John ‘Jack’ Humphrey ’66, a long-time professor of criminal justice passed away on June 1, 2025, after a brief period of declining health. At the time of his death Jack had just completed his 22nd year at Saint Anselm College and nearly 50 years as an academic criminologist.
Jack began his academic journey as a student at Saint Anselm College, having arrived on campus from the working-class community of Norwich, Conn. where he was born and raised. It was at Saint Anselm that Jack developed a keen interest in social science research as a result of work he did under the supervision of the legendary professor of sociology Bill Farrell. Jack graduated from Saint Anselm in 1966 with a degree in sociology and immediately moved on to begin his Ph.D. studies in sociology and criminology at the University of New Hampshire. There he began his research career as part of a team funded by a National Institutes of Mental Health grant studying the aftermath of suicide on immediate family members. This project was the beginning of a more than quarter century research affiliation that Jack had with the University of New Hampshire.
Upon completion of his Ph.D., Jack accepted a position at the University of North Carolina (UNC)–Greensboro in the Sociology Department where he remained for over twenty years. During his tenure at UNC–Greensboro Jack was the primary architect of the new criminology major at the university. He was instrumental in developing criminology into one of the largest majors on campus. During this early period of his career, Prof. Humphrey embarked on an extensive research agenda focused primarily on the study of deviance and social control. During his time in Greensboro, Jack received funding from the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention as well as numerous grants from the state of North Carolina to conduct research in collaboration with the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner on both homicide and suicide. The overlap of these two social phenomena became a lifelong interest for Jack.
While Prof. Humphrey had much success in research and teaching at UNC-Greensboro, rising to the rank of full professor, he consistently maintained a connection to New England through his research affiliation with the University of New Hampshire with the hope of returning to the region more generally and to his alma mater more specifically. In 2002, Jack Humphrey realized his dream and returned to Saint Anselm beginning what was to become a twenty-two year tenure in the Criminal Justice Department where he taught a wide array of courses ranging from “Theories of Crime” to “Wrongful Convictions,” while at the same time maintaining a very robust research program that was funded by multiple grants from the National Institutes of Justice. As Prof. Humphrey had done throughout his career he sought out collaborators for his research among both colleagues and graduate students. This collaborative style is reflected in many of his publications including: A Panorama of Suicide (with G. Donald Niswander and Thomas Casey), The Administration of Justice (with Michael Milakovich), Deviant Behavior: Patterns, Sources and Control (with Stuart Palmer), Deviant Behavior, Effective Interventions in the Lives of Criminal Offenders (with Peter Cordella) and Wrongful Convictions: From Prevention to Reversal (with Kaitlyn Clarke). Jack’s research has been published in journals in the fields of sociology, criminology, anthropology, psychology, and medicine.
As a teacher at Saint Anselm, Prof. Humphrey developed a reputation as a gifted instructor who was able to present complicated theoretical concepts in a way that was accessible to undergraduate students – he often did this through illustrations drawn from his many research experiences in the field. In recent years Jack was a mentor to a number of graduate students in the 4 + 1 Accelerated Master’s program who then went on to pursue their PhD in criminology and criminal justice. Jack Humphrey was also an exemplary colleague whose service to the Criminal Justice Department was instrumental both in moving the undergraduate curriculum forward to reflect the best practices in the fields of criminology and criminal justice and in developing and promoting the Accelerated B.A./M.A. in Criminology & Criminal Justice which became the first graduate degree program in the history of Saint Anselm College. On a more personal level Prof. Jack Humphrey’s unbridled passion for the study of crime and deviance was the driving force behind his unwavering commitment and support of all his colleagues in the Criminal Justice Department and all the students he so ably taught over the years – he will be sorely missed.