Juvenile Justice
A – J
Laura Abrams, UCLA
Professor & Chair, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES
Email: abrams@luskin.ucla.edu
Website: https://luskin.ucla.edu/person/laura-abrams
About: Laura S. Abrams, MSW, PhD is Professor and Chair of Social Welfare at UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Her ethnographic scholarship has critically examined experiences of youth in the US justice system through reentry and the transition to adulthood. Currently she is pursuing research in the area of youth justice policy, urban youth civic engagement, and the aftermath of youth sentenced to life in prison. She is the author of two award winning ethnographic books: Compassionate Confinement: A Year in the Life of Unit C (2013, Rutgers University Press) and Everyday Desistance: The Transition to Adulthood Among Formerly Incarcerated Youth (2017, Rutgers University Press) and over 85 peer reviewed articles. She is the lead editor of The Voluntary Sector in Prisons: Encouraging Personal and Institutional Change (2016, Palgrave) co-editor of The Palgrave International Handbook of Youth Imprisonment (2021, Palgrave), and co-author of the monograph Pathways to Civic Engagement Among Urban Youth of Color (2020, Society for Research on Child Development).
Kate Barrow
Consultant and Trainer
Email: info@katebarrow.com
Website: https://www.katebarrow.com and www.trainingforjustice.com
About: Kate Barrow, LCSW, specializes in trauma-informed and anti-oppressive approaches to social services, management, and systems change work. She has expertise in criminal justice, mental health, trauma, racial justice, and youth development. She currently works as a nonprofit management trainer, organizational consultant, clinical supervisor, and management coach, with an emphasis on criminal justice settings.
A nonprofit manager for 15 years, Kate spent nearly a decade working in the criminal justice system. From 2015-2018 she directed a professional development institute for an interdisciplinary criminal justice agency in New York City. In this role she led the professional development initiatives for a staff of over 500, and directed 150 hours of trainings annually. Previously, she directed clinical programs in court-based, social service, and foster care settings, with a focus on systems-involved youth. She has been an adjunct professor at New York University, and John Jay College through the Prisoner Reentry Institute. Kate was previously named an emerging social work leader by the National Association of Social Workers New York City Chapter for her work incorporating social justice values into clinical work.
Kate completed her BA at Naropa University in Contemplative Psychology, her MSW at the Silver School of Social Work at NYU, and an advanced certificate in clinical supervision through Smith College. She is a licensed clinical social worker in the state of New York.
Kimberly A. Bender, Denver University
Professor & Associate Dean for Doctoral Education, DENVER UNIVERSITY
Email: kimberly.bender@du.edu
Website: https://socialwork.du.edu/about/gssw-directory/kimberly-ann-bender
About: Professor Kimberly Bender serves as Associate Dean for Doctoral Education. Her recent research includes a study of gender-specific pathways from childhood maltreatment to juvenile delinquency among youth in the child welfare system. Bender’s research aims to improve services and develop empirically based interventions for adolescents at risk of problem behavior. She recently contributed to an intervention research project on methods for engaging runaway youth in substance-use treatment funded by the National Institute for Drug Abuse.
Kristin Bolton, UNC Wilmington
Assistant Professor, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT WILMINGTON
Email: boltonk@uncw.edu
Website: https://uncw.edu/chhs/swk/about/bio/kristinbolton.html
About: Dr. Kristin W. Bolton is an Associate Professor and MSW Program Coordinator in the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Her research interests include: youth violence prevention, re-entry services, healthy psychological development, and the evidence base of solution focused brief therapy with violent and non-violent offenders.
Brita Bookser, UC Berkeley
Doctoral Candidate, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY
Email: britabookser@berkeley.edu
Website: https://socialwelfare.berkeley.edu/people/phd-students
About: Brita A. Bookser’s research interests include early care and education, education policy, carceral logics in education, feminist anti-carceral studies, womanism, and critical race theory. Her research-praxis agenda is facilitated by varied agency partnerships that explore policies and pedagogies for inclusion and civic engagement. Bookser’s qualitatively-driven mixed-method dissertation explores a typology of exclusionary discipline measures in preschools and examines how structural factors influence exclusionary tactics in early care and education settings.
Charlotte Lyn Bright, Colorado State University
Professor & Director of the School of Social Work, COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY
Email: charlotte.bright@colostate.edu
Website: https://www.chhs.colostate.edu/bio-page/charlotte-bright-8152/
About: My research focuses on populations and services within the child welfare and juvenile justice systems, with specific interests in gender, trauma, and implementation of best practices.
