Dr. Chanika R. Jones is a Sociologist and associate professor serving in the Department of Criminal Justice in the Nelson Mandela School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge, LA. She is a former department chair for Criminal Justice and currently serves as the Co-Director of Mentoring and Advising with the International Center for Information Technology and Development (ICITD). She has over 10 years of accumulated educational experience serving in various capacities ranging from instructor to administrator. She has provided consulting services to international institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) with a focus on social and cultural issues and most recently, she has served national and local organizations as an advisor pursuant to the importance of education and its relationship to crime, criminality, security and public perception.

Dr. Jones holds a B.A. in General Studies with minors in Geography, Sociology, and African/African-American Studies, M.A. in Liberal Arts with a concentration in African/African-American Studies, and M.A. and PhD in Sociology with a concentration in Criminology, all from Louisiana State University. Dr. Jones is committed to research and scholarship in Sociology and Criminal Justice; as such she is an active member of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS), American Society for Criminology (ASC), African Criminology & Justice Association (ACJA), the Mid-South Sociological Association (MSSA), and the National Association for African/African-American Studies (NAAAS). Her affiliation with these professional associations has led to a better understanding of some of the social problems that are plaguing people of color in the United States, Africa and throughout the African diaspora. Additionally, Dr. Jones has been professionally associated with one of the Nation’s premier organizations, National Organization for Black Law Enforcement Executives (N.O.B.L.E), which influences National and State policy germane to crime, criminality and security in the United States and abroad. As an associate member within that organization, Dr. Jones has served in the capacity of consultant, grant writer and researcher. In addition to her professional associations and traditional teaching and research experience, Dr. Jones is also an online instructor whose commitment to distance learning and online education is reflected by her dual-platform certifications which permit her to use technology to deliver specialized educational services to diverse groups with social justice at the forefront.