Faculty & Staff
Cindy Brooks Dollar
Associate Professor
PhD, North Carolina State University, 2014
Email: cbdollar@uncg.edu
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 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. 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)
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
2018-Present Editorial Board, Critical Criminology
2018-Present Editorial Board, Sociation (formerly Sociation Today)
2022 Grant Reviewer, National Science Foundation (NSF), Accountable Institutions and Behavior (AIB) Program
2020-2021 Chair of the Lee Student Support Fund Committee, Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP)
2020 Grant Reviewer, National Science Foundation (NSF). Division of Social and Economic Science, Law and Social Sciences Division
2018 Grant Reviewer, NSF, Division of Social and Economic Sciences, Law and Social Sciences Division
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: 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
