About
Daniel B. Kennedy began his career in criminal justice and security administration as a civilian crime analyst with the Detroit Police Department in 1966. Over the next decade, Dr. Kennedy also served as a counselor for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, as a probation officer in Detroit, and as a senior administrator of two police academies in southeastern Michigan. While serving in these capacities, he studied sociology and criminology at Wayne State University, earning B.A. (1967), M.A. (1969), and Ph.D. (1971) degrees.
Since completing his formal education, Dr. Kennedy has had extensive specialized training in various aspects of criminal behavior, policing operations, corrections operations, and private sector security management. He successfully tested for the Certified Protection Professional designation in 1983 and has been recertified every three years since. For the past several years, he has also studied terrorism, antiterrorism, and counterterrorism through participation in focused training at the Naval Postgraduate School and other locations across the U.S., Israel, and Dubai. After spending a year teaching at the College of the Virgin Islands in St. Thomas, USVI, Dan returned to his hometown and accepted a faculty position at the University of Detroit in 1977. In June of 2008, he was honored with the title Professor Emeritus by the President and Deans of the University of Detroit Mercy.
For the past thirty years, Dr. Kennedy has developed expertise in forensic criminology: the application of criminological knowledge to matters of immediate concern to various courts of law. He practices this specialty in three ways: academic publication, participation in litigation as an expert, and teaching. He is widely published in such journals as Journal of Police Science and Administration, Journal of Criminal Justice, Justice Quarterly, Crime and Delinquency, Professional Psychology, Journal of Social Psychology, Criminal Justice and Behavior, FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, Police Quarterly, The Police Chief, Security Journal, Security Management, Journal of Security Administration, Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, American Jails, and a host of others.
In addition, Dr. Kennedy frequently is called to court to testify in cases involving state police agencies, municipal police departments, and county sheriffs’ departments. His testimony generally involves explaining to jurors the appropriate standards of care for the use of deadly force, vehicle pursuits, emergency psychiatric evaluations, prisoner health care, prevention of prisoner suicide, positional asphyxia/excited delirium, and “suicide by cop.” Also, Dr. Kennedy evaluates numerous lawsuits concerning premises liability for negligent security in the private sector involving properties both in the U.S. and overseas. He specializes in crime foreseeability issues, appropriate standards of care in the security industry, and analyses of the behavioral aspects of proximate causation. Dr. Kennedy has had extensive experience studying liability issues pertinent to incidents at apartment complexes, bars and nightclubs, universities, hospitals, shopping malls, entertainment and sports venues, convenience stores, hotels and motels, quick-service restaurants, and a variety of other facilities.
Although Dr. Kennedy taught forensic criminology for many years at the University of Detroit, he is currently teaching as an adjunct at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. He offers courses in profile and threat assessment and homeland security through the university’s criminal justice program. In addition, he continues to research and publish in many areas of forensic criminology, including a recent textbook on the practice of forensic criminology.