Faculty & Staff

Cindy Brooks Dollar
Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies
PhD, North Carolina State University, 2014
Email: cbdollar@uncg.edu
Click here for Dr. Brooks-Dollar’s CV
Research and Teaching Interests
Sociology of Deviance, Harm, and Control; Criminological Theory; Inequalities
Personal Statement
I view social deviance (its definition, enactment, and punishment) as inextricably linked to broad social issues. Collectively, my research focuses on links between inequalities, harm, and social control. I investigate patterns of substance use, violence, and non-conventional family structures as well as interactions occurring within “specialty courts,” including drug courts, mental health courts, and family courts. As a teacher, I encourage student engagement in learning and promote critical thinking and writing. I organize my classes in a way that introduces students to historical and contemporary scholarship and emphasizes the value of sociological theory and research methods.
Peer-Reviewed Publications by topic (*=graduate student coauthor)
Social Trauma
Dollar, Cindy Brooks. Forthcoming. “Embodying Non-speciesism through Altered States of Consciousness” in Violence and Harm in the Animal Industrial Complex: Human-Animal Entanglements, edited by G. Hunnicut & K. Mentor, Routledge.
Dollar, Cindy Brooks and Grant Tietjen. 2023. Living as Socially Marked Individuals: Two Stories on Stigma and Its Consequences. Humanity & Society 47(1): 3-28.
Dollar, Cindy Brooks. 2021. I Never Wanted To Be A Stereotype: A Sociologist’s Narrative of Healing. New York: Peter Lang.
Dollar, Cindy Brooks. 2020. “Trauma, Yoga, and Trauma Recovery: From the Clinical to the Sociological.” In Realizing Nonviolent Resilience: Neoliberalism, Societal Trauma, and Marginalized Voice, edited by Jeremy Rinker and Jerry Lawler. New York: Peter Lang.
Dollar, Cindy Brooks. 2019. Personal Trauma, Social Pain, and Therapeutic Jurisprudence: Renewing Focus on an Existential Sociology. International Society for Therapeutic Jurisprudence. https://mainstreamtj.wordpress.com/2019/11/09/psychological-trauma-social-pain-and-therapeutic-jurisprudence/ (also via twitter @intlTJsociety)
Dollar, Cindy Brooks. 2017. “Does the Use of Binary Indicators Reify Difference and Inequality?” Women’s Studies International Forum 61(2): 9–13.
Substance Use
Dollar, Cindy Brooks and Josh Hendrix. Forthcoming. “Re-examining the Meatpacking-Methamphetamine Hypothesis” in Violence and Harm in the Animal Industrial Complex: Human-Animal Entanglements, edited by G. Hunnicut & K. Mentor, Routledge.
Dollar, Cindy Brooks. 2022. “Heads, Seekers, Psychonauts, and One-Timers: Patterns of Psychedelic Consumption.” Journal of Drug Issues. OnlineFirst https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00220426221128191
Dollar, Cindy Brooks. 2021. “Recreation and Realization: Reported Motivations of Use among Persons Who Consume Psychedelics in Non-Clinical Settings.” Journal of Qualitative Criminal Justice and Criminology. https://www.qualitativecriminology.com/pub/vkpkloso/release/1
Dollar, Cindy Brooks. 2019. “Criminalization and Drug ‘Wars’ or Medicalization and Health ‘Epidemics’: How Race, Class, and Neoliberal Politics Influence Drug Laws.” Critical Criminology. 27(2): 305-327.
Dollar, Cindy Brooks and Joshua Hendrix. 2018. “I’m Not a Traditional Woman:” Tranquilizer Misuse as Self-Medication Among Adult Women” American Behavioral Scientist 62(11): 1562-1585.
Hendrix, Joshua and Cindy Brooks Dollar. 2017. “American Slaughterhouses and the Need for Speed: An Examination of the Meatpacking-Methamphetamine Hypothesis” Organization & Environment 30(2) 1-19.
