Volkan Topalli

Professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Georgia State University

Volkan Topalli is a Professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Georgia State University’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies. He received his PhD in Experimental Social Psychology from Tulane University in 1998. Previous to arriving at GSU in 2000 he completed a National Science Foundation research fellowship through the National Consortium on Violence Research. He also holds faculty associate status with the Partnership of Urban Health Research at Georgia State University, the Center for Injury Control at Emory University, and the International Centre for Research on Forensic Psychology at Portsmouth University, United Kingdom. His scholarly research addresses violence in urban settings, with a particular focus on the decision-making of street criminals. In addition, he studies the role that technological change in payment systems affects street crime. To pursue these interests, he employs a multi-method approach that includes experimental, quantitative, and qualitative (interview-based) methodologies with active, noninstitutionalized hardcore street offenders (robbers, carjackers, drug dealers). He has conducted roughly 400 interviews with offenders on the streets of New Orleans, St. Louis, and Atlanta over the past 18 years. His research has been supported by such agencies as the National Science Foundation, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, The Centers for Disease Control, and the National Institute of Justice. He is the author of peer-reviewed research in such outlets as Criminology, Justice Quarterly, The British Journal of Criminology, Punishment & Society, and Criminal Justice & Behavior.