He received his AB in History from the University of Missouri-Columbia and MA and Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Missouri-Columbia. His research interests include capital punishment, narcotics and addiction, research methods, and urban studies. Dr. Keys has consulted with municipal, county, and state governments for 17 years on corrections and sentencing issues. His dissertation was a biographical treatment of the career of drug researcher Alfred Lindesmith, that was subsequently published by SUNY Press as Confronting the Drug Control Establishment (2000) with John Galliher.