Andrew Karmen received his Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia University in 1977. Since 1978, he has been a professor in the Sociology Department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He has taught courses on a wide range of subjects including criminal justice, criminology, victimology, crime and justice in New York City, drug abuse, delinquency, social problems, race relations, research methods, statistics and general sociology. Dr. Karmen has written chapters in books as well as journal articles on a number of subjects, including drug abuse, police use of deadly force, auto theft, providing defense attorneys to indigents, victims' rights, the victimization of women and predictions about the plight of crime victims in the future.

His textbook, Crime Victims: An Introduction to Victimology is now in its 6th edition (Wadsworth, 2006). His book, New York Murder Mystery: the true story behind the crime crash of the 1990s (NYU Press, 2000) unearths statistical data that casts doubt on most of the widely held beliefs about the reasons for the sharp drop in New York City's crime rates.