Paul Leighton

Paul Leighton (Ph.D., American University 1995) is a Professor in the Dept of Sociology, Anthropology & Criminology at Eastern Michigan University. Dr Leighton's teaching and research interests include a range of violence from rape, hate crimes, and terrorism to genocide. He also studies white collar crime and criminal justice policy, with expertise in prisons, private prisons, and capital punishment (including televised executions). 

Along with Jeffrey Reiman, Leighton edited Criminal Justice Ethics (Prentice-Hall 2001). He is the co-author of Class, Race, Gender and Crime (2nd ed, Rowman & Littlefield). Dr Leighton has been the North American Editor of Critical Criminology: An International Journal and The American Society of Criminology's Division on Critical Criminology named him Critical Criminologist of the Year in 2001. 

Professor Leighton is a Diversity Fellow and a Technology Fellow at Eastern Michigan University, where he teaches Law & Society; Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault; Race, Gender & Crime; Corrections; and the Sociology of Crime. He is webmaster of StopViolence.com, a collection of information about violence prevention that has involved several of his classes. He has developed a companion website for The Rich Get Richer & the Poor Get Prison, and worked with Jeffrey Reiman on the last four editions of that book. 

The Washington Post has favorably reviewed some of Dr Leighton's research, and he has been quoted in the New York Times, abcnews.com, plus numerous other local, national and foreign language newspapers. He also has participated in a panel that aired on C-SPAN and been a guest on several National Public Radio talk shows, including 'On the Media' and 'Public Interest'. In addition, he wrote several guest editorials for Newsday on televising McVeigh's execution, Mumia Abu-Jamal and whether Sept 11 victims should be counted in the crime reports (all distributed over the LA Times - Washington Post wire service).