Kwan-Lamar Blount-Hill

Adjunct Assistant Professor
Social Sciences, Human Services and Criminal Justice

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Office Hours: Wednesdays, 4:00-5:00 p.m.

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Kwan-Lamar Blount-Hills is an Adjunct Assistant Professor and the current (and first) Director of Research and Data Analytics for the Kings County District Attorney’s Office (KCDA) in Brooklyn, New York, He is responsible for guiding and overseeing implementation of the KCDA’s research and analytic activities in support of fair, effective and efficient criminal prosecution, public safety initiatives and crime prevention strategies. This work primarily involves providing evidence-based counsel to policymakers, internal data analyses, development and implementation of improved data collection and analytical processes, establishing and tracking measures of Office performance, and collaboration and coordination with outside researchers on projects exploring, explaining or evaluating matters related to Office policies and practice.

Prior to his current post, Kwan was a research manager with the New York City Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice (MOCJ), overseeing neighborhood-based policy and evaluative research, as well as studies and policy initiatives regarding public perceptions an government-community relations. He served as a patrol officer in Charleston, South Carolina (SC), and, before that, a public safety officer/firefighter in Cayce, SC. Kwan earned a PhD in criminal justice from the City University of New York’s Graduate Center/John Jay College of Criminal Justice; a J.D. from Emory University School of Law; and a B.S. in Environmental Science (Natural Resource Management) from Tuskegee University. Kwan has also previously worked as a researcher at the Research & Evaluation Center (John Jay College of Criminal Justice); the Christian Regenhard Center for Emergency Response Studies (John Jay); the Center on Race, Crime and Justice (John Jay); the Center for Court Innovation; and the Urban Resource Institute. He was a research consultant for MOCA-PM, Inc., a landowners representative firm. Kwan has taught sociology, criminal justice, and law at Rutgers University, John Jay College, William Paterson University, in addition to Borough of Manhattan Community College. He obtained a license to practice law through the South Carolina, New Jersey and Georgia Bars, and passed the New York State Bar Examination. He has earned additional certifications as an emergency medical technician, a hazardous materials technician, and in other police and public safety competencies.

Expertise

Social and racial identity; narrative identity; individual and collective perceptions of justice, trust and legitimacy; green/wildlife criminology, human-animal relations, and environmental justice; theorization of place and space; racial and sexual minorities within the criminal justice system and criminal justice academia; theories of social control; morality, religion and society; and emergency services management.

Degrees

2020: Doctor of Philosophy in Criminal Justice, CUNY Graduate Center/John Jay College of Criminal Justice

2011: Juris Doctor, Emory University School of Law

2008: Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science (concentration: Natural Resource Management), Tuskegee University

Courses Taught

3 CRS.3 HRS. CRJ 101 CRJ 101 (Introduction to Criminal Justice): Criminal Justice is the field that studies formal social control. This course covers the processing of crime by agents of formal control (police, courts, and institutional corrections). The general focus is on understanding the complex interactions of structures and agents in the system. Of particular concern are discretion and diversity in law enforcement, due process in criminal courts, and the punishment-rehabilitation dichotomy in corrections. The ultimate goal is to provide a critical foundation that prepares students for the challenges of a career in criminal justice.
3 CRS.3 HRS. CRJ 201 CRJ 201 (Policing): This course is intended to broaden the studenta??s understanding of the origins and development of law enforcement agencies in the United States. Moreover, the course will examine the complex role of the police in a democratic society in the criminal justice system. An emphasis will be placed on recruitment, the training process and the importance of diversity, particularly among larger police departments in the U.S. The course will also examine contemporary legal issues and modern strategies such as community, evidence-based, intelligence-led and predictive policing. Prerequisite: CRJ 101
3 CRS.3 HRS.NULL LAB HRS. CRJ 200 CRJ 200 (Constitutional Law): This course provides a historical overview of the relationship of the states of the Bill of Rights, and how the Supreme Court has interpreted the powers of the federal government. The effect of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment on the application of the Bill of Rights to the states is examined through a study of the leading Supreme Court decisions related to criminal justice. Topics include characteristics and powers of the three branches of government, the principles governing the operation of the Bill of Rights, and the variables affecting the formulation of judicial policy. Prerequisite: POL 100

