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About
Criminologist, Scholar, & Consultant
Jeffrey Ian Ross, Ph.D., is a criminologist at the University of Baltimore and co-founder of Convict Criminology. He brings an insider’s perspective to his work, shaped by his experience as a former courier, taxi driver, corrections worker, and union shop steward. This approach has also benefited from numerous visits to correctional facilities across North America, Europe, and South America, and firsthand research on street culture, and graffiti and street art internationally. Ross has published 30+ books and shares his expertise on corrections, policing, political crime, street culture, and graffiti and street art through scholarship, public writing, speaking, media commentary, and consulting.
The Lasting Significance of Scorsese’s TAXI DRIVER
/by Jeffrey Ian RossFrom Robert De Niro’s masterful performance, to its influence on the neo-noir genre of filmmaking, few movies in American cinematic history have been as lauded as much as Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. The Descent of Travis Bickel Taxi Driver (1976) tells the story of Travis Bickel (Robert De Niro), a 20-something alienated and psychologically troubled […]
Subway Platforms, Serendipity, and the Power of Chance Encounters
/by Jeffrey Ian RossWhat do Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Al Diaz, and Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe all have in common? Not only are they well-respected artists, musicians, photographers, and poets, with partnerships that led to a considerable body of impactful work, but their initial introduction was through a random encounter on a subway […]
Anti-Musk Graffiti & Street Art as a Rejection of Power, Capitalism, and Celebrity
/by Jeffrey Ian RossOver the past two decades, tech billionaire Elon Musk—pivotal in the creation of PayPal, and founder of Tesla, SpaceX, and Neuralink, as well as owner of Twitter (now X)—has been both lavishly praised and sharply criticized. Many tech aficionados, consider Musk to be a genius and similar to the Starship Enterprise, in the television series […]