Chris Kunkle MD
Deputy Director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections /Chief Behavioral Health Officer. Dr. Chris Kunkle is a Forensic Psychologist and long-time expert in the evaluation and treatment of violent and mentally ill offenders, with 30 years of experience in criminal investigation, and offender management and treatment. Since 2020 he has been Deputy Director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections where he serves as the agency’s Chief Behavioral Health Officer, leading efforts to provide mental health, addiction services, sex offender treatment and developmental disability services to inmates statewide. Dr. Kunkle is Chair of South Carolina’s Sexually Violent Predator - Multidisciplinary Review Team. As the former Clinical Director of the South Carolina Sexually Violent Predator Treatment Program he previously led the team of clinical professionals tasked with treating those confined under the Sexually Violent Predator act. Dr. Kunkle also served the State of New York as it’s Chief Psychiatric Examiner and Director of Institutional Sex Offender Treatment. There he served as the state’s chief expert on sexual offenders, managed three sex offender civil commitment programs, prison-based sex offender treatment services, and the team of doctoral level experts responsible for evaluations and court testimony related to those confined under New York’s sexually violent predator law. He is a former board member of the Sexual Offender Civil Commitment Program Network, has provided consulting to numerous states on their evaluation and treatment of sexual offenders, and has been awarded and recognized by several entities for his efforts in the advancement of sexual offender management. Dr. Kunkle’s expertise played a key role in the recent resolution of two cold case sexual homicides committed in New York in 1964.