Dr. Tusty ten Bensel is an Associate Professor and Director of the School of Criminal Justice and Criminology at UA Little Rock. She is also the Director of the Justice Research Policy Center at UA Little Rock. She received her B.A and M.A in Criminal Justice from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and Ph.D. in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
Dr. ten Bensel is a premier scholar specializing in violence and victimology. Her research stems from an interest in understanding the broader social, historical, and political contexts of criminal behavior and desistance, focusing specifically on sexual violence, victimization, neighborhoods and crime/recidivism, and hate crimes against special populations.
She has published more than 25 articles in peer-reviewed journals, such as Criminology, Criminal Justice and Behavior, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, and Criminal Justice Policy Review. She has completed one book and secured multiple grants/contracts. Based on her research on collective sexual violence in warring countries, she was invited to present her work at the Harvard Kennedy School in 2014, where she discussed the collectivization process of sexual violence in Bosnia and Sierra Leone. In 2019, Dr. ten Bensel received the Faculty Excellence Award in Research and Creative Endeavors by the College of Social Science and Communication for her research achievements.