Mari Kong has worked in the San Diego Police Department for the past 17 years. She worked her first eight years as a patrol officer out of Southern Division, which is the area closest to the border between the U.S. and Mexico. For the past nine years, she’s worked out of Eastern Division, an area in central San Diego, first as a patrol officer and currently as Acting Detective. In her role as detective, she investigates a wide range of criminal cases, from petty theft to kidnapping. Embracing her cultural heritage, Mari is an active member of the National Latino Peace Officers Association and the Pan Pacific Law Enforcement Association.
Mari has a BS in health education and an MA in criminal justice from Chapman University. She also earned an MA and a PhD in human and organizational systems from Fielding Graduate University. Her personal and professional experiences provided the impetus for her dissertation, “Being Brown on the Thin Blue Line: A Narrative Inquiry of the Lived Experiences of Latinas Within the Institution of Policing.” As a scholar-practitioner, Mari specializes in using structural inequality as a conceptual standpoint for understanding.
Learn more about Professor Kong in her Faculty Spotlight.
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