Dr. Frank S. Pezzella

 Dr. Frank S. Pezzella is an Associate Professor with the Department of Criminal Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Program of Doctoral Studies in Criminal Justice at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is the co-author of numerous journal articles, briefs and research reports that delineate hate crime patterns and trends including the prevalence and severity of injuries to hate crime victims. He has provided testimony before the United States Civil Rights Commission about the burgeoning prevalence of hate crimes and was a member of the National Association to Enhance the Response to Hate Crimes with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

Dr. Pezzella regularly teaches undergraduate and graduate courses about the history and correlates of hate crime offending and victimizations and the relationship between race, ethnicity and crime. In 2022, Dr. Pezzella was awarded a grant from the New York City Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice as the principal investigator to research and write a report on past and present racialized policing in New York City as a part of the New York City Police Department Criminal Justice Reform and Reinvention Plan. Dr. Pezzella received his masters and doctorate degrees in Criminal Justice and Criminology from the State University of New York at Albany.