Research and Projects

A study on correctional injuries as empirically distinct from correctional violence (with Victor St. John, Andrea Mufarreh, and Laura Lutgen)
Co-editing a book on correctional/custodial architecture (with Dominque Moran, Yvonne Jewkes, and Victor St. John; contributing a chapter with Stanley Richards)
An exploration of social psychological motivators for human-wildlife conflict
A legal review of duty-to-intervene policies and their impact on police use-of-force (with Delores Jones-Brown and Akiv Dawson)
A study on the impact of parole on viability on mobile “dating” apps among gay men (with Douglas Evans)
A review of research on lesbian police officers (with Lauren Moton and Roddrick Colvin)
A study of social identity models of system justification
A study on “othered” students’ coping mechanisms during doctoral criminal justice education (with Ahmed Ajil)
A review of Russian contributions to international criminology
A study of social identity and legitimacy as conceptualized by residents of Asian countries (with Yuchen Hou)
A study on the effect of author race and journal choice on studies of race (with Bitna Kim)
An application of anti-blackness theory to the study of hate crimes (with Frank Pezzella and Paul Oder)
A study on the application of Western criminology in Russia
(in formation) a review of poaching practices (with Gohar Petrossian)

Publications

Blount-Hill, K. (invited to revise and resubmit, in progress). Proposing a social identity theory of interspecies dominance. Biological Conservation. — Best Student Paper Award (2019), Division of International Criminology, American Society of Criminology.

Blount-Hill, K. (accepted, minor revisions in progress). Writing another as other: A retro-intro-extrospection [commentary]. Decolonization of Criminology and Justice.

St. John, V. J., Blount-Hill, K., Mufarreh, A., & Lutgen, L. (accepted, minor revisions in progress). Mitigating harm in jail: A facility-level exploration of injuries in New York City. Journal of Correctional Health Care.

Evans, D. N., Blount-Hill, K., & Hoyos-Torres, S. (accepted, minor revisions submitted). The front line of housing access: Comparing criminal stigma among landlords and real estate agents in New York. Critical Criminology.

Blount-Hill, K. (forthcoming). Building a social identity theory of shared narrative: Insights from resident stories of police contact in Newark, New Jersey, and Cleveland, Ohio. Criminal Justice and Behavior.

Headley, A. M., Blount-Hill, K., & St. John, V. J. (forthcoming). The psychology of justice buildings: A survey experiment on police architecture, public sentiment, and race. Journal of Criminal Justice.

Jones-Brown, D., Ruffin, J., Blount-Hill, K., Dawson, A., & Cottrell, C. (forthcoming). Hernández v. Mesa and police liability for youth homicides before and after the death of Michael Brown. Criminal Law Bulletin.

Blount-Hill, K., & Oder, P. (2020). From power and privilege to dignity and respect: Emerging theories of human-animal relations and interspecies dominance. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 8: 553460. doi: 10.3389/fevo.2020.553460.

Evans, D. N., & Blount-Hill, K. (2020). Swipe right: Experimental analyses of app-based dating in the age of criminal stigma. Corrections: Policy, Practice and Research. Advanced online version. doi: 10.1080/23774657.2020.1799726.

Ajil, A., & Blount-Hill, K. (2020). “Writing the other as other”: Exploring the othered lens in academia using collaborative autoethnography. Decolonization of Criminology and Justice, 2(1), 83-108. doi: 10.24135/dcj.v2i1.19.

Blount-Hill, K. (2020). Advancing a social identity model of system attitudes. International Annals of Criminology, 57(1-2), 114-137. doi: 10.1017/cri.2020.8. — Winner, Young Scholars Research Paper Competition (2019), United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Education for Justice Initiative and the International Society of Criminology; Affirmative Action Student Scholarship Mini-Grant Travel Award (2020), Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (travel to present this paper at 2020 annual meeting).

Colvin, R. A., & Blount-Hill, K. (2020). Truth and reconciliation as a model for change #MeToo. Public Administration Review. Advanced online publication. doi: 10.1111/puar.13207.

