Areas of Expertise

• Law enforcement policy
• Media & community relations
• Justice system management
• Criminology
• International crime control
• Criminal justice policy
• Ethics

Key Findings

• The mass media defines the public image of police, prosecutors, courts, and corrections by acting as gatekeepers of crime coverage. MORE
• Fictional storylines and the news media reinforce one another by covering crime as an immediate public threat. MORE
• Popular culture and the media converted the perception of pirates from brutal outcasts to adventure heroes for entertainment and profit. MORE
• The levels of community violence and police violence are positively correlated. MORE

Biography

Richard Kania, Professor of Criminal Justice at Jacksonville State University, is an expert in law enforcement policy, media and community relations, justice system management, criminology, ethics, international crime control and criminal justice policy.

Kania previously taught at Guilford College, the University of North Carolina-Charlotte and UNC- Pembroke, the Southern Police Institute of the University of Louisville and the Central European University in Warsaw, Poland as a Senior Fulbright Scholar. He was awarded his second Senior Fulbright Professorship teaching at the Belarusian State University in Minsk, the Republic of Belarus. Prior to teaching, Kania served in the Army in Berlin and in Vietnam and was a city police officer, which led him to a career in criminal justice.

He has been published in numerous academic journals and is the author of Managing Criminal Justice Organizations and Mass Media and Criminal Justice, The Justice Professional.

Kania received his Ph.D. and M.A. in Social Anthropology and Sociology from the University of Virginia and B.A. in Anthropology from Florida State University.