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Criminology has long asked why Black men fail. My doctoral research asked a different question: why do so many succeed — and what can their success teach us about building systems that produce more of it?
Drawing on in-depth life-course interviews with twenty-nine Black male scholars who achieved academically despite direct exposure to structural violence, the study found a consistent pattern: positive, racially informed socialization builds an internalized identity that protects against the impediments of institutional racism, counters criminogenic influence, and drives educational resilience.
The research developed in dialogue with some of the leading scholars of structural disadvantage, including Dr. William Julius Wilson, whose guidance shaped its engagement with the literature on urban poverty and neighborhood effects.
The dissertation introduces Criminogenic Resistance Theory, an integrative framework in conversation with institutional anomie theory, left realism, and critical race theory. Those traditions explain how macro-level forces produce inequality and crime — but they stop short of an actionable answer for the people living under those forces right now. C.RT addresses that gap. It names structural violence as criminogenic, and it maps the counter-measures — family, identity, expectation, and institutional support — through which its effects are resisted long before they can be eradicated.
Although developed within criminology, the questions C.RT explores extend well beyond criminal justice. They speak to education, leadership, mentoring, organizational development, and the conditions under which people and institutions flourish.
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The dissertation also introduced the term ScholarVist: a nonpartisan, highly credentialed scholar whose activism and recommendations are informed by empirically and methodologically sound peer-reviewed research. It describes a way of working — scholarship that refuses to end at publication — that has guided every institution I have built since.
The framework has subsequently been discussed in the peer-reviewed literature. In 2026, Feminist Criminology published Dr. Jennifer M. Ortiz's autoethnographic examination of the discipline's reception of the Scholarvist model, formally citing this original work.
Original work: Green, C. M. (2018). Against criminalization and pathology: The making of a Black achievement praxis [Doctoral dissertation, City University of New York]. CUNY Academic Works. https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/2876
Scholarly engagement: Ortiz, J. M. (2026). If there's no causal model, it's just activism: An autoethnographic reflection on criminology's rejection of the Scholarvist model. Feminist Criminology.
Dr. Maurice Green publishes academically as C. M. Green (Charles M. Green Sr.).
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Strategic Advisor | Educator | Founder | Expert in Leadership Culture & Male Development
