Dr. Victor Rios

Dr. Victor Rios is an award-winning teacher, author, and speaker, currently serving as a Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Rios has worked with local school districts to develop programs and curricula aimed at improving the quality of interactions between authority figures and youth.

Pairing his own research with his personal experience living on the streets, dropping out of school, and being incarcerated as a juvenile, Rios has developed interventions for marginalized students aimed at promoting personal transformation and civic engagement. These programs have been implemented in Los Angeles, California (Watts); juvenile detention facilities; and alternative high schools.

Rios is the creator of the sociological theories, "The Youth Control Complex,” "Racialized Punitive Social Control," and "Cultural Misframing." He is the author of five books including Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys (2011), for which he is the co-winner of the 2013 Oliver Cromwell Cox Award.

Rios has been featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education, on the Oprah Winfrey Network, Primer Impacto, and National Public Radio. His TED Talk, “Help for Kids the Education System Ignores,” has garnered over 1.2 million views. Rios has also advised the Obama administration on gun violence and policing and is the subject of the documentary film The Pushouts. Rios received his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley in 2005.