Steven F. Messner is Distinguished Teaching Professor of sociology at the University at Albany, SUNY. He received his Ph. D. in Sociology from Princeton University. His research focuses on social institutions and crime, understanding spatial and temporal patterns of crime, and crime and social control in China. In addition to his articles in professional journals and chapters in edited volumes, he is co-author of Crime and the American Dream;Perspectives on Crime and Deviance;Criminology: An Introduction Using ExplorIt; and co-editor of Theoretical Integration in the Study of Deviance and Crime and Crime and Social Control in a Changing China. He served as the 2010-11 President of the American Society of Criminology.