Rob Butters, University of Utah
Assistant Professor, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH
Email: rob.butters@socwk.utah.edu
Website: https://faculty.utah.edu/u0050005-ROB_BUTTERS/teaching/index.hml
Christino Chavez, New York University
Adjunct Professor, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
Email: cnc350@nyu.edu
Website: https://socialwork.nyu.edu/faculty-and-research/our-faculty/adjuncts/bios-a-c.html#chavez
About: My research interests and professional experience revolve around criminal and juvenile justice, gang violence and membership, racism in justice, restorative justice practices, mental health and trauma, policies and legislations regarding criminal justice, and immigration.
Wesley T. Church, II, LSU
J. Franklin Bayhi Endowed Professor, LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY
Email: wesleyc@lsu.edu
Website: https://www.lsu.edu/chse/socialwork/faculty-staff/church.php
About: My research agenda has been concentrated in two areas. First, I have been examining issues facing children and adolescents and their families. I am interested in the impact of race, socio-economic status, gender, education, crime, and family on the involvement of children and their families as they navigate their way through major systems (i.e. welfare, justice, and healthcare). Second, I have been exploring personal perceptions and attitudes towards offenders, focusing on sexual offenders and mentally ill offenders. I use an interdisciplinary approach in my research and utilize resources derived from criminal justice, psychology, history, minority studies, social work, gerontology, and rural studies.
Dominique Courts, UCONN
Graduate Student, UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT
Email: Dominique.Courts@uconn.edu
Website: https://ssw.uconn.edu/person/c-l-dominique-courts-ma-mft/#
About: After graduating from NYU with a bachelor’s degree in Applied Psychology with a concentration in Social and Cultural Analysis, Dominique Courts, MA, MFT, earned a clinical master’s degree in Human Development and Family Studies with a specialization in Marriage and Family Therapy at UCONN. Following her work as a therapist, Dominique is now a Crandall-Cordero fellow at The UCONN School of Social Work and invested in affecting change on an institutional and systems level.
As a doctoral student, she is particularly interested in using a reproductive and healing justice framework to understand the healing process for people, who live with intersecting marginalized identities, especially lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual and queer individuals of color. The lack of visibility and research around LGBTQ people of color led her to be passionate about conducting mixed-methods and participatory action research to explore various aspects of their lived experiences. Ultimately, Dominique desires to amplify the voices of marginalized populations in her research and use collaborative and empowering research methods and accessible dissemination techniques.
Throughout the CT community, Dominique also facilitates workshops and groups focused on relationships, LGBTQ identities and other topics related to social justice and healing. She centers the lived experiences and needs of the individuals at the intersections of race, sexuality, gender and ability in her research, teaching, clinical and community work and advocacy.
Marcus Crawford, Fresno State University
Associate Professor, FRESNO STATE UNIVERSITY
Email: marcuscrawford@csufresno.edu
Website: https://chhs.fresnostate.edu/about/directory/social-work/crawford-marcus.html
About: Child welfare, juvenile justice, criminal justice reform.
Matthew J. Cuellar, University of Alaska-Anchorage
Professor, UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA-ANCHORAGE
Pronouns: he/him/his
Email: mjcuellar@alaska.edu
About: Scholarship focuses on school violence and school security. Teaching expertise incudes mental health and juvenile justice.
Aditi Das, UC Berkeley
Post-Doctoral Scholar, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY
Email: aditidas@berkeley.edu
About: Aditi Das is a former Postdoctoral Scholar at the Mack Center on Nonprofit and Public Sector Management in the Human Services at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Das’s research focuses on strengthening upstream human service delivery for vulnerable children, youth and families while assessing sustainability of reform efforts within complex human service organizations. In close partnership with California Bay Area counties, Aditi lead three projects focused on 1) understanding client and frontline worker perspectives on recent TANF policy reforms, 2) showcasing innovative county practices within child welfare and welfare-to-work services, and 3) building a compendium of age-friendly initiatives for adult and aging services. Her dissertation supported by a competitive grant from the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at the University of Chicago, focuses on the implementation of restorative justice reform within an urban public-school district to address the school-to-prion pipeline. Her work has been published at premier social work journals such as Contemporary Justice Review, Youth and Society and has presented her work at various national conferences including the Society for Social Work and Research, Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management and Network for Social Work Management. Dr. Das completed her PhD from the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration and her MSW from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India.
Research Interests: Youth violence prevention, Juvenile Justice, Restorative justice, Informal social control and public safety.
