Juwan Z. Bennett is a professor of instruction in the Criminal Justice Department at Temple University and is an increasingly popular thought-leader who appears regularly on morning radio. Equally succinct and relatable on air and in print— Juwan is often quoted in global publication and is a national public-speaker. The South Philadelphia native also serves as the director for the Temple University Urban Youth Leadership Academy, a program designed to equip the next generation of young leaders. Juwan is the Co-founder of the New Life Christian Fellowship Baptist Church, which he Co-Pastors with his brother Antonio R. Bennett II who is a Philadelphia Police Officer.
Juwan began his undergraduate career at the age of 15 and has won numerous prestigious awards, including the Diamond Award, Criminal Justice Faculty Award, the Ford Predoctoral Fellowship Honorable Mention list, the Bill and Melinda Gated ICPSR Diversity Scholarship, and the ASC Gene Carte Student Paper Award (Second Place). While at Temple, he became a Ronald E. McNair scholar and has worked with renowned professors such as Dr. James Earl Davis and Yale University’s Dr. Elijah Anderson. Currently, Juwan is working with Criminal Justice Professor Dr. Jeffrey T. Ward and has published two peer-reviewed journal articles (Drug Markets, violence and the need to Incorporate the role of race & Differential Applicability of Criminological Theories to Individuals: The Case of Social Learning vis-à-vis Social Control) with the latter belonging to the criminology/criminal justice discipline’s “elite eight” journals. Juwan has also been a guest-editor for a special issue of the Boyhood Studies Journal, entitled ‘Masculinity in the School-to-Prison Pipeline’. This issue brought together criminologists and education researchers to understand the manner in which the bodies of Black and Latino males are viewed, interacted with, and treated within education and criminal justice institutions that provides a rationalizing frame for how the actions within institutions occur.
In addition to his research, and educational experiences Mr. Bennett has served as the deputy coordinator for the Mayor’s Office of Black Male Engagement (Kenney Administration). Specifically, Juwan’s role as deputy coordinator included overseeing the Mayor’s Commission on African American Males and implementing the My Brother’s Keeper criminal justice initiative. He currently serves as the Reentry Coordinator at the Youth Sentencing Reentry Project. In this capacity, he shapes the direction and delivery of YSRP’s client-partnership model, partners with YSRP’s team and criminal defense attorneys to support reentry planning for youth facing charges in the adult criminal justice system, and collaborates with organizations that provide reentry support services to men, women, and young people returning to the community from either adult or juvenile incarceration settings.
A fun fact about Juwan is that he is an accomplished musician, performing live for President Barack Obama and is currently in the final stages of completing his PhD in Criminal Justice; making him one of the youngest PhD recipients in Temple University history.