Bonita Veysey Appointed Interim Dean of Rutgers School of Criminal Justice
Dr. Steven J. Diner, Chancellor of Rutgers University in Newark, has announced the appointment, effective July 1, 2009, of Dr. Bonita Veysey as interim dean of Rutgers School of Criminal Justice (RSCJ). Dean Adam Graycar will be returning to the faculty of RSCJ.
Veysey is associate professor at RSCJ, where she has been a member of the faculty since 1998. A nationally recognized criminal justice scholar, her areas of expertise and research are in mental health and criminal justice system interactions, female offenders, adult consequences of childhood abuse and violence against women.
Prior to joining the Rutgers faculty, Veysey was a senior research associate at Policy Research Associates in Delmar, New York. During that time she was the director of the Women’s Program Core and the associate director of the National GAINS Center, a policy and technical assistance center that provides guidance and support on mental health and substance abuse treatment to institutional and community corrections agencies across the United States.
Veysey’s primary research focus is in the area of mental health-criminal justice systems interactions. To date her research has focused on behavioral health and justice issues,
including police interactions with persons with mental illnesses; mental health and substance abuse treatment in jails and prisons; diversion and treatment services for youth with behavioral health problems; characteristics of justice-involved girls and women; and the effects of early childhood trauma.
Veysey is a member of several national expert groups, including the National Institute of Corrections’ “Women and Evidence-based Practices” Workgroup and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s “National Trauma Campaign” Committee. She consults with local and state corrections agencies to provide technical assistance to develop and sustain trauma-informed behavioral health care in correctional and juvenile justice settings.
Veysey received her Ph.D. in sociology from the State University of New York at Albany. She also completed her bachelor of arts and master of science (in rehabilitation counseling) at S.U.N.Y. Albany. At Rutgers, she was associate dean for academic programs at the School of Criminal Justice from 2001- 2004.
The School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University in Newark, NJ, is a major national and international center for scholarly research on all aspects of policing, delinquency, crime, and criminal justice administration. This provides a basis for its educational programs that also fulfill public service obligations by helping to address the needs of criminal justice agencies within the city, state, nation, and world. The school’s faculty is internationally renowned for research and teaching, and alumni of the school serve in leading positions in the public and private sector, and in academia. The school is ranked 7th nationally in the study of criminology by U.S. News & World Report’s Best Graduate Schools, 2009. For more information, please visit www.newark.rutgers.edu/rscj
