Brian Wolf’s research centers on the intersection between organizations, crime and social control. He has published research related to corporate environmental crime, controversies in policing, and international criminology. An ongoing research project, “good trouble,” considers how deviance and deviant behavior may be a source of positive social change. Much of his research contains a broad international and comparative perspective. For example, he has conducted teaching and research projects in Europe and Southeast Asia.

Related to these research interests, Wolf teaches courses on deviance, white-collar crime, comparative criminology, theory and the sociology of sports. He has led several study abroad opportunities for Idaho students, including Idaho Criminology Abroad, a program that brings students interested in criminology to study in London and Amsterdam. Wolf was awarded the 2015 University of Idaho teaching award.

Wolf serves as the institution’s NCAA Faculty Athletics Representative (FAR).

• Deviance
• Crime and Social Control
• Comparative Criminology

• Wolf, B. (2019). Good Trouble: How deviants, criminals, heretics, and outsiders have changed the world for the better.  Lanham MD: Lexington Books
• Wolf, B. (2015). "Using Martin Luther King’s 'Letter from a Birmingham Jail' to Teach the Social Construction of Crime, Deviance and Heroes.” Radical Pedagogy 12(2) 93-112
• Wolf, B. and Zuckerman, P. (2012) “Deviant Heroes: Nonconformists as Agents of Social Change and Justice.” Deviant Behavior (Forthcoming)
• Wolf, B. & DeAngelis, Joseph (2011). “Tasers, Accountability, and Less Lethal Force: Keying in on the Contentious Construction of Police Electroshock Weapons.” International Journal of Criminological and Social Theory. (4)2
• Wolf, B. (2011). “Green-Collar Crime: Environmental Crime and Justice in the Sociological Perspective.” Sociology Compass. 5(7).
• Wolf, B. (2009). Organized Environmental Crime: The composition of corporate noncompliance. New York: Edwin Mellen Press.