Jiletta L. Kubena, PhD

Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice 
Department Chair, Applied Social and Cultural Sciences
Moye Hall, Room 200 
210-528-7184
jlkubena@ollusa.edu

Curriculum Vitae

Areas of Expertise

Dr. Kubena’s professional background includes working with both state and federal law enforcement agencies and her expertise is criminological theory and the etiology of offending. She conducts research and publishes in the areas of school violence and policing, juvenile delinquency, differences in male and female offending etiology, and white-collar crime.

Teaching Philosophy

The fundamental premise of my teaching is creating a learning environment that encourages students to move away from the traditional learning method, the depositing of knowledge, into an environment that encourages them to develop skills to build upon their current knowledge. Through this approach students learn by connecting and making relationships between what they may already know to the concepts being presented. Instead of seeing the new knowledge as a separate component, students are encouraged to take part in teaching themselves and their peers.

And connecting students with my work in the criminal justice community, especially at the local and state level, has led to many research collaborations especially in the area of social justice and reform in the criminal justice field.

Outside Interests

Dr. Kubena works with the Texas Justice Initiative. She has studied jail staff and incarcerated individuals to evaluate how five Central Texas jails responded to the coronavirus pandemic. The results of this research were published in a joint TJI/Texas Appleseed report titled, “Infected With Fear: The Coronavirus in Central Texas Jails.” Currently she is working on an upcoming report on Solitary Confinement in Texas Prisons co-authored with the Texas Civil Rights Project, the University of Texas Law School Civil Rights Clinic, and UCLA Law Behind Bars Data Project. Dr. Kubena is also the co-author of a new book titled, “The Rise of Specialized Policing,” due out next year. She has four adorable rescue pups that love to hike with her throughout South Texas.