I am an Assistant Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice and affiliate of Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. I hold a PhD in Justice, Law and Criminology from American University (2016), an MA in Criminology and Criminal Justice from Eastern Michigan University (2011), and a BA in Social Anthropology and Peace and Social Justice from the University of Michigan (2009). Prior to completing my PhD, I spent several years as a community organizer with the Washtenaw County Workers' Center (WCWC), a bilingual worker rights center, where I later served as an interim Board Member. I have also volunteered and worked with a number of immigrant justice and legal aid organizations in Michigan and the DC-area, including the Capital Area Immigrants' Rights Coalition (CAIR Coalition), the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN), Foundation Angie (Fundación Angie), and Justice For Our Neighbors (JFON).
Selected Works: My research brings together the areas of law, deviance, immigration, and power, utilizing interdisciplinary approaches that span the fields of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Law and Society, and Anthropology. My dissertation, in which I examine the relationship between legal consciousness and procedural justice in immigration court vis a vis the experiences of Central American immigrants, exemplifies this. This research was greatly influenced by my experiences as a labor and immigrant rights community organizer, as well as volunteer work with a number of immigrant rights organizations. Using in-depth interviews with immigrants and attorneys, as well as systematic social observation of court proceedings, I uncover the ways legal orientations shape evaluations of process fairness, distributive justice, outcome satisfaction, legitimacy, and compliance. In “Motherhood and Immigration Policy: How Immigration Law Shapes Central Americans’ Experiences of Family,” I explore gendered themes found in the dissertation through the reexamination of a single deportation case. I argue that immigration law produces “legal” and “illegal” immigrants and redefines the meaning—and experience—of denizenship. Of equal importance, I note how immigration law produces “good” and “bad” mothers and, ultimately, has the power to redefine the meaning and experience of motherhood altogether.
Like my dissertation work, much of my scholarship engages multiple disciplines and diverse research methods, including surveys, interviews, social observation, ethnography, and content analysis. For example, in “Popular Media and the Death Penalty: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Death Penalty in Film,” I use linguistic analysis to examine death penalty discourse and messaging in popular film. I argue that American death penalty films construct messages that reaffirm or contest the death penalty by strategically avoiding or emphasizing execution. It is through this strategic positioning of execution within death penalty films that death penalty discourse and, indeed, discourse about the American criminal justice system itself, is created, translated, and produced for consumption by audiences. In “Collaborative State and Corporate Crime: Fraud, Unions and Elite Power in Mexico,” I draw upon archival work, along with fieldwork in Northern Mexico, to introduce the concept of “collaborative state and corporate crime,” highlighting the ways in which governments and corporations collaboratively commit harm in the interest of shared goals and ideology. In Capital Defense: Inside the Lives of America's Death Penalty Lawyers, my coauthor and I conducted over 60 in-depth interviews with capital defense attorneys from across the country, exploring the many facets of capital practice. Among other topics, the book covers issues of race and gender, the attorney-client relationship, and the effects of capital work on those involved. Learn more about the book here.
I have also carried out theory-rich scholarship, as evidenced in “Re-Imagining Punishment: An Exercise in ‘Intersectional Criminal Justice,’” which draws upon alternative criminologies to present a new model of “intersectional” criminal justice that combines aspects of adversarial, restorative, social, and transformative justice frameworks. Some of my favorite research endeavors have been collaborative projects utilizing mixed methods, such as a study of the Occupy Movement protestors’ attitudes toward use of violence against the police in Washington, DC, and New York City, as well as an examination of the transnational capacity of the notorious criminal gang, MS-13, drawing upon surveys and interviews with gang members and law enforcement experts in El Salvador and the United States. Ultimately, while varied, my work is united by a constant exploration of structural inequalities in the American criminal justice and immigration systems, as well as attention to the ways in which criminal justice actors and laypeople understand their subjective experiences with crime, crime control, and the law.