Piza, E. L., Szkola, J., & Blount-Hill, K. (2020). How can embedded criminologists, police pracademics, and crime analysts help increase police-led program evaluations? A survey of authors cited in the evidence-based policing matrix. Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice. Advanced online publication. doi: 10.1093/police/paaa019.

Jones-Brown, D., & Blount-Hill, K. (2020). Convicted: Do recent cases represent a shift in police accountability? A research note. Criminal Law Bulletin, 56(2), 270-301.

St. John, V. J., Blount-Hill, K., Evans, D. N., Ayers, D., & Allard, S. (2019). Architecture and correctional services: A facilities approach to treatment. The Prison Journal, 99(6), 748-770. doi: 10.1177/0032885519877402.

Evans, D. N., Blount-Hill, K., & Cubellis, M. A. (2019). Examining housing discrimination across race, gender and felony history. Housing Studies, 34(5), 761-778. doi: 10.1080/02673037.2018.1478069.

Blount-Hill, K., & St. John, V. J. (2017). Manufactured “mismatch”: Cultural incongruence and Black experience in the academy. Race and Justice, 7(2), 110-126. doi: 0/1177/2153368716688741. — Best Journal Article Award (2017), Division on Critical Criminology and Social Justice, American Society of Criminology.

Honors, Awards and Affiliations

2020

Entrepreneurship Research-to-Practice Bootcamp expenses covered (Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation)

Affirmative Action Student Scholarship Mini-Grant Travel Award (Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences)

2019

Graduate Student Paper Award (Division of International Criminology, American Society of Criminology)

Young Scholars Research Paper Competition (International Society of Criminology and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)

Graduate Peer Mentoring Scholarship (University Student Senate, City University of New York)

Special Competition for Young Investigators (Time-Sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences)

Michael Maxfield International Travel Award (Research and Evaluation Center, John Jay College of Criminal Justice)

Adjunct Travel Award (Office for the Advancement of Research, John Jay College of Criminal Justice)

Summer Grant Program (Université de Lausanne)

Housing Expert Training expenses covered (Thurgood Marshall Institute, Legal Defense Fund, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People)

2018

Arthur and Elaine Neiderhoffer Fellowship (CUNY Graduate Center Doctoral Program in Criminal Justice)

James Fyfe Fellowship (CUNY Graduate Center Doctoral Program in Criminal Justice)

2017

Best Journal Article Award (Division on Critical Criminology and Social Justice, American Society of Criminology)

Additional Information

Executive Board of the Division on People of Color and Crime, American Society of Criminology (executive counselor, 2020 – present)
Racial Equity Ad Hoc Committee, National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, New York Chapter (2020 – present)

Select/Special Advisory Boards, Committees and Taskforces

Racial Justice Task Force (co-chair), 2020 – present, convened by the Kings County District Attorney’s Office to develop an agenda for action on racial justice in prosecution and in the organization.
Disciplinary Inclusion Task Force (Steering Committee), 2020 – present, convened by the Society for Conservation Biology for recommendations on expanding the reach of its work and the disciplinary backgrounds of its membership.
Florida International University and Loyola University Chicago’s Advancing Prosecutorial Effectiveness and Fairness through Data and Innovation Advisory Board, 2020 – present, convened by B. Kutateladze, D. Steman, E. Webster, et al. to support a research study advancing new strategies of evidence-driven prosecution.
San Diego State University’s Race and Policing Certificate Ad-Hoc Committee, 2020 – present, convened by R. Colvin and M. Ahmed to establish a graduate certificate in the study of the intersection of race and policing in the United States.
New York City Interagency Committee on Active Design Guidelines, 2019 – present, convened by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to update the City’s 2010 active building design guidelines.
New York City Justice Implementation Task Force Design Working Group, 2017 – present, convened by the New York City Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice for recommendations to design the City’s new borough-based jails.

University Service

Crime and Media Fellowship Program, Doctoral Program in Criminal Justice, Graduate Center/John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York (co-founder and Research Advisor, Spring 2020 – present)