Dollar, Cindy Brooks and Joshua Hendrix. 2015. “The Importance of Romantic and Work Relations on Nonmedical Prescription Drug Use Among Adults.” Sociological Spectrum 35(5): 465-481.
Dollar, Cindy Brooks and Bradley Ray. 2013. “Adult Nonmedical Prescription Drug Use: An Examination of Bond Theory.” Deviant Behavior 34(11): 932-949.
“Therapeutic” or Diversionary courts (*=graduate student)
Dollar, Cindy Brooks. 2020. “Therapeutically (Un)Just Interactions in Family Court Proceedings.” Criminal Justice Policy Review 31(2): 262-286. Summarized in 2019 Council on Contemporary Families Brief Report titled “Are Family Courts Therapeutically Just?” https://thesocietypages.org/ccf/2019/03/19/are-family-courts-therapeutically-just/
Dollar, Cindy Brooks, Bradley Ray, Mary Kay Hudson, and Brittany J. Hood*. 2018. “Examining Changes in Procedural Justice and Their Influence on Problem-Solving Court Outcomes.” Behavioral Sciences & the Law 36(1): 32-45.
Ray, Bradley and Cindy Brooks Dollar. 2018. “Procedural Justice and Compliance in Problem-Solving Courts.” In Contextualizing Compliance: Individual Motivations, Social Processes and Institutional Design, edited by S. Siddiki, T. Heikkila, and S. Espinosa. New York: Routledge.
Dollar, Cindy Brooks and Bradley Ray. 2015. “The Practice of Reintegrative Shaming in Mental Health Court.” Criminal Justice Policy Review, Special Issue on Restorative Justice and Community Corrections 26(1): 29-44.
Ray, Bradley and Cindy Brooks Dollar. 2014. “Exploring Stigmatization and Stigma Management in Mental Health Court: Assessing Modified Labeling Theory in a New Context.” Sociological Forum 29(3): 720-735.
Ray, Bradley and Cindy Brooks Dollar. 2013. “Examining Mental Health Court Completion: A Focal Concerns Perspective.” The Sociological Quarterly 54(4): 647-699.
Ray, Bradley, Cindy Brooks Dollar and Kelly Thames. 2011. “Mental Health Courts as Reintegrative Shaming.” International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 34: 49-55.
Ecological Studies of Crime & Nonconformity (*=graduate student)
Wang, Ting and Cindy Brooks Dollar. Forthcoming. “Testing Mismatch Liberation Theory Across Race-Ethnicity and Gender” in Perceptions of Female Offenders (Vol.2), edited by B.L. Russell, Springer.
Dollar, Cindy Brooks, Ellen Donnelly and Karen Parker. 2019 “Joblessness, Poverty and Neighborhood Crime: Testing Wilson’s Assertions of Jobless Poverty” Social Currents 6(4): 343–360
Dollar, Cindy Brooks, Patricia McCall, Kenneth Land, and Joshua Fink*. 2017 “Age Structure and Neighborhood Homicide: A Test and Elaboration of the Differential Institutional Engagement Hypothesis.” Homicide Studies 21(3): 1-24.
Dollar, Cindy Brooks. 2017. “Sex Ratios, Single Motherhood, and Gendered Structural Relations: Examining Female-Headed Families across Racial-Ethnic Populations.” Sociological Focus 50(4): 375-390.
Dollar, Cindy Brooks. 2015. “Sex Ratio Effects on Marital Formation and Dissolution, 1980-2000.” Sociological Inquiry 85(4): 556-575.
McCall, Patricia L., Kenneth C. Land, Cindy Brooks Dollar, Karen F. Parker. 2013. “The Age Structure-Crime Rate Relationship: Solving a Long-Standing Puzzle.” Journal of Quantitative Criminology 29(2): 167-190.
Other Theoretical Issues of Social Deviance (*=graduate student)
Bethune, Kristen* and Cindy Brooks Dollar. 2020. “Explaining Collegiate Sexual Assault Offending and Victimization Using a Feminized Routine Activities Framework” Sociation 19(2): 1-13.
