Dr. Israt “Tusty” ten Bensel is the graduate coordinator and an associate professor in the Department of Criminal Justice. She is also the director of the Justice Research Policy Center at UA Little Rock.
She is a premier scholar specializing in violence and victimology in the criminal justice field. She has published more than 20 articles in peer-reviewed journals, completed two books with one in the works, and secured multiple grants. She serves on various department, college, and university committees and takes time to mentor students.
Dr. ten Bensel was awarded the College of Social Sciences and Communication Innovative Program Award for the Juvenile Justice Mentoring Program through UA Little Rock. This program is a year-long service learning class in which college students mentor at-risk youth assigned to boot camp.
Dr. ten Bensel is a founding and current board member of Sex Offense Policy Research, a national organization that focuses on policy research in sexual offending and victimization. She is a member of the Coalition for Juvenile Justice (CJJ), the American Society of Criminology (ASC), and several other societies and associations in her field.
In 2018, ten Bensel was awarded the Educator of the Year award by the Single Parent Scholarship Foundation of Arkansas. In addition, she was accepted into the Women in Education Leadership program at the Harvard Business School. She also chaired UA Little Rock’s Take Back the Night event to raise awareness of sexual assault and domestic violence.
Dr. ten Bensel received her Ph.D. in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Nebraska Omaha. She is a UA Little Rock alumna with a B.A. in Philosophy and a B.A. and M.A. in Criminal Justice.