Keith (K.) Scott Christianson (August 8, 1947 – May 14, 2017)Casey Seiler.
Scott Christianson, 69, acclaimed journalist, author and advocate: Longtime Capital Region resident delved into past and present of race in America
" ''timesunion.com,'' May 16, 2017. Retrieved 1 October 2019. was an American author and journalist, who wrote several popular works about a variety of subjects, including

American history The history of the lands that became the United States began with the arrival of the first people in the Americas around 15,000 BC. Numerous indigenous cultures formed, and many saw transformations in the 16th century away from more densely ...

and politics,

forensic science Forensic science, also known as criminalistics, is the application of science to criminal and civil laws, mainly—on the criminal side—during criminal investigation, as governed by the legal standards of admissible evidence and criminal ...

, crime, prison and the death penalty, and about other popular subjects such as the history of

incarceration Imprisonment is the restraint of a person's liberty, for any cause whatsoever, whether by authority of the government, or by a person acting without such authority. In the latter case it is "false imprisonment". Imprisonment does not necessari ...

runaway slaves In the United States, fugitive slaves or runaway slaves were terms used in the 18th and 19th century to describe people who fled slavery. The term also refers to the federal Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850. Such people are also called free ...

and historical highlights of

visualization Visualization or visualisation may refer to: *Visualization (graphics), the physical or imagining creation of images, diagrams, or animations to communicate a message * Data visualization, the graphic representation of data * Information visualiz ...

Biography

Christianson was raised in

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

and upstate New York, and graduated from

Bethlehem Central High School Bethlehem Central High School is a public high school in Delmar, New York, just south of Albany. Located at 700 Delaware Avenue, the school serves students in grades 9–12 from the towns of Bethlehem and New Scotland. The school was ranked 366 ...

in 1965. During his work he continued his studies. He graduated at the

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from Hart ...

, and took a course in investigative reporting at the

American Press Institute The American Press Institute is an educational non-advocacy 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization affiliated with the News Media Alliance (formerly the Newspaper Association of America). The institute's mission is to encourage the advancement of news m ...

. Eventually at the

State University of New York at Albany The State University of New York at Albany, commonly referred to as the University at Albany, UAlbany or SUNY Albany, is a public research university with campuses in Albany, Rensselaer, and Guilderland, New York. Founded in 1844, it is one ...

he obtained his M.A. and in 1981 his PhD with the thesis, entitled ''The American Experience of Imprisonment, 1607–1776.'' Christianson had begun his career after high school in 1965 in

Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of New York, also the seat and largest city of Albany County. Albany is on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River, and about north of New York City ...

as investigating reporter at of the Bethlehem Star and the Knickerbocker News-Union Star. In the 1980s he moved into the public service sector, where he held several positions in the criminal justice system in the state of New York. Later in the 1990s he worked for multiple advocacy and reform organizations, and eventually turned to full-time writing and teaching. From 1969 to 1972 Christianson had been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.John C. Behrens. ''The typewriter guerillas: closeups of 20 top investigative reporters,'' 1977. p. 75.

Selected publications

* '' The American Experience of Imprisonment, 1607–1776,''

, 1981. * '' With Liberty for Some: 500 Years of Imprisonment in America,''

Northeastern The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...

, 1998. * '' Condemned: Inside the Sing Sing Death House,''

NYU Press New York University Press (or NYU Press) is a university press that is part of New York University. History NYU Press was founded in 1916 by the then chancellor of NYU, Elmer Ellsworth Brown. Directors * Arthur Huntington Nason, 1916–19 ...

, 2000. * '' Innocent: Inside Wrongful Conviction Cases,''

NYU New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

, 2003. * '' Notorious Prisons: Inside the World's Most Feared Institutions,'' The Lyons Press, 2004. * '' Bodies of Evidence: Forensic Science and Crime,''

Collins and Brown HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News C ...

, 2006. * '' The Last Gasp: The Rise and Fall of the American Gas Chamber,''

University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...

, 2010. * '' 100 Diagrams That Changed the World,'' Plume, October 30, 2012. *'' 100 Documents That Changed the World,'' Universe, Annotated edition, November 10, 2015. * '' 100 Books that Changed the World,'' with Colin Salter, 2018.

References

External links

Scott Christianson
at scottchristianson.org. {{DEFAULTSORT:Christianson, Scott 1947 births 2017 deaths American male journalists American non-fiction writers University of Connecticut alumni University at Albany, SUNY alumni