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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.
Why writing well is important for Criminal Justice Practitioners
/by Jeffrey Ian RossThere are numerous ways that criminal justice practitioners can demonstrate to others that what they have to say is credible. I would argue that there are two principle mechanisms. One is mastery of content and the other is through effective communication. The first approach includes understanding the concepts in your domain or specialization, and refraining […]
Why developing a literacy of graffiti and street art is important
/by Jeffrey Ian RossIf you see or interpret graffiti and street art only through a legal, criminal justice, and property rights lens then it is unabashedly and unequivocally vandalism. But graffiti and street are more than this. In order to go beyond the tropes, misinformation, and common place explanations of this predominantly urban art form you need to […]
Urban Street Ethnography Interruptus
/by Jeffrey Ian RossEvery semester, for almost a decade, I close out the term, by giving my undergraduate students, enrolled in my Contemporary Criminal Justice System class, the option of conducting a very basic urban street ethnography. Almost all of my students have graduated from a two year program in Criminal Justice from a local community college. Some […]