L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs

L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs

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Faculty

Patrick Lowery

Patrick Lowery

Associate professor

Raleigh Building, Room 2009C Phone: (804) 828-8889 Email: pglowery@vcu.edu

Expertise

  • Race, social stratification, and public policy
  • Juvenile justice and the troubled teen industry 
  • Criminological theory and socio-legal studies

EDUCATION

B.S., Criminal Justice, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
M.S., Criminal Justice, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Ph.D., Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of South Carolina

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Patrick Lowery is a criminologist who studies the intersection of race, poverty, law, and juvenile justice. His prior research has identified how race, poverty, and community factors may lead to involvement in the justice system among youth and how these factors may work to the disadvantage of youth who are processed through the juvenile justice system. As an instructor, he regularly teaches research methods and criminological theory at the undergraduate level and race, social stratification, and public policy at the graduate level. As a whole, he is a critical scholar whose teaching and research seek to answer the question of whether a better and more equitable world is possible (spoiler: It is, if we know where to look).

During his time as a doctoral student in South Carolina, he published in a number of quality journals, such as Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, Police Quarterly, and Crime & Delinquency. In addition to his research, Lowery has also taught a variety of courses at the University of South Carolina, such as: "Introduction to Criminal Justice," "Research Methods," "Juvenile Delinquency and Justice," and "Violence in America." 

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS 

Lowery, P. G., Burrow, J. D., & Kaminski, R. J. (2018). A multilevel test of the racial threat hypothesis in one state’s juvenile court. Crime & Delinquency, 64(1), 53-87.

Lowery, P. G. (2019). Plea bargains among serious and violent girls: An intersectional approach exploring race in the juvenile court. Feminist Criminology, 14(1), 115-139.

Lowery, P. G., & Brubaker, S. J. (2021). Exploring race, family, and community variation in juvenile institutionalization through the perspective of symbolic threat. Journal of Crime and Justice, 44 (4), 1-22.