​Our areas of specialization.

Research Areas

Correlates of Crime

Criminal Justice System

Inequality, Disparities, & Justice

Methodology

Perspectives and Theories on Crime and Violence

Public Policy

Responses to Crime & Violence

Types of Offending & Violence

Youth, Violence, & Juvenile Justice

Correlates of Crime

• Bullying, Harassment, and Abuse
• Families and Peers 
• Gangs and Co-offenders 
• Gender 
• Immigration/Migration 
• Neighborhoods & Structural Inequalities 
• Poverty and Social Class 
• Race and Ethnicity 
• Rural Criminology 
• School Experiences
• Sex and Sexualities 
• Substance Use and Abuse 
• Trauma and Mental Health
• ​ Weapons 

Criminal Justice System

• Capital Punishment 
• Challenging Criminal Justice Policies 
• Community Corrections 
• Guns and Gun Laws 
• Immigration and Justice Issues
• Inequality and Justice 
• Jails & Prisons 
• Juvenile Justice System 
• Law Making and Legal Change 
• Mass Incarceration 
• Police Misconduct 
• Police Organization and Training 
• Police Strategies, Interventions, and Community Relations 
• Politics and Justice 
• Prisoner Experiences with the Justice System 
• Prisoner Reentry 
• Prosecution, Courts & Sentencing

Inequality, Disparities, & Justice

• ​Causes and Correlates of Victimization
• Health Disparities 
• Policy and Prevention of Victimization
• Social Determinants of Health
• The Structural and Individual Consequences of Victimization

Methodology

• Advances in Evaluation Research  
• Advances in Experimental Methods
  
• Advances in Quantitative Methods
• Advances in Qualitative Methods
• Advances in Teaching Methods

Perspectives and Theories on Crime and Violence

• Biological, Bio-social, and Psychological Perspectives 
• Critical Race 
• Cross-National Comparison of Crime & Justice
• Desistance Theories 
• Developmental and Life Course Perspectives 
• Feminist Criminological Perspectives 
• Globalization, Crime, and Justice
• Historical Comparisons of Crime and Justice
• Human Rights and Justice
• Intersectionality Perspectives 
• Situational and Interactionist Theories 
• Social Disorganization and Community Dynamics 
• Strain, Learning, and Control Theories 
• Structure, Culture, and Anomie 
• Theories of Conflict, Oppression, and Inequality

Public Policy

• ​​Community Policy 
• Criminal Justice Policy
• Education Policy 
• Employment Policy
• Juvenile Justice Policy
• Public Health
  
• Social Welfare Policy

Responses to Crime & Violence

• Activism and Social Movements 
• Attitudes about the Criminal Justice System & Punishment 
• Fear of Crime and Perceived Risk
• Media & Social Construction of Crime 
• Resilience
• Social Networks and Community Organization

Types of Offending & Violence

• Drugs 
• Family and Intimate Partner Violence 
• Hate Crime
• Identity Theft and Cyber Crime 
• Organized Crime and Corruption 
• Property and Public Order Crime
• Sex Work and Human Trafficking 
• Sexual Offending 
• State Crime, Political Crime, and Terrorism 
• Violent Crime 
• White Collar, Occupational, and Corporate Crime 

Youth, Violence, & Juvenile Justice

• Education
  
• Juvenile Justice
  
• Families and Communities
  
• Family Court
  
• Schools
  
• Social Welfare
  
  

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I cannot accept that to be realistic means to tolerate misery, violence and hate. I do not believe that the hungry man should be treated as subversive for expressing his suffering. I shall never accept that the law can be used to justify tragedy, to keep things as they are, to make us abandon our ideas of a different world. Law is the path of liberty, and must as such open the way to progress for everyone.
~ Oscar Arias Sánchez ​~