Dr George Walters-Sleyon

Dr. George Walters-Sleyon is an Author, Professor, Speaker, and Consultant with an interdisciplinary and broad international academic background.

He possesses skills in cross-cultural and racial competence, adaptability to diverse academic environments, understanding global issues, engaging with diverse curricula, and participating in international research or academic projects.

Education and Academic Roles
He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland/United Kingdom, where he studied: Comparative Criminal Justice/Criminology, Practical Theology, and Applied Ethics. He holds a Master of Divinity (M.Div.) and a postgraduate master’s degree (S.T.M.) from Boston University in Philosophy, Social Ethics, and Religion/Theology. Walters-Sleyon has served as a Tutor at the School of Law and the School of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh, where he also taught Introduction to Criminal Justice and Introduction to Criminology.

He is a McDonald Distinguished Fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. Dr. Walters-Sleyon earned a teaching certificate as an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA) of the United Kingdom and is an Associate Fellow of the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research. He presently teaches Introduction to Philosophy, Applied Ethics, World Religions, Introduction to Criminology, and Principles of Sociology.

Research themes:  Social Justice and Penal Ethics | Police Brutality and Race | Religion, the Law, and Penal Policies | Comparative Criminal Justice: The US and the UK | Slavery, Race, and the Modern Penal System | Religion, Criminology, Criminal Justice | Prison Chaplaincy and Mass Incarceration | Knowledge Exchange and Engagement.

As an author Dr. Walters-Sleyon has published six books and several publications, most recently:

• The Rush for Black Diamonds Volume Two. (2025)
• The Rush for Black Diamonds Volume One. (2024)
• God in the Name of Jesus Christ. (2022)
• Prison Chaplains on the Beat in US and UK Prisons: Caring for Aging, Dying, and Dead Prisoners. (2021)
• Nuggets from the Night: An Anthology of Poetic Expressions (2020)
• Locked Up and Locked Down: Multitude Lingers in Limbo Revised Edition (2017).

His two-volume book entitled “The Rush for Black Diamonds.” “Black Diamonds” is a reference to the use of Black Africans as economic units during the transatlantic slave trade and its mutations into chattel slavery, colonial slavery, and penal slavery post-1970 in the United States and the United Kingdom. Volume One specifically explores the roles of John Locke and Thomas Jefferson as architects of the philosophical justifications for the slave trade and the subsequent racial marginalization of Black people.

Websites: www.georgewalterssleyon.com and www.amazon.com/author/georgewalterssleyon