Teaching Interests: Youth violence prevention, Cross national ideation on juvenile crime and delinquency, Restorative justice and alternative approaches to crime and prevention
Dana Dehart, University of South Carolina
ASSISTANT DEAN FOR RESEARCH, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
Email: dana.dehart@sc.edu
Website: http://cosw.sc.edu/faculty/dana-dehart
Dr. DeHart’s specialty area is violence and victimization. She has been Principal Investigator on many grants and contracts addressing issues such as victimization and survivor services, impact of incarceration on families, gendered pathways to adult and juvenile offending, mental health and substance abuse, and predatory sexual behavior. Dr. DeHart has expertise in a range of qualitative and quantitative methods and has conducted hundreds of interviews with adult and juvenile offenders, crime victims, justice professionals, and human-service providers. Dr. DeHart is experienced in needs assessment, program evaluation, scale design, and ethical research design.
Jeff Edwards, University of South Carolina Upstate
INSTRUCTOR OF CHILD ADVOCACY STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA UPSTATE
Website: https://sam.research.sc.edu/uscera/facultyExpertise/cv/35304#bio
Liz Espinoza, College of Saint Rose
VISITING ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, COLLEGE OF SAINT ROSE
Email: espinozl@strose.edu
Liz Espinoza has forensic social work experience at state government level in NY.
Michael Fendrich, UCONN
PROFESSOR AND ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR RESEARCH, UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT
Email: michael.fendrich@uconn.edu
Website: https://ssw.uconn.edu/person/michael-fendrich-phd/
I conduct research on interventions for mental health and substance use in vulnerable and high risk populations. My work has examined the impact of drug treatment courts in addressing the needs of heroin involved participants and emerging adults. My work has also examined the role of alternative criminal justice interventions specifically focused on juveniles in the criminal justice system. Most recently, I am developing mindful interventions for opioid involved adults reentering the community from the criminal justice system.
Carina Gallo, San Francisco State University
Associate Professor, CRIMINAL JUSTICE STUDIES, SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY
Email: cgallo@sfsu.edu
Website: https://cj.sfsu.edu/people/faculty/carina-gallo
About: My scholarship addresses historical and international trends in crime and welfare policies, with particular attention to how policies and laws intending to support underrepresented and marginalized groups have developed over the last century. I am especially interested in the “criminalization” of poverty and the penalization of vulnerable populations. One of my recent research projects examines how categories in crime policy, such as the “crime victim,” have crossed over to welfare law and policy. The study shows how new categories can change the way policy makers and practitioners conceptualize social problems, in particular, poverty and inequality. I’m currently working on a book exploring the roots of the Swedish victim movement. This book is vital to informing the literature how different societies have approached issues related to crime and victims.
I am also a trained social worker. Before entering academia, I worked with many different actors involved in the criminal justice system. For instance, between 2001 and 2006 I was the director of a nongovernmental victim support center, which provides services to over 500 crime victims per year.
Amanda Geller, University of California at Irvine
Associate Professor, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT IRVINE
Email: amanda.geller@uci.edu
Website: https://amandagellerphd.com/
About: The focus of my research is twofold: examining the causes and effects of incarceration for men and their families, and examining racial disparities in the administration of justice.
Lauri Goldkind, Fordham University
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY
Email: goldkind@fordham.edu
Website: https://www.fordham.edu/info/24281/gss_full-time_faculty_profiles/11298/lauri_goldkind
Dr. Goldkind has a longstanding interest and practice background in nonprofit leadership, capacity building and organizational development. Her practice experience has been centered in the youth development, education and juvenile justice realms. Prior to joining the faculty at Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service, she served as the Director of the Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services’ (CASES) School Connection Center, a public school admissions office for youth exiting the justice system. She was instrumental in developing the Center’s operational infrastructure, including creating and maintaining all data systems and documenting the Center’s progress. She also helped craft policy and develop data management applications at Community Prep High School, a school for young people transitioning back to their communities from the juvenile justice system. Before that she held program planning and fund raising positions at agencies serving young people in New York City, including the Posse Foundation, where she was the first director of development.
Dr. Goldkind’s current research work centers on the intersection of the juvenile justice and public education system’s impact on urban youth. She is presently conducting a national study of school social workers exploring their role in the school re-entry process of juvenile justice youth. Dr. Goldkind is also interested in domestic trafficking issues and is partnering with the Girls Education Mentoring Services (GEMS) to document their programmatic model and highlight the complex and unexplored issues of girls who are commercially sexually exploited.
