Charles Long has been awarded the University Medal, given each year to UC Berkeley’s top graduating senior. At 43, Long is a double major in sociology and social welfare. Through his studies of policing and violence, he has harnessed his childhood struggle, time incarcerated and experience as a nontraditional student to positively impact those around him. In a letter of recommendation, Laleh Behbehanian, a continuing lecturer in the Department of Sociology, wrote that Long’s ability to blend theoretical, analytic and critical thinking placed him among the most outstanding students she’d encountered in her 23 years of teaching. Since his first days on campus, Long’s work as a mentor and teacher in juvenile halls and San Quentin State Prison has shaped his research and inspired him to improve the carceral system. “I once had my future taken from me by a system that called itself justice,” he wrote in his university medalist essay. “Berkeley gave me the credentials, credibility and ...