John Leverso's journey to becoming a sociologist is anything but typical. At 16 he was charged as an adult for gang-related crime and spent over a decade incarcerated in Illinois, including time in solitary confinement under harsh conditions. However, his story did not end there. He used his education as a path forward--earning multiple degrees while incarcerated and, after release, completing a PhD in Sociology at the University of Washington.
Now, Leverso is an Assistant Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati, where he teaches courses on gangs, health and criminal justice, and research methods--including statistics and qualitative methods. He came to Savery Hall on October 9 to speak to current graduate students about his story and his current research.
His research combines sociological and criminological perspectives to comprehensively investigate the social organization of the urban street gang. Not only investigating crime and delinquency, but also gang group processes and dynamics, de-escalation of disputes, and street gang changes over time with a focus on mental health, gender, and the digital street. In addition, he examines the later-in-life consequences of justice involvement. Leverso has published articles in the American Sociological Review, the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, the Journal of Quantitative Criminology and the Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology, among other outlets. He has also co-edited a volume on gangs titled The Oxford Handbook on Gangs and Society. He teaches courses related to criminology and both quantitative and qualitative methods. Previously he has taught courses on Race and the Criminal Justice System, Criminology, Urban Street Gangs, and Social Statistics.
To learn more about John Leverso, go to his personal website.