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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. His approach is shaped by nearly a decade of work before entering academia, as a courier, cab driver, corrections worker, and union shop steward. It is further grounded in three decades of visiting correctional facilities across North America, Europe, and South America, researching the conditions inside them, and having conversations with convicts and correctional officers and administrators. It also draws on interviews with formerly incarcerated people outside those facilities, and on ethnographic fieldwork on street culture and on graffiti and street art internationally. Ross has published more than thirty 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.
Lessons From a Ripped Shirt
/by Jeffrey Ian RossWhen I was an adolescent, my parents shipped me off to a month-long overnight summer camp for boys. Among the usual group of misfits in my cabin was a boy my age that we nicknamed Stinky. He had one quirky goal: to wear the same shirt every single day of camp. Predictably, the shirt got […]
What’s my favorite Dylan song?
/by Jeffrey Ian RossThere’s probably no musician alive today, whose music I’ve followed as closely, as Bob Dylan’s. Not only have I bought and listened to most of his albums, read articles and books about him, including his memoir Chronicles: Volume One, watched numerous music videos of him playing, but I’ve also seen him perform live. That being […]
My beef with Person Centered Language (PCL)
/by Jeffrey Ian RossFor more than a decade a number of scholars and activists have expressed difficultly with the terms convict, inmate, offender, prisoner and felon. This problem has extended to using these labels preceded by the word “ex.” Recently this criticism has extended to difficulty with calling former President Trump a felon. People opposed to using these […]