Dear RSF:
Please join us next Wednesday, November 5th, in the library and on Zoom for a presentation by Visiting Scholar Heather Schoenfeld, “21st Century Justice: The Struggle to Decarcerate in the US States.” Click here for a background article which provides a broad framework for her project.
Schoenfeld is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Boston University and holds a secondary appointment at the Boston University’s School of Law. She was the Director of Undergraduate Studies from 2022-20225 and has been at Boston University since 2018. Schoenfeld holds a PhD and an MA in Sociology from Northwestern University and a BA in Urban Studies from Columbia University. Previous appointments include Northwestern University and Ohio State University.
Her book, Building the Prison State: Race and the Politics of Mass Incarceration (University of Chicago Press, 2018), won the American Association of State and Local History Award of Excellence in 2019.
At RSF she and Michael Campbell are examining factors that influenced states to reduce their prison populations in the first decades of the 21st century by investing differences in prison reform activity across states. They are analyzing the obstacles confronting reformers and the strategies employed to overcome these challenges. Their research comprises comparative case studies of six states: New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Georgia and Florida.