Tittle, Charles R. and Cindy Brooks Dollar. 2019. “Control Balance Theory of Deviance.” In Handbook of Crime and Deviance, 2nd edition, edited by Marvin Krohn, Gina Penley Hall, Alan J. Lizotte & Nicole Hendrix. New York: Springer.
Dollar, Cindy Brooks. 2014. “Racial Threat Theory: Assessing the Evidence, Requesting Redesign.” Journal of Criminology http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/983026.
Dollar, Cindy Brooks. 2014. “Conceptual Remixing in Criminology: Tracing Durkheim and Marx’s Influence on Etiological Theories of Crime.” Sociology Compass 8(10): 1157-1166.
Teaching Experience
Undergraduate level
Introduction to Sociology Current Social Problems Social Deviance Introduction to Data Analysis Criminal Justice Criminology Drugs & U.S. Society Considering Ourselves Offenders, Victims, & Survivors Internships in Sociology
Independent Studies Courses: -The Relationship between School Racial Composition and Student Health -Attorney Perceptions of Judicial Discretion -Social and Demographic Correlates of School Shootings -The Carceral State, Mental Health, and the African American Experience -Writing Personal Narratives |
Graduate level
Criminology Seminar Advanced Data Analysis Social Control Seminar
Independent Studies Courses: -Racialization and Gendering of Athletic Bodies -Double Stigmas: Mental Health Concerns among African Americans -Slave Patrols and the Origin of American Policing -Social Media Portrayals of Black American Women -Racial Disparities in Sentencing among Women Defendants -Somatic Therapeutics in the Carceral State |
Service for the Discipline
2023-Present Nominations Committee, Association for Humanist Sociology (AHS)
2023-Present AKD Student Mentor
2018-Present Editorial Board, Critical Criminology
2018-Present Editorial Board, Sociation (formerly Sociation Today)
2019-2023 Grant Reviewer, National Science Foundation (NSF)
2020-2022 Chair of the Lee Student Support Fund Committee, Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP)
2015-2018 Executive Committee, North Carolina Sociological Association (NCSA)
2016-2017 Thematic Panel Developer and Presider, American Society of Criminology (ASC)
2011-2013 Membership Committee Member, American Sociology Association’s Crime, Law & Deviance Section
Peer Reviewer for the following Journals: Journals: Social Problems; Social Science Research; Violence Against Women; Critical Criminology; Law and Society Review; Crime, Law and Social Change; Deviant Behavior; Feminist Theory; Crime & Delinquency; Homicide Studies; Justice Quarterly; Urban Studies; Criminal Justice & Behavior; Social Science & Medicine; Criminal Justice Policy Review; Sociological Inquiry; Journal of Adolescent Health; Journal of School Violence; Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health; Sociation; Sociation Today; The Journal of Qualitative Criminal Justice & Criminology; Population Research and Policy Review; Journal of Criminal Justice; International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction; Children and Youth Services Review; European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, Journal of Global Research in Education and Social Science; Journal of Basic and Applied Research International
Peer Reviewer for the following Books: Innocent Inmates and Indirect Victims: The Tangible and Intangible Costs of Victimization (Routledge book proposal 2020); Insiders, Outsiders, Hiders, & Drifters: A General Theory of Deviance Management (University of California Press 2018); Civil Court Responses to Intimate Partner Violence (Cognella book proposal 2018); Applied Analytical Methods Survival Guide (Kendall Hunt Publishing 2017); Perspectives on Deviance and Social Control (Sage Publishing 2015, 2017); Deviant Behavior (Taylor and Francis 2017)
Service for the Community
2019-2020 Community (free) Yoga Classes, B Natural Academy of Music and Arts
2016-2017 Benevolence Farm, Advisory Member to Programming
2015-2016 Benevolence Farm, Programming Committee Member