Future Aspirations: I am currently collaborating on several projects including a comprehensive national survey of immigration attorneys’ perceptions of justice, as well as an exploration of procedural justice, legitimacy, and compliance in the U.S. immigration context. I also plan to to extend my existing research into a comparative analysis of the lives and work of immigration lawyers and capital defense attorneys, the legal consciousness of MS-13 gang members, and examinations of the parallels between marginalized and hyper-surveilled immigrant and inner-city minority communities.
Selected Works: My research brings together the areas of law, deviance, immigration, and power, utilizing interdisciplinary approaches that span the fields of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Law and Society, and Anthropology. My dissertation, in which I examine the relationship between legal consciousness and procedural justice in immigration court vis a vis the experiences of Central American immigrants, exemplifies this. This research was greatly influenced by my experiences as a labor and immigrant rights community organizer, as well as volunteer work with a number of immigrant rights organizations. Using in-depth interviews with immigrants and attorneys, as well as systematic social observation of court proceedings, I uncover the ways legal orientations shape evaluations of process fairness, distributive justice, outcome satisfaction, legitimacy, and compliance. In “Motherhood and Immigration Policy: How Immigration Law Shapes Central Americans’ Experiences of Family,” I explore gendered themes found in the dissertation through the reexamination of a single deportation case. I argue that immigration law produces “legal” and “illegal” immigrants and redefines the meaning—and experience—of denizenship. Of equal importance, I note how immigration law produces “good” and “bad” mothers and, ultimately, has the power to redefine the meaning and experience of motherhood altogether.
Like my dissertation work, much of my scholarship engages multiple disciplines and diverse research methods, including surveys, interviews, social observation, ethnography, and content analysis. For example, in “Popular Media and the Death Penalty: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Death Penalty in Film,” I use linguistic analysis to examine death penalty discourse and messaging in popular film. I argue that American death penalty films construct messages that reaffirm or contest the death penalty by strategically avoiding or emphasizing execution. It is through this strategic positioning of execution within death penalty films that death penalty discourse and, indeed, discourse about the American criminal justice system itself, is created, translated, and produced for consumption by audiences. In “Collaborative State and Corporate Crime: Fraud, Unions and Elite Power in Mexico,” I draw upon archival work, along with fieldwork in Northern Mexico, to introduce the concept of “collaborative state and corporate crime,” highlighting the ways in which governments and corporations collaboratively commit harm in the interest of shared goals and ideology. In Capital Defense: Inside the Lives of America's Death Penalty Lawyers, my coauthor and I conducted over 60 in-depth interviews with capital defense attorneys from across the country, exploring the many facets of capital practice. Among other topics, the book covers issues of race and gender, the attorney-client relationship, and the effects of capital work on those involved. Learn more about the book here.
I have also carried out theory-rich scholarship, as evidenced in “Re-Imagining Punishment: An Exercise in ‘Intersectional Criminal Justice,’” which draws upon alternative criminologies to present a new model of “intersectional” criminal justice that combines aspects of adversarial, restorative, social, and transformative justice frameworks. Some of my favorite research endeavors have been collaborative projects utilizing mixed methods, such as a study of the Occupy Movement protestors’ attitudes toward use of violence against the police in Washington, DC, and New York City, as well as an examination of the transnational capacity of the notorious criminal gang, MS-13, drawing upon surveys and interviews with gang members and law enforcement experts in El Salvador and the United States. Ultimately, while varied, my work is united by a constant exploration of structural inequalities in the American criminal justice and immigration systems, as well as attention to the ways in which criminal justice actors and laypeople understand their subjective experiences with crime, crime control, and the law.
Future Aspirations: I am currently collaborating on several projects including a comprehensive national survey of immigration attorneys’ perceptions of justice, as well as an exploration of procedural justice, legitimacy, and compliance in the U.S. immigration context. I also plan to to extend my existing research into a comparative analysis of the lives and work of immigration lawyers and capital defense attorneys, the legal consciousness of MS-13 gang members, and examinations of the parallels between marginalized and hyper-surveilled immigrant and inner-city minority communities.
