Cullen, Francis T. (1951–)

FRANCIS CULLEN, distinguished research professor in the department of criminal justice at the University of Cincinnati, is a prolific and widely read scholar. As of 2003, he had published over 170 works covering crime and deviance theory, corrections, white-collar crime, public opinion, and sexual victimization. He is the recipient of the Outstanding Scholarship Award from the Crime and Delinquency Division of the Society for the Study of Social Problems and has served as president of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences and the American Society of Criminology.

Having experienced the public and political unrest of the 1960s, social context and consequences have played a major role in shaping Cullen's career. Cullen attended an inner-city Boston, Massachusetts, high school during a time when racial equality dominated public and political agendas. He began his studies in urban education at Columbia University in 1974. His deviance and social-structure course with Richard Cloward, who later became his mentor, and the influence of Robert Merton inspired much of his subsequent work. He received his Ph.D. in 1979 in sociology and education from Columbia University. His dissertation, Rethinking Crime and Deviance Theory: The Emergence of a Structuring Tradition, was published in 1984.

Cullen's contributions to the study of whitecollar crime and criminology emphasize the role of social context and public policy. His case study (with Willaim Maakestad and Gary Cavender) of[Page 236] the corporate misdeeds in the Ford Pinto case focused attention on the process and difficulties of prosecuting white-collar crime under criminal law.