Sara Goodkind, University of Pittsburgh
Associate Professor, UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
Email: sara.goodkind@pitt.edu
Website: https://www.socialwork.pitt.edu/people/sara-goodkind
About: Dr. Goodkind’s research and scholarship focus on marginalized youth and the inequities they experience. Much of her work examines social service programs and systems that work with young people, concentrating on young people’s experiences in educational, child welfare, and juvenile justice systems and how these systems both construct and meet the needs of the young people they serve. Dr. Goodkind developed her scholarly interests as a result of working with youth, as a teacher, mentor, facilitator, and social worker. She utilizes a critical perspective in her work to examine understandings of gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and age that shape service design and delivery and then to explore the effects of this service provision, with the aim of ensuring that interventions are culturally relevant, gender responsive, fair, and effective. Dr. Goodkind’s research also focuses on institutional biases and systemic inequities, tracing young people’s pathways through systems and providing evidence and advocacy for much-needed policy change. Much of this work is via community-based participatory research projects that engage youth as collaborators in effecting systemic change.
Woojae Han, Soongsil University
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, SOONGSIL UNIVERSITY
Email: whan@ssu.ac.kr
Woojae Han is an assistant professor of School of Social Work at Soongsil University in Korea. His research focuses on alternative court system, community rehabilitation for offenders with mental illness, and behavioral health disparities for populations at risk.
R. Anna Hayward, Stony Brook University
Associate Professor, STONYBROOK UNIVERSITY
Email: Anna.hayward@stonybrook.edu
Website: https://socialwelfare.stonybrookmedicine.edu/faculty-staff/hayward
Andre Ivanoff, Columbia University
Professor, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK
Email: ami2@columbia.edu
Website: https://socialwork.columbia.edu/faculty-research/faculty/full-time/andre-ivanoff/
About: Dr. André Ivanoff has over 25 years of clinical and research experience in mental health, criminal justice and forensic settings. These include Seattle Emergency Housing Service, the Outpatient Psychiatry Clinic of the University of Washington Medical Center, the New York City Police Department and over two dozen adult and juvenile forensic/correctional settings in the United States and internationally. She presents widely at conferences, the most recent include Public Responsibility in Research & Medicine, the Association for Cognitive and Behavior Therapies, and the CMHS National GAINS Center conference.
Melissa Jonson-Reid, Washington University, St. Louis
Ralph and Muriel Pumphrey Professor of Social Work Research, WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS
Email: jonsonrd@wustl.edu
Website: https://brownschool.wustl.edu/Faculty-and-Research/Pages/Melissa-Jonson-Reid.aspx
Nev Jones, University of Pittsburgh
Associate Professor, UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
Email: nevjones@pitt.edu
Website: https://www.socialwork.pitt.edu/people/nev-jones
About: Interests include policing and the role of police in mental health crisis response, mental health courts, peer-led diversion and re-entry programs and critical perspectives on abolition and decarceration. Research centers those with direct experience of psychiatric disabilities and/or intersectional experiences of systems involvement.
K – Z
Elisa Kawam
Email: ekawam@gmail.com
About: I have my bachelors, masters, and doctorate in social work which is my true passion. My main area of work has concerned on children, youth, and families in the areas of poverty, violence, substance use, abuse, and child welfare. Motivated by my experiences in child welfare, most of my work recently has been specific to mothers, trauma, and PTSD. Specifically, examining the mediating and moderating influences that attachment and the social environment have on family stability, trauma symptomology, and overall resiliency. I also have extensive experience in mezzo and macro aspects of social work including communities, policy, advocacy, grant writing, teaching, and research. I am an Associate Professor of social work and in my free time enjoy hiking, yoga, cooking, reading and spending time with my pets/family. Please feel free to reach out to me at anytime with questions, comments, or collaborations.
Topic Areas:
- Juvenile Justice
- Policy and Courts
- Restorative Justice
- Gender and Sexuality
Jennifer Kellman Fritz, Eastern Michigan University
Director & Professor, EASTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY
Email: jkellman@emich.edu
Website: https://www.emich.edu/chhs/social-work/faculty/j_kellman-fritz.php
Erin Kerrison, UC Berkeley
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY
Email: kerrison@berkeley.edu
Website: http://socialwelfare.berkeley.edu/faculty/erin-kerrison
My research and teaching interests extend from a legal epidemiological framework, wherein law and legal institutions operate as social determinants of health. Specifically, through varied agency partnerships, my mixed-method research agenda investigates the impact that compounded structural disadvantage, concentrated poverty and state supervision has on service delivery, substance abuse, violence and other health outcomes for individuals and communities marked by criminal justice intervention.
