Civil Liability in Criminal Justice

Darrell L. Ross, Ph.D. is a Professor and Department Head of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice, and the Director of the Center for Applied Social Sciences (CASS) at Valdosta State University. Ross worked for the Michigan Department of Corrections as an officer, cell block supervisor of mentally impaired prisoners, probation officer, and instructor in the training academy. He also taught in the Police Academy at Ferris State University as a certified instructor, teaching subject control techniques, human factors, mechanics of arrest, and responding to the mentally ill person. He served as the Director of the School of Law Enforcement and Justice Administration at Western Illinois University and was a professor in the Criminal Justice Program at East Carolina University.

Ross has published five books and more than 120 articles, book chapters, and monographs on the use of force, stress, and human factors during use of force incidents, liability issues, officer-involved shootings, excited delirium syndrome, prone restraint and asphyxiation, sudden arrest-related deaths, and custodial suicides. Ross has provided technical assistance and consultation to local, county, state, federal, and private criminal justice agencies nationally and internationally, as well as to various branches of the military. He regularly provides training to line-level officers and administrators and makes presentations at national and international conferences on officer and supervisor liability issues, officer-involved shootings and investigations, use of force issues, sudden arrest-related deaths, and custodial deaths. Since 1987 Ross has provided expert witness services regarding these and other topics.