Jeery Osborne
For El Centro native Dr.
Jeffery Osborne, it was easy to defy the adage that
“you can never go home again” to become SDSU
Imperial Valley’s new assistant professor of criminal justice for the Fall 2021 semester. The much tougher challenge was finding an aca
demic position where he could continue to pursue his research at a campus where he wanted to be.
“It is a unique thing that I could actually come back to the community,” he said. “Things really had to line up for me to be here.”
Osborne, who was valedictorian of Southwest High School’s Class of 2002, moved back to the Valley with his wife, Amanda, to teach at the campus where his mother, Donna, studied years earlier.
“It really is like coming full
circle,” Osborne said. “I am excited to be here and hopefully to give back to the community that raised me.”
He added, “I am thrilled that our students can take advantage of having a university in our backyard where they can get an education without the burden of traveling out of the area.”
Osborne received his Ph.D. in Criminal Justice from the City University of New York Graduate Center (CUNY) and a master’s in Forensic Psychology from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. As a criminol
ogist, he primarily studies active shooter incidents. His current focus is on the relationship between offenders’ background characteristics and crime scene behaviors.
His general research interests include violent crime, risk assessment, crime analysis, empirical offender profiling, environmental criminology, investigative psychology, and data generation. He has previously taught in New York City and the Hudson Valley, as well as presented at conferences domestically and abroad. In addition
to publishing in peer-reviewed journals, he has conducted research with federal law enforcement agencies and law firms.
Osborne is particularly enthusiastic about teaching criminal justice at SDSU Imperial Valley.
“A lot of people elsewhere don’t appreciate the complexity of the area,” he said. “Criminal justice has real- life application that is more complex than watching ‘Law and Order’. My students are going to be future practitioners. They will go out and make a difference every day.”