Jean Kjellstrand, University of Oregon
Associate Professor, UNIVERSITY OF OREGON
Email: jeank@uoregon.edu
Website: https://education.uoregon.edu/people/faculty/jeank
About: Dr. Jean Kjellstrand, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family and Human Services at the University of Oregon, focuses on parental incarceration. Specifically, she examines how parental incarceration impacts child development, and how to support children and their parents both during and after incarceration. Her goal is to create effective interventions that are affordable, acceptable, and sustainable within existing delivery systems. Before entering academics, Dr. Kjellstrand was a licensed social worker for over 15 years. During this period, she developed and coordinated several individual, group, and community interventions to support and empower children and families in high-risk circumstances.
Karen Kolivoski, Howard University
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, HOWARD UNIVERSITY
Email: karen.kolivoski@howard.edu
Website: https://www.karenkolivoski.com and https://twitter.com/KKolivoski
My research interests focus on crossover youth, specifically on understanding how factors in children and youths’ experiences within the child welfare system impact subsequent juvenile and criminal justice system involvement. I am especially interested in understanding the role of out of home placements within the child welfare system, youths’ relationships and perceptions of their child welfare caseworkers, and sibling and family influences as related to criminal justice outcomes. I also have interest and experience in transfer of youths to the adult system and juvenile life without parole, including the misconduct/experiences of youth in prisons. In regards to teaching, I teach in the criminal justice field of practice specialization in the MSW program at Howard University.
Jax Kynn, Michigan State University
Doctoral Student, MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
Pronouns: they/them/their
Email: kynnjami@msu.edu
Website: https://socialwork.msu.edu/PhD/doctoral-directory/kynn-jax.html
About: Jax’s research interests include sexual and gender minority youth and the role of involvement in the juvenile justice and child welfare systems as sites of institutional betrayal. With a background in policy evaluation, their research interrogates systemic oppression as it manifests through inter-institutional practices and policies to promote systems change.
Husain Lateef, Washington University in St. Louis
Assistant Professor, BROWN SCHOOL AT WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY OF ST. LOUIS
Email: hlateef@wustl.edu
Website: https://brownschool.wustl.edu/faculty-and-research/husain-lateef/
About: Dr. Husain Lateef’s research intersects with his practice experience working with serious juvenile offenders by advancing scholarship to inform reentry for this population post-conviction. His scholarship also examines issues related to misattributions of criminal risk to ethnic minority populations with implications for reentry policy. He teaches courses related to preparing social work students to work with criminal justice-involved adults, forensic social work practice & criminal justice policy & interventions.
Charles H. Lea III, Columbia University
Assistant Professor, UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON
Email: chl2159@columbia.edu
Website: https://socialwork.columbia.edu/directory/charles-h-lea-iii
About: Dr. Lea’s research and scholarship investigate the intersectionality of race/ethnicity, class, and gender in educational, correctional, and neighborhood contexts, and the impact these issues have on the health and well-being of young Black men and boys at risk and involved in the juvenile and criminal punishment systems. The overarching aims of this work is to develop knowledge and build theory that informs policies, practices, and interventions that can promote resilience and healthy development among young Black men and boys’, as well as lessen their risk for health-compromising behaviors, arrest, incarceration, and recidivism.
George Leibowitz, Stony Brook University
Professor, STONY BROOK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WELFARE
Email: George.Leibowitz@stonybrookmedicine.edu
Website: https://socialwelfare.stonybrookmedicine.edu/faculty-staff/leibowitz
About: For the past 20 years, I have been working as an interdisciplinary researcher, forensic evaluator, national consultant and trainer in the related fields of adolescent delinquency, addictions, sexually harmful behavior among youth, and adult sexually offending behavior. I am interested in research on sex offender registry reform, restorative justice, and compassionate release laws. I am also a member of the National Association of Forensic Social Work recently co-authored the following textbook: Maschi, T. & Leibowitz, G.S. (Eds.) (2018). Forensic social work: Psychosocial and legal issues across diverse populations and settings (2nd Ed.). New York: Springer Publishing Company.
Patricia Logan-Greene, University at Buffalo
Associate Professor, UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO
Email: pblogang@buffalo.edu
Website: https://socialwork.buffalo.edu/faculty-research/full-time-faculty/pblogang.html
About: Interest areas include victimization and perpetration of violence, juvenile justice, violence against women, child maltreatment, adverse childhood experiences, and violence prevention.
