James E. Hawdon is an American sociologist, academic, and author. He is a professor of Sociology and a Director for the Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention at Virginia Tech.
Hawdon is most known for his work on sociology, deviance cycles and cyber intolerance. Among his authored works are publications in academic journals, as well as books such as The Causes and Consequences of Group Violence: From Bullies to Terrorists and Marijuana in America: Culture, Political, and Medical Controversies.
Hawdon is the recipient of the Wayman Mullins Award from the Society for Police and Criminal Psychology. He is an Associate Editor of the American Journal of Criminal Justice.
Education
Hawdon completed his BA in Sociology from Pennsylvania State University. Later he completed his MA and PhD in Sociology from the University of Virginia.
Career
Hawdon began his academic career in 1987 as a Lecturer at the University of Virginia and served until 1992. Subsequently, he joined Clemson University where he held an appointment as an assistant professor of Sociology between 1992 and 1997 and as an Associate Professor of Sociology between 1998 and 2004. In 2004, he joined Virginia Tech where he held multiple appointments including serving as an associate professor of sociology from 2004 to 2008. Since 2008, he has been serving as a professor of Sociology at Virginia Tech.
Since 2011, he has been serving as the Director of the Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention at Virginia Tech.
Research
Hawdon's sociology research has won him The 2023 Fulbright-University of Turku Scholar Award, the 2005 Adele Mellen Prize for Contributions to Scholarship, and the 1988 Bierstedt Award in Sociology from the University of Virginia. He has authored numerous publications spanning the areas of drugs, policing, criminology and online hate speech including books and articles in peer-reviewed journals. In 2022, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Turku, Finland, in recognition of his on-going research contributions.
Criminology
Hawdon's criminology research has contributed to the identification of the social factors that contribute to crime as well as social responses to crime. His early research used data from several neighborhoods in South Carolina to analyze how community organizations and police-community relations affect crime rates, finding that community organizations can help reduce crime by increasing social capital and improving citizen perceptions of policy legitimacy. In later research, he investigated how communities responded to mass tragedies. In studies of communities that suffered mass tragedies, including school shootings at Virginia Tech and in Jokela and Kauhajoki Finland, he and his colleagues found that incidents such as school shootings can evoke strong emotions and unify communities to restore their compromised sense of security through shared moral emotions. Furthermore, his study established that the surge in solidarity is sustained by participating in community-focused events, and this heightened solidarity helps both community recovery and the wellbeing of community members even a year after the tragedy. In related research, he explored the link between fear of different types of crimes and community solidarity, illustrating that fear of routine street crimes decreases solidarity, whereas concern over collective-targeted crimes like school shootings enhances community solidarity. In a collaborative study with Matthew Costello, he conducted a criminological analysis to identify factors linked to participation in online attacks and offered recommendations to aid in the identification, mitigation, and prevention of online hate creation and dissemination. Focusing his research efforts on cyberviolence, his study emphasized the significance of socio-demographic traits and online routines in sustaining cyberviolence while advocating for an integrative approach that draws from multiple criminological theories to comprehend the intricate factors influencing participation in cyberhate attacks among American adolescents. In research with colleagues Thomas Dearden and Katalin Parti, he investigated the factors that lead to engaging in cybercrimes, finding strong support for Institutional Anomie Theory. They also conducted research on cybercrime victimization among businesses, suggesting that larger companies, those that do not have separate Wi-Fi networks for visitors and employees, and those lacking stringent data storage policies are significantly more likely to experience cybercrime victimization compared to other companies.