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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.
Academics shouldn’t be seduced by the rubber chicken banquet circuit
/by Jeffrey Ian RossScholars are exposed to and trained how to do comprehensive literature reviews, collect data in a systematic manner, analyze this information using appropriate methods, make interpretations from this evaluation, and then subject their findings to peer review. This process is typically resource intense and often frustrating. But this is how academics conduct rigorous scientific research. […]
Although lived or practitioner experience may be helpful in understanding a field, it’s not an end in and of itself
/by Jeffrey Ian RossA considerable amount of confusion exists surrounding the concepts and utility of lived and practitioner (or field) experience as methods to inform scholarly research. Part of the reason may be because many people fail to consider how knowledge and expertise are acquired, and the relative contributions and limitations of lived and practitioner experience to inform […]
Street Culture is more than streetwear
/by Jeffrey Ian RossSurf the world wide web, or skim social media, and you might notice that the label, term and concept “street culture” is primarily associated with clothing – sneakers, baseball caps, or t-shirts – produced by existing, emerging, or brand new streetwear companies (e.g., BAPE, Stüssy, Supreme, etc.). Although a definition of street culture is rarely […]