Carl Taylor

Carl Taylor
  • Professor Emeritus
  • Department of Sociology
  • PhD Michigan State University, 1980
  • 422 Berkey Hall
  • 509 E. Circle Drive
  • East Lansing, MI 48824
  • 517-353-9237

CURRICULUM VITAE

Carl Taylor

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Carl S. Taylor, PhD, has extensive experience in field research aimed at the reduction of violence involving American youth. He has taught in the school of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University and Grand Valley State University. He has worked with communities, foundations and government agencies in understanding gangs, youth culture, and violence, including the Guggenheim Foundation, the C. S. Mott Foundation, the FBI Academy, and the Children’s Defense Fund. Dr. Taylor has established a national reputation as an ethnographer, and takes pride in having worked in some of the most isolated and distressed communities in the nation, giving him a strong understanding of the problems facing many neighborhoods in urban America. Two projects have resulted in two books that summarize the up-close impact of violence on communities: Dangerous Society (1990), Girls, Gangs, Women, and Drugs (1993), both published by Michigan State University Press. Jugendkulturen und Gangs (Youth Culture and Gangs) (1998), published in Germany extends his study internationally. Dr. Taylor believes that early investment, intervention and education create strong homes, families, and communities. The lessons from his family and earlier childhood have impressed upon him the necessity to give back to society. Scholarship must include reaching out to communities, local and global. Professor Taylor values the classroom on campus and extends that classroom into communities.

ASSOCIATED PROGRAMS

  • Director, Department of Criminal Justice & Public Safety, Jackson Community College
  • Clinical Professor, Grand Valley State University Criminal Justice & Police Academy
  • National Community Policing Center
  • Principal Investigator, Michigan Gang Research Project
  • Michigan Juvenile Justice Committee
  • Founder & Senior Editor, Journal of Urban Youth Culture