Nathan Innocente

Professor Nathan Innocente specializes in criminology, the sociology of professions, and teaching and learning. His criminological research encompasses fraud, organizations, and punishment. He studies the relationship between changes in organizational contexts and the emergence of new opportunities for fraud. His research brings together elements of institutionalism, identity crime, and strain to explain the perpetration of mortgage fraud and the ways in which fraud is used to achieve homeownership. His prior research on punishment uses parole and youth sanctions to study questions of gender, punishment, and the role of community in criminal sanctions. His current pedagogical research explores research ethics in the scholarship of teaching and learning. In addition, he studies the efficacy of problem-based learning pedagogy in criminology and sociology. His research on professions highlights how changing institutional contexts expose segments of the legal profession to competition from nonprofessional occupations, and the strategies professionals use to retain control over their work.

Professor Innocente teaches courses in criminology and socio-legal studies, crime and organizations, and identity crime, as well as introduction to sociology and experiential learning. He also teaches on organizational and psychological aspects of white-collar crime for the Master of Forensic Accounting program.