About Me
I am a Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware, where I study the policing and punishment of juveniles in schools, courts and correctional facilities. I have a PhD and MA in Sociology from New York University, and a BA in Psychology from Boston University. I have published six books, with a seventh forthcoming. They include The Real School Safety Problem: The long-term consequences of harsh school punishment, Homeroom Security: School discipline in an age of fear, and Judging Juveniles: Prosecuting Adolescents in adult and juvenile courts. My work has been published in a variety of academic journals, including Law & Society Review, Social Problems, Justice Quarterly, American Journal of Education, and The British Journal of Criminology. My research has been funded by grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Justice, and I have served in a variety of leadership roles within the American Society of Criminology. I am the recipient of a number of awards, including the American Society of Criminology's Ruth Shonle Cavan Young Scholar Award and the American Society of Criminology’s Michael Hindelang Book Award. I engage in translational research, in which I use sociological research to better understand how we police and punish children, beneficial and harmful ways of doing so, and sources of inequality among youth, and to then engage with public audiences about these topics in discussions about policy.