Cindy Brooks Dollar
Professor and Director of Graduate Studies
Sociology/Criminology/Justice
Email Address: cbdollar@uncg.edu
Dr. Cindy Brooks Dollar serves as a professor and graduate program director for the Department of Sociology, Criminology, and Justice Studies.
Education
Ph.D. Sociology, North Carolina State University
Research
Dr. Dollar’s specialization is criminological theory, and she holds expertise in other matters related to crime, deviance, & social control. Dr. Dollar’s research investigates patterns of harm and control, often measured through acts of violence or substance use, and healing. Her first full-length manuscript, “I Never Wanted To Be A Stereotype”, was released in 2021 and was nominated for two national academic book awards. Her second full-length manuscript, “It’s Hard to Explain, but…: What Psychedelic Use Can Teach Us About the Social and the Spiritual”, was published in 2026. Her third book, titled “Navigating Stigma: Stories of Being an Offender, Victim, and Survivor” is a co-edited collection scheduled for release in 2027 with Bristol University Press.
Dr. Dollar’s research has also been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals, including but not limited to Critical Criminology, Humanity & Society, Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Journal of Qualitative Criminal Justice & Criminology, Social Currents, The Sociological Quarterly, International Journal of Law & Psychiatry, Deviant Behavior, Contemporary Drug Problems, Journal of Drug Issues, Sociological Inquiry, Sociological Spectrum, and Criminal Justice Policy Review.
She has also published book chapters in edited volumes on crime and violence causation, alternative governance settings, and societal trauma. Her work has gained national and international attention, being featured on the Center for Justice and Reconciliation’s Prison Fellowship International and blogs managed by the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Institute of Corrections, the International Society for Therapeutic Jurisprudence, and the Council on Contemporary Families.
Dr. Dollar’s curriculum vitae (CV) provides a full list of her published work, course offerings and the service she provides to the university and community.
Courses Taught
- Social Deviance (SOC 222)
- Drugs & US Society (SOC 393)
- Considering Ourselves Offenders, Victims, & Survivors (SOC 434)
- Criminology Seminar (SOC 651)
- Social Control (SOC 653)
Selected Publications
Dollar, Cindy Brooks Dollar. 2025. “It’s Hard to Explain, but…” What Self-Regulated Psychedelic Use Teaches Us about the Social and the Spiritual. California: Cognella.
Dollar, Cindy Brooks. 2025. Considerations on the Construction, Timing, and Consequences of the Psychedelic Renaissance. Contemporary Drug Problems 53(1): Online First:
https://doi.org/10.1177/00914509251344637
Dollar, Cindy Brooks. 2024. “Embodying Non-speciesism through Altered States of Consciousness” in Violence and Harm in the Animal Industrial Complex: Human-Animal Entanglements, edited by G. Hunnicut, R. Twine, & K. Mentor, Taylor & Francis.