Dr. James P. Lynch has been appointed professor and department chair effective January 1, 2013.  Professor Lynch joins the department after serving (since June 22, 2010) as the director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) in the United States Department of Justice. Previously he was a distinguished professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at John Jay College, City University of New York. He was a professor in the Department of Justice, Law and Society at American University from 1986 to 2005 and chair of the department from 2003 to 2005. He was the vice president of the American Society of Criminology (ASC) and served previously on the Board of ASC as well as the Committee on Law and Justice Statistics of the American Statistical Association. Dr. Lynch was co-editor of the Journal of Quantitative Criminology. From 2007 to 2009 he was a member of the National Academy of Science panel evaluating the programs of the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Dr. Lynch has published four books and numerous articles on crime statistics, victimization surveys, victimization risk, and the role of sanctions in social control. He received his BA degree from Wesleyan University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Chicago. 

Please join us in welcoming Dr. Lynch to the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice.