Faculty / Rely Vîlcicã

Dr. Vîlcica joined the Department of Criminal Justice as a Visiting Assistant Professor for the academic year 2008-2009, after receiving her Ph.D. degree from Temple’s graduate program in Criminal Justice (May 2008). She holds a life-tenure judgeship position (Definitive Judge) at the Court of the Fourth District of Bucharest, Romania (from which she is currently on leave) and she received her Bachelor of Law in 1997 from the School of Law, University of Bucharest and a post-graduation Judge Diploma in 1998 from the National Institute of Magistrature and Ministry of Justice of Romania.

Her research interests center generally on processing and adjudication in criminal courts, issues of justice decision-making, and their intersection with criminological theory, as well as comparative criminal justice. Within this broad courts systems realm, her recent and ongoing research addresses four areas: criminal adjudication, pretrial release/detention and bail prediction, justice system interventions and impacts, and comparative justice policy.

Publications include journal articles in Criminology (“Targeted Enforcement and Adverse System Side-Effects: The Generation of Fugitives in Philadelphia”) and in Studies in Law, Politics, and Society (“Judicial Discretion and the Unfinished Agenda for Bail Reform: The Promise of Evidence-based Pretrial Release”), both co-authored with John Goldkamp. Her dissertation, exploring explanations and consequences of dismissal of criminal cases in American courts, was recently nominated for the 2008 Council of Graduate School Distinguished Dissertation Award in Social Sciences.