Research

Race, Family, and Institutions of Social Control

One of my research areas examines the implications of child welfare and criminal legal system contact for family life, with a focus on racial/ethnic inequality. For this work I use both survey and administrative data, including data from the Family History of Incarceration Survey, National Longitudinal Studies, National Survey of Child and Adolescent Wellbeing, National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System, and state and local administrative data. My work in this area includes:

Social Segregation and Separation

Another research area examines racial/ethnic categorization and immigrant status and generation as dimensions of social and spatial stratification and inequality in the social lives of people in the U.S., particularly among those who are Latinx or of Hispanic ethnicity. My work in this area includes:

Public Opinion, the Criminal Legal System, and Inequality

In a new branch of my research, I explore civic and political engagement in relation to the criminal legal system, as a domain of social life impacted by the criminal legal system as well as as one that, in turn, can shape and influence criminal legal institutions and actors. Currently, this work includes a collaboration with Peter Enns and Christopher Wildeman in which we offer a theoretical argument and empirical evidence for why carceral contact may be negatively associated with trust in the state but not necessarily civic participation and community engagement. This area of research also includes a collaboration with Jamie Rowen, Kelsey Shoub, Cindy Xiong, Kathryn Reynolds, and Hamza Elhamdadi in which we used a mixed-methods and multipronged study of a progressive prosecutorial jurisdiction to examine disparities in prosecutorial processes, the role that discretion and decision-making may play in shaping disparate outcomes, as well as the potential promise and pitfalls of data-sharing and transparency for the actualization of goals of progressive reform in prosecution.