Dr. Andy Bain, assistant professor of criminal justice studies at Westminster College and an expert in gangs, has earned the 2024 Frederic Milton Thrasher Award for Superior Accomplishments in Gang Research.

Bain is a two-time winner of the Thrasher Award, given by the National Gang Crime Research Center (NGCRC) for outstanding scholarship, leadership and service contributions related to public safety issues. In 2016 he was recognized for Superior Research in Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs OMCG). In 2019 the NGCRC recognized Bain’s efforts and awarded him expert status in Gangs and Transnational Organized Crime.

Over the past 20 years, Bain has authored and co-authored numerous academic texts examining the professional role in the criminal justice system, crime and behavior and OMCGs. He, along with colleagues Dr. Mark Lauchs and Dr. Peter Bell, provided the first theoretical discourse of motorcycle gangs.

Along with Lauchs, Bain is the editor of “Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs: International Perspectives - Vol. I and II,” available from Carolina Academic Press.  He is the editor of “Law Enforcement and Technology” (2016), available from Palgrave-McMillan, and co-author of “Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs: A Theoretical Perspective” (2015), also available from Palgrave-McMillan.

Bain has been published in several leading international academic and professional journals on subjects such as policing local communities, desistance from crime and gang membership.

His current research interests include gangs and their membership, gangs and the internet, policing technology, policing and social groups, the social psychology of offending and risk-taking behavior and the psychology of crime and behavior.

Bain, who joined the Westminster College faculty in 2023, earned his undergraduate degree from Southampton University and his master’s and doctorate from University of Portsmouth, both in the U.K. Prior to Westminster, he taught at University of Portsmouth and University of Mount Union.

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