Aimée X. Delaney, Ph.D., specializes in the study of violence and victimization, with a focus on juvenile crime, risk behaviors among youth, youth victimization, family and community violence, theoretical explanation for violence and victimization, and the impact of violence and victimization on the justice systems and communities. She engages in Public Criminology, conducting evaluations for community coalitions that work towards reducing and ending youth substance use/misuse. Through over $1.5M obtained in grants, she has served as the primary program evaluator for the Raymond Coalition for Youth. In this role, she developed numerous Youth Risk Behavior Surveys (high school and middle school levels), analyzed data obtained from these surveys, and written several policy publications and monographs. The impact of her public criminology research on policy, legislation, and primary prevention practices has been recognized locally, regionally, and nationally, and has contributed to significant positive effects on the US juvenile and criminal justice systems.
Dr. Delaney’s book, Norms of Violence: Violent Socialization Processes and the Spillover Effect for Youth Crime, won the 2023 Outstanding Book award from the International Section of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences. propels an integrated theory of social control and culture of violence arguing that violent socialization processes spill over into and from other domains within society, contributing to the normalization of violence. Her book offers a unique perspective to the international study of deviant and criminal behavior, by focusing the impact of violence on both victimization and offending.
Dr. Delaney’s research is published in several peer reviewed scholarly journals, including International Criminal Justice Review, International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, and Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice (to name a few). She also has publications via an invited book chapter connecting family violence and animal cruelty is published in Animal cruelty: A multidisciplinary approach to understanding and several criminal justice related encyclopedias. She has made more than 40 research and professional presentations, including at the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences and the American Society of Criminology.
Prior to working in academia, Dr. Delaney worked for over 10 years in the US criminal and juvenile justice systems. Dr. Delaney is trained in forensic interviewing, batterer’s intervention, and alternative conflict resolution.
Since 2009, Dr. Delaney has worked with the Raymond Coalition for Youth as the Evaluator for a Drug Free Community (DFC) Grant awarded through the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), in partnership with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The purpose of the grant is to provide local community coalitions with funding to prevent youth substance use, and work towards strengthening the infrastructure among local partners to sustain a reduction in local youth substance use. The Raymond Coalition for Youth is a community coalition that serves to prevent the misuse and abuse of substances among youth. Dr. Delaney provides survey design of and data analysis for the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), both for the high school and middle school. Her research with the RCFY has demonstrated the positive effect the community has had in reducing youth risk behavior, including youth substance misuse. Dr. Delaney’s on-going work with the RCFY has contributed to positive changes in the community through the application of “real world” research with theoretical explanations for possible explanations for the decline in youth risk behaviors and crime.
