Dr. Jesse S.G. Wozniak
Hello! I’m an Associate Professor of Sociology at West Virginia University, where I’ve been since Spring 2013 after receiving my Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Minnesota.
My research centers mainly on policing and social control, with an emphasis on how state power intersects with neoliberalism and neoimperialism. My work has appeared in such journals as The British Journal of Criminology, Punishment and Society, Social Science Quarterly, and The Journal of Peace Research, as well as having been featured on the POEMPS Middle East Political Science Podcast, Foreign Affairs, Jadaliyya, Buzzfeed News, and Top of the Mind with Julie Rosen.
My first book, Policing Iraq: Legitimacy, Democracy, and Empire in a Developing State (University of California Press), is now in print! Click here to read more about it, or just go ahead and buy it from UC Press, Powell’s, Indie Bound, Book Shop, or your favorite local bookstore. International policing expert Dr. Pete Kraska called it a “rare gem” and who are you to argue with that?
I also have the great honor of serving on the Steering Committee of the Coalition to Reimagine Public Safety through my work with the Alliance for Police Accountability. The Coalition brought together a wide range of community members and organizations of those who have been impacted by police violence and who are working on building safe and secure communities throughout Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. Click here to read our Community Vision for Lasting Health and Safety, of which I was the lead author. The Coalition’s work continues with us undertaking a series of listening and learning trips to communities that have successfully instituted alternative response, and we continue to be hard at work developing non-police responses to community health and safety.
If you have any questions about my research, publications, or the courses I teach, please explore the links on the left side of the page, give me a shout , or slide into my dms @jessesgwozniak
Academic Positions
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2019-Present Associate Professor
West Virginia University
Department of Sociology and Anthropology -
2013 - 2019 Assistant Professor
West Virginia University
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Current Research
While I am firmly encamped within academic sociology, my research is in conversation with scholarship in criminology, political science, international relations, geography, and social movements outside of the academy. My work has focused primarily on the origins and development of policing practices, police reconstruction and state-building, abolition and alternatives to policing, and situating state formation in a broader context of neoliberal globalization and neoimperialism. The goal of my work is to not only understand narrow questions of how police (re)construction, training, and practices actually work on the ground, but also larger questions of how police are designed to fulfill political projects, how the modern state wields its power, how imperialism operates in contemporary international relations, and how community safety and health can be maintained without the presence of police.
Currently I have four active lines of research, ranging from historical work to international fieldwork to partnerships with government agencies and community organizations. For a much longer and more academically pretentious explanation of my current research, click the button below.
Classes Taught
Fall 2023
SOCA 488
Capstone: Law, Politics, and Inequality
SOCA 319
Police Culture and Socialization
Spring 2022
SOCA 319
Police Culture and Socialization
SOCA 721
Qualitative Research Methods
Graduate (Past)
SOCA 610
Advanced General Sociology
SOCA 721
Qualitative Research Methods
SOCA 793
Race, Crime, and Community
Undergraduate (Past)
SOCA 488
Capstone: Law, Politics, and Inequality
SOCA 321
Punishment and Social Control
SOCA 319
Police Culture and Socialization
SOCA234
The Criminal Justice System
SOCA 293A
How to be Anti-Racist