James Alan Fox

{{short description|American criminologist}} {{Infobox person | name = James Alan Fox | image = | image_size = 250px | alt =  | caption = Professor of Criminology At NEU | birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1951|12|22}} | birth_place = Boston, Massachusetts, United States | occupation = Professor, Criminology | years_active = | known_for = Criminology | notable_works = Statistics | employer = Northeastern University | alma_mater = University of Pennsylvania | spouse = Sue Ann Fox | website = http://jamesalanfox.com }} '''James Alan Fox''' is a Professor of Criminology, Law, and Public Policy and former dean at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. Fox holds a bachelor's degree in sociology (1972), a master's degree in criminology (1974), a master's degree in statistics (1975), and a Ph.D. in sociology (1976), all from the University of Pennsylvania.<ref name="resume">{{cite web | url=https://jamesalanfox.com/resume.html | title=James Alan Fox Resume | accessdate=May 8, 2023}}</ref>

Fox has written 18 books, including ''Extreme Killing: Understanding Serial and Mass Murder, The Will to Kill: Making Sense of Senseless Murder, and Violence and Security on Campus: From Preschool through College.'' He has published dozens of journal and magazine articles, primarily in the areas of serial murder, mass shootings, intimate partner homicide, youth crime, school and campus violence, workplace violence, and capital punishment, and was the founding editor of the ''Journal of Quantitative Criminology''. He has published over 300 op-ed columns in newspapers around the country, including the ''New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and USA Today''. As a member of its Board of Contributors, his opinion columns appear frequently in ''USA Today''. Before that, he wrote a bi-weekly column in the ''Boston Herald'' and the ''Crime and Punishment'' blog for the ''Boston Globe''. He is also one of the principals in maintaining the ''Associated Press/USA Today, Northeastern University Mass Killing Database''.

Fox is known as "The Dean of Death," for his research on mass murders.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/07/AR2009040703979.html | newspaper=The Washington Post | first=Philip | last=Rucker | title=Some Link Economy With Spate Of Killings | date=April 8, 2009}}</ref> ''USA Today'' says that "Fox is arguably the nation's leading criminologist." As an authority on homicide, he appears regularly on national television and radio programs,<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://ajrarchive.org/article.asp?id=2723|title = Off Target: The News Media, Particularly Cable Channels, Relied Heavily on Profilers during the Sniper Coverage" by Smolkin, Rachel - American Journalism Review, Vol. 24, Issue 10, December 2002}}</ref> including the ''Today Show, Meet the Press, Dateline, 20/20'', and ''48 Hours''. He has been a guest numerous times on ''Oprah''.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://jamesalanfox.com/speaking.html | title=Speaking }}</ref>

Fox often gives lectures and expert testimony, including more than a dozen appearances before the United States Congress, and White House meetings with the President. He served on President Bill Clinton’s advisory committee on school shootings, and a Department of Education Expert Panel on Safe, Disciplined and Drug-Free Schools.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna3080346 | title=MSNBC Analysts and Experts| website=NBC News}}</ref>

Fox has served as a visiting fellow with the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice, and an NBC News Analyst. He also chaired a blue-ribbon panel for the city of Seattle investigating the 2006 Capitol Hill massacre.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Egan |first=Timothy |date=2006-06-25 |title=After 7 Deaths, Digging for an Explanation |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/us/25fox.html |access-date=2025-05-12 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

Fox was honored in 2007 by the Massachusetts Committee Against the Death Penalty with the Hugo Adam Bedau Award for excellence in capital punishment scholarship and by Northeastern University with the 2008 Klein Lectureship.{{Citation needed|date=May 2025}}

==Books published==

* Extreme Killing: Understanding Serial and Mass Murder (Sage, 2013) * The Will to Kill: Making Sense of Senseless Murder (Sage, 2019) * Randomized Response and Related Methods (Sage, 2015) * Elementary Statistics in Social Research (Pearson, 2014) * Elementary Statistics in Criminal Justice Research (Pearson, 2014) * Violence and Security on Campus: From Preschool through College (ABC-CLIO, 2010) * Dead Lines: Essays in Murder and Mayhem (Allyn & Bacon, 2001)

==References== <references/>

==External links== {{Wikiquote}} * [https://cssh.northeastern.edu/sccj/people/faculty/ Northeastern University Faculty list ] * [https://jamesalanfox.com/ James Alan Fox Homepage] * [https://jamesalanfox.com/blogs.html "Crime and Punishment" Boston Globe Column (''archives'')] * [https://www.amazon.com/James-Alan-Fox/e/B001I9QHSG Amazon list of publications]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fox, James Alan}} Category:Living people Category:Northeastern University faculty Category:University of Pennsylvania alumni Category:University of Michigan people Category:American criminologists Category:1951 births