Dean Dabney

Ph.D., University of Florida

Policing, Organizational Misconduct, Qualitative Methods

Dean Dabney is a Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Georgia State University and the MISCJA Coordinator. He received his doctorate in sociology from the University of Florida in 1997 and has been on faculty at GSU since then. His research agenda is principally focused on the study of police culture and their efforts to combat violent crime. In recent years, he has studied the operation of homicide units, the use of confidential informants, police response to gun violence, and officer use of discretion. These projects have yielded several dozen peer-reviewed journal articles appearing in criminological and sociological serials. He has also consulted extensively with police metro Atlanta departments in an effort to evaluate and improve training and operations. Dr. Dabney is the author of three books, including a recently published monograph entitled Speaking Truth to Power: Confidential Informants and Police Investigations (University of California Press, 2016).