Peter Moskos

Professor Peter Moskos teaches in the Department of Law, Police Science, and Criminal Justice Administration at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. Moskos, a Princeton and Harvard trained sociologist, is a former Baltimore City Police Officer and is the director of John Jay College’s NYPD Executive Master’s Leadership Program.

In addition to his primary teaching duties, Moskos is Director of John Jay College’s NYPD Executive Master’s Leadership Program, is a faculty member in CUNY’s Doctoral Program in Sociology, has taught introductory criminal justice classes at LaGuardia Community College in Queens, was a visiting scholar at the National Policing College, Bramshill, England, and is a Senior Fellow of the Yale Urban Ethnography Project.

Moskos studies people the old-fashioned way: He talks to them. Moskos’s first three books — Cop in the Hood, In Defense of Flogging, and Greek Americans — have won high praise and earned him recognition as one of Atlantic Magazine’s “Brave Thinkers” of the year. He has also published in the Washington Post, Washington Monthly, the New York Times, CNN, Macleans, Pacific Standard, Slate, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and his “Quality Policing” podcast and blog.

His fourth book, Back from the Brink: Inside the NYPD and New York City’s Extraordinary 1990s Crime Drop, will be published in February 2025 (Oxford University Press). It tells the story of Policing, Compstat, and New York City’s great 1990’s crime drop from the perspective of police officers who were on the job.

Peter Moskos can be reached at: mail@petermoskos.com.

Shorter bio: Professor Peter Moskos is a professor in the Department of Law, Police Science, and Criminal Justice Administration at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. Moskos, a Princeton and Harvard trained sociologist, is the author of four books, the director of John Jay College’s NYPD Executive Master’s Leadership Program, and a former Baltimore City Police Officer.