Faculty/Staff/Student Directory

Dr. Vincent J. Webb was appointed Dean and Director of the George J. Beto Criminal Justice Center May 2006. In that capacity he oversees one of the largest academic programs in criminal justice in the nation, as well as a highly integrated center which incorporates a number of research and professional training institutes.

Webb has held a number of top administrative positions in leading criminal justice academic and research programs over his 30 year academic career.

Prior to accepting his former position at Southern Illinois as Director of the Center for the Study of Crime, Delinquency, and Corrections, Webb was professor of criminal justice at Arizona State University West, where he developed and implemented the Arizona State University Center for Violence Prevention and Community Safety.

During that time, 1996-2005, he was also a research consultant to the Office of the Provost at Arizona State University West (2003-2005) and chairman of the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology there (1996-2003).

Previously he was chairman of the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (1975-1980; 1981-1996) and director of the Center for Applied Urban Research there (1980-1986).

His academic specialties include:  Criminal justice policy analysis and evaluation research, police studies, violence prevention, and criminal justice planning.

Webb’s current research interests involve gangs, human trafficking and sex offender residential policy studies. His extensive “Police Response to Gangs” study and research has culminated in a book with co-author, Charles M. Katz, Policing Gangs in America, published by Cambridge University Press (2006). Their book describes the assumptions, issues, problems, and events that characterize, shape, and define the police response to gangs in America today. The focus of the book is on the gang unit officers themselves and the environment in which they work. A discussion of research, statistical facts, theory, and policy with regard to gangs, gang members, and gang activity is used as a backdrop.

Webb serves as an Associate Editor for Justice Quarterly and is a past president of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences.