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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.
This Month’s Song on Heavy Rotation
/by Jeffrey Ian RossFor the past month, and even longer, Maurice “Mobetta” Brown’s “Stand Up,” released on his 2017 album, THE MOOD, has dominated my playlist. The song, much like his title track “The Mood,” is an infectious piece of music that has burrowed into my consciousness like few songs in recent memory. Brown, a New Orleans-based jazz […]
How a Monthly Meet-Up of Scholars of Graffiti and Street Art Builds Community
/by Jeffrey Ian RossThe academic study of graffiti and street art is interdisciplinary. Although two scholarly journals (i.e., Nuart Journal and Street Art & Urban Creativity) specialize in this subject, university-level classes are rare and scattered across different departments. No post-secondary institution has a dedicated program or department for this field. What’s more, none of the major learned societies […]
Fear and Kindness on the Road to Calgary
/by Jeffrey Ian RossI can’t remember what month it was, only that snow had begun to fall as we drove from Lethbridge to Calgary. The road wasn’t a highway, just a patchwork of farm grids: a few miles straight, a turn left, a curve right, and again. It was slow going, maybe 90 minutes through sleet and wind […]