Tina Maschi, Fordham University
PROFESSOR, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SERVICE IN NEW YORK CITY
Email: tmaschi@fordham.edu
Website: https://www.fordham.edu/info/24281/gss_full-time_faculty_profiles/7181/tina_maschi
Tina Maschi, PhD, LCSW, ACSW, is a full professor at Fordham University’s Graduate School of Social Service in New York City. Her research is at the intersection of human rights, aging, health/mental, and criminal justice. She has over 100 peer reviewed publications and book chapters. Dr Maschi is the former associate editor of Traumatology published by the American Psychiatric Association and author and/or editor of four books, including Forensic Social Work: Psychosocial and Legal Issues Across Diverse Populations and Settings and A Human Rights Approach to Social Work Research and Evaluation: A Rights Research Manifesto and the and the soon to be released, “Aging Behind Prison Walls: Stories of Trauma and Resilience” published by Columbia University Press. She is also a licensed clinical social worker with extensive practice experience (including the use of creative arts techniques) in correctional, school, and community mental health settings. She currently teaches research and practice courses in for the Bachelor’s, Master’s, and doctoral program, including qualitative methods, at Fordham’s Lincoln Center and Westchester campuses.
Susan McCarter, UNC Charlotte
Associate Professor, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA, CHARLOTTE
Email: smccarter@uncc.edu
Website: https://pages.uncc.edu/smccar17/
About: Dr. McCarter’s career began as a juvenile probation officer, inner-city mental health counselor, and policy analyst and advocate in Virginia. For over 20 years she has served as a Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) Scholar (now Racial and Ethnic Disparities (RED)) and a forensic practitioner. Nationally, Dr. McCarter serves as an expert juvenile justice forensic witness, on the board of the National Organization of Forensic Social Work, and chairs the Society of Social Work and Research’s Criminal and Juvenile Justice Interest Group. Regionally, she co-chairs the NC RED Subcommittee and the Charlotte Racial Justice Consortium (funded by the AAC&U and dedicated to truth, racial healing and transformation), and serves on the leadership team for Race Matters for Juvenile Justice as well as their Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE) Team. Dr. McCarter currently facilitates the UNC Charlotte Racial Equity Skill Building Caucus and leads multiple funded research studies examining the School-to-Prison Pipeline (STPP), Juvenile Diversion, and Racial Equity.
Henrika McCoy, University of Denver
Professor, UNIVERSITY OF DENVER
Email: hmccoy@uic.edu
Website: https://socialwork.du.edu/about/gssw-directory/henrika-mccoy
About: My research primarily focuses on the intersection of juvenile delinquency and mental health particularly for African American males. I have been previously funded by the Fahs Beck Fund for Research and Experimentation to explore the how to strengthen mental health screening for juvenile offenders and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation New Connections Program to address the negative trajectories of juvenile delinquency and promote the mental health of juvenile offenders. I am currently the principal investigator of the National Institute of Justice funded study, Understanding the Violent Victimization Experiences of Young Men of Color. The cooperative agreement is a 3-year, national study funded in the amount of $1.5 million. The project will fill the gap in our knowledge base about the violent victimization experiences of young Black males ages 18 to 24 by: 1) creating and pilot testing an instrument that measures such experiences, 2) identifying their awareness and use of services, and 3) learning about the coping skills and types of supports they use.
Louisiana Medina, USC
LCSW, USC
Email: louisiana.medina@gmail.com
Miriam Commodore Mensah, Indiana University
PhD Student, INDIANA UNIVERSITY
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Email: mcommodo@iu.edu
About: Doing research on trauma and trauma informed care in the juvenile justice system.
Topic Areas:
- Juvenile Justice
- Restorative Justice
Trang Nguyen, VNU
PhD, VNU-UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES
Email: maiphivn@yahoo.com
I am interested in crime and delinquency, and have been studying violent behaviors for many years, mostly students’ violent conducts including bullying at school and domestic violence. I am working to find a way to establish the presence of social work in justice in Vietnam, firstly for juvenile justice.
Savannah Olsen, University of Southern California
Social Worker, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Pronouns: She/Her
Email: olsens@usc.edu
About: My research interests focus on youth justice reform in Wisconsin, specifically waiver practices and the systemic challenges marginalized youth face. I am especially interested in using restorative justice as an alternative to punitive systems, promoting healing and accountability. My work explores the impacts of waiving youth into adult court, highlighting the need for developmentally appropriate, trauma-informed approaches. I also examine how child welfare systems intersect with youth justice, advocating for integrated, equity-driven policies that support youth and families holistically.
