José Miguel Cruz is the director of research at the Kimberly Green Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (LACC) at Florida International University (FIU) in Miami, and a visiting professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the same university. Previously, he was director of the Institute for Public Opinion (IUDOP) at the Central American University (UCA) in San Salvador. He is an expert in the areas of criminal violence, gangs, police, democratization and public opinion in Central America. He has published over one-hundred scholarly articles and four books on political culture, violence and gangs. Cruz has a Ph.D. in Political Science from Vanderbilt University, a master’s degree in public policy from Oxford University, a degree in psychology from the University of Central America and studies in public health from the University of El Salvador.