

Our understanding of Irene’s progress as of 2 p.m. Friday, Aug. 26, is that the worst of the storm will pass through Maine by noon Monday, Aug. 29.

The official for Lewiston is for rain to become heavy by Saturday night, occasionally heavy rain Sunday with wind gusts up to 45 mph in the afternoon and up to 55 mph in the evening, then clearing before dawn on Monday.

Access to residence halls

Access to residence halls is available to incoming first-year students from 8 a.m. Monday well into the evening. The Access Control Office, in Chase Hall, will be open until 7 p.m. to provide room keys and access cards to arriving students, and AESOP trip leaders will be available to let later arrivals into their dorms. That said, we urge arriving students to make safe travel their highest priority.

AESOP schedule slightly affected

The AESOP schedule for Monday and Tuesday will be slightly affected by the storm. Monday’s welcoming ceremony and dinner will take place later than originally planned, with the time to be announced.

Most AESOP trips will leave at the originally scheduled times on Tuesday — but alternative trips have been arranged for students who arrive too late to join the trips they signed up for. In short, students arriving Tuesday will go on a trip no matter what.

If your travel changes…

Most important, we urge students to inform AESOP leaders of changes to your itineraries. Please let us know when you plan to arrive, whether you’ll need to be picked up at a transportation facility, and especially if you expect to arrive much later than initially planned. Please email aesop.bates@gmail.com or call Kellen MacFadyen at 207-330-0610. If you can’t reach Kellen right away, be sure to leave a voicemail with your plans and a contact number.

Further notices will be posted on this page as warranted.

Rather than vehicle safety or the cost of fuel, the major reason for the decrease — from around 38,000 per year early in the decade to about 32,400 in recent years — is the recession, they write. “To repeat a phrase famously used during Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, albeit with a different purpose: It’s the economy, stupid.” Building on prior research, the economists show that when unemployment is high, there are fewer fatal accidents, especially alcohol-related deaths.

A simple conclusion is that unemployment lowers driving deaths because out-of-work people don’t drive as much. However, unemployment seems also to change actual driving behavior, they say. “A rising unemployment rate leads to changes in behaviors associated with driving, such as consuming less alcohol when out,” they write. and a �ֲ���ý Magazine story about Tefft’s research on the effect of

The demonstration room came complete with empty pizza boxes and a cloth tapestry that partially covered a ceiling smoke detector (such a tapestry setup is against residential life rules).

It took less than 5 minutes for the fire to roar out of control.

Hosted by the Brooks Quimby Debate Council, retired Col. Richard Klass of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation and Dr. Ira Helfand of Physicians for Social Responsibility will present the talk to provide medical and military perspectives on questions of nuclear security issues.

A recent TV documentary featured Portland as the site of a nuclear “dirty bomb” detonation. Top intelligence officials assert that terrorists will attempt an attack on the U.S. in the next six months. In an age when terrorists seek to use weapons of mass destruction, what role, if any, should nuclear weapons play in our national security strategy? This and other questions will be addressed by Klass and Helfand.

Klass retired from the U.S. Air Force in 1980 after serving for over 22 years. His decorations include the Silver Star, Distinguished Flying Cross, Legion of Merit, and Purple Heart. Klass currently serves as executive director for the Veterans’ Alliance for Security and Democracy. He lives in Arlington, Va.

Helfand is a specialist in emergency medicine in Springfield, Mass., and a co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility. He has published widely on the medical implications of nuclear explosions and has provided congressional testimony on developing systems to better respond to medical disasters.

Klass and Helfand’s presentation will discuss topics such as the potential impact of a nuclear weapons attack, what Cold War nuclear weapons policies mean in an age of terrorism and the Obama administration’s diplomatic efforts to curb nuclear weapons proliferation.