Eyitayo Onifade, Clark Atlanta University
PROFESSOR, CLARK ATLANTA UNIVERSITY
Email: eonifade@cau.edu
Danielle Parrish, Baylor University Houston
PROFESSOR, BAYLOR UNIVERSITY HOUSTON CAMPUS
Email: Danielle_Parrish@baylor.edu
Website: https://www.baylor.edu/social_work/index.php?id=954327
Gregory Perkins, Walden University
CONTRIBUTING FACULTY, WALDEN UNIVERSITY
Website: https://www.waldenu.edu/about/faculty/meet-our-faculty/member-profile/gregory-perkins3
Clark Peters, University of Missouri
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI
Email: peterscm@missouri.edu
Website: http://ssw.missouri.edu/faculty_peters.html
Mark Plassmeyer, University of Arkansas
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS
Email: mpplassm@uark.edu
My research broadly focuses on the criminal justice system with an emphasis on drug policy and policies that impact people with criminal histories.
I teach social welfare policy and political advocacy courses that focus on local, national, and global economic and social issues while making sure to emphasize the role of drug policy and criminal justice policy in exacerbating these issues. I also helped develop a drug policy class that will be part of our new substance use minor. Lastly, I advocate for increased involvement in the political process for social workers and the socially and economically marginalized communities they serve, particularly people who use drugs and/or have criminal histories.
Hughlett Powell, United Arab Emirates University
Assistant Professor, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES UNIVERSITY
Email: brownhillnevis@gmail.com
Website: https://research.uaeu.ac.ae/en/persons/hughlett-omris-powell
Lisa Rapp-McCall, Saint Leo University
PROFESSOR, SAINT LEO UNIVERSITY
Email: lisa.rapp-mccall@saintleo.edu
Website: https://www.saintleo.edu/faculty-bios/lisa-rapp-mccall
My research expertise includes: juvenile crime and violence, child abuse, school violence, human trafficking, and prevention, as well as program evaluation.
Taylor Reed, UCLA
MSW/PHD STUDENT, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES
Email: taylorashlyn@ucla.edu
I’m particularly interested in how environmental factors that are at play once individuals are no longer incarcerated affect the success of reentry programs, and how re-entry programs address these exposures. The focus of my research will center around identifying success and weaknesses in existing re-entry programs and highlighting data-backed modifications to these programs to bolster a successful transition back into society. My research will also include studying minority youth in urban neighborhoods and how exposure to violence (both frequency and type) affect their incarceration rates. This work can hopefully be adapted to study other social and environmental factors in order to better understand which experiences are most associated with juvenile incarceration. My work will allow for policy makers and stakeholders to comprehensively understand what occurs in these neighborhoods and identify vulnerable areas that can serve as intervention points to help protect these at-risk youth.
Lauren Ricciardelli, Troy University
Professor & Director, TROY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK AND HUMAN SERVICES
Assistant Dean of Research, TROY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF HEALTH SCIENCES
Email: lricciardelli@troy.edu
About: My overarching, mixed-methods research focus is the intersection of social policy and social work professional ethics across the following topics: criminal justice policy and the death penalty; disability; and, immigration policy/ crimmigration. My secondary research trajectory focuses on social work ethics and digital technology, drawing out implications for both the criminal justice system and the social work profession.
Jacoba Rock, Boise State University
Clinical Associate Professor, BOISE STATE UNIVERSITY
Pronouns: She/They
Email: jacobarock@boisestate.edu
Website: https://www.boisestate.edu/socialwork/jacoba-rock-ph-d/
About:Jacoba Rock is an Clinical Associate Professor of Social Work at Boise State School of Social Work. She received her Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies, with a doctoral minor in Criminology, from Pennsylvania State University. She received a Master of Social Work degree, with a clinical concentration in work with High-Risk Youth, and a graduate certificate in Alternative Dispute Resolution, both from the University of Denver. Dr. Rock’s applied research focuses on incarcerated youth (juveniles and young adults), opportunities for improved system response and reform, as well as deimplementation and abolition. Dr. Rock has conducted many program evaluations within carceral and other criminal/juvenile legal settings, offered professional development trainings to both courtroom and correctional staff, and also offered consultation, assessment, and testimony on hundreds of cases of juvenile and young adult life, virtual life, and capital sentences. Dr. Rock has taught Social Work since 2012 in BSW, MSW, and DSW programs, and focuses on courses on Intersectionality and other critical approaches, Human Behavior and Social Environment, Program Evaluation, and Pedagogy.
