Akwasi Owusu-Bempah Author

Akwasi Owusu-Bempah is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto and Senior Fellow at Massey College. He is a graduate of the PhD program in Criminology and Sociolegal Studies at the University of Toronto. Dr. Owusu-Bempah began his academic career in the United States at Indiana University Bloomington where he was a faculty member in the Department of Criminal Justice and cross-appointed to the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies. His research examines the intersections of race, crime, and criminal justice, with a particular focus in the area of policing. He is currently studying various aspects of drug legalization and the equity issues that stem from these policy shifts. Prior to becoming a professor, Dr. Owusu-Bempah held positions with Canada’s National Judicial Institute, the Public Health Agency of Canada, and the Ontario Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services. He is frequently sought out to provide commentary and advice to police agencies, government bodies, community organizations, and media outlets on matters relating to policing, justice, and social inequality.

Shaun L. Gabbidon is Distinguished Professor of Criminal Justice at Penn State Harrisburg. He is a graduate of the PhD Program in Criminology at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He has served as a fellow at Harvard University’s W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research and has taught at the Center for Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Gabbidon was recently named a Fellow of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences. The author of more than 100 scholarly publications including 13 books and more than 70 peer-reviewed articles, his most recent books include Race and Crime (5th ed.) (with Helen Taylor Greene, 2019; SAGE); Building a Black Criminology: Race, Theory, and Crime (co-edited with James D. Unnever and Cecilia Chouhy, 2019; Routledge); Criminological Perspectives on Race and Crime (4th ed.) (2020; Routledge); and Shopping While Black: Consumer Racial Profiling in America (with George E. Higgins, 2020; Routledge). He currently serves as the editor of the Journal of Criminal Justice Education. In recent years, he has served as an expert witness in consumer racial profiling cases and as an anti-racial profiling consultant. Dr. Gabbidon can be reached at [email protected].