Christine M. Sarteschi, Chatham University
Professor, CHATHAM UNIVERSITY
Email: csarteschi@chatham.edu
Website: https://www.chatham.edu/academics/undergraduate/criminology/faculty/christine-sarteschi.html
About: Dr. Christine M. Sarteschi, LCSW is an Associate Professor of Social Work and Criminology. She researches and teaches courses in behavioral science that cover a wide range of topics including: human behavior, juvenile justice, mental illness and crime, cold case research, problem solving courts, mass murder, and extreme violent crime. Dr. Sarteschi’s most recent works include Mass and Serial Murder in America and a 2020 monograph about extremists entitled: Sovereign Citizens: A Psychological and Criminological Analysis. Her research has appeared in The British Journal of Social Work, Research on Social Work Practice, Aggression and Violent Behavior, the Journal of Criminal Justice, among others.
Megan Schlegel, San Jose State University
LECTURER, SAN JOSE STATE UNIVERSITY
Email: megan.schlegel@sjsu.edu
Website: https://www.sjsu.edu/justicestudies/our-department/faculty-and-staff/schlegel-m/index.html
Craig Schwalbe, Columbia University
PROFESSOR OF SOCIAL WORK, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
Email: css2109@columbia.edu
Email: https://socialwork.columbia.edu/faculty-research/faculty/full-time/craig-s-schwalbe/
David W. Springer, University of Texas at Austin
DIRECTOR AND UNIVERSITY DISTINGUISHED TEACHING PROFESSOR, THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
Email: dwspringer@austin.utexas.edu
Website: https://rgkcenter.org/team/david-w-springer-phd
Dr. Springer is the Director of the RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at UT Austin. He works with community and nonprofit leaders toward sustainable solutions on a wide range of issues, particularly at the intersection of criminal and juvenile justice, community resilience, and neighborhood revitalization. His work spans direct practice, policy practice, community building, nonprofit management, system reform, research, and leadership.
Christopher Thyberg, Augsburg Univeristy
Assistant Professor, AUGSBURG UNIVERSITY
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Email: thyberg@augsburg.edu
Website: https://www.augsburg.edu/faculty/thyberg-christopher/
About: My research is heavily informed by my clinical experience as a therapist working with children, adolescents, and families. Many of my clients had exposure to traumatic experiences, which profoundly impacted their mental and behavioral health. Through my work, I observed how schools played a pivotal role in the process of helping or harming students, often criminalizing behaviors instead of seeking to provide support or ask questions. I saw how schools act as an access point to the criminal legal system for many students who were sent to court, fined, charged, or otherwise punished. Moreover, I witnessed how often this occurred differentially based on race, class, gender, ability as various forms of oppression and discrimination impacted these students’ experiences. This informs my research, as I am passionate about finding ways to break the pathway between schools and incarceration through restorative justice, transformative justice, and anti-oppressive practices of mental health and community support initiatives. My dissertation is focused on building anti-racist and critical consciousness professional development for teachers within school spaces that are using restorative justice to further address racial disparities in exclusionary school discipline. This process has also had an impact on my teaching and inspired my passion for critical and structural social work as my paradigm of practice and teaching
Matthew T. Theriot, University of Central Florida
Director & Professor, UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA
Pronouns: he/him/his
Email: matthew.theriot@ucf.edu
Website: https://healthprofessions.ucf.edu/person/matthew-theriot/
About: My research focuses on school violence, with a specific emphasis on school safety and security.
Hiroki Toi, Toyo University
Associate Professor, TOYO UNIVERSITY
Email: hirokitoi.sw@gmail.com
Website: http://ris.toyo.ac.jp/profile/en.49ce7e9f9582deae7ed49a595b30efe8.html
About: Hiroki Toi, PhD, MSW is an Associate Professor at Toyo University in Japan, where he teaches criminal justice, human rights and social work for undergraduate students. Hiroki’s research primarily focuses on better understanding the professional values and conflict among forensic social workers. Hiroki worked as a research assistant for the Connecticut State Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, and has practiced in forensic psychiatric hospital, prison hospital, and also served as a social work advisor at the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office. Hiroki’s scholarship and teaching aim to build the capacity of the social work profession to address challenges and opportunities in the field of criminal justice and community-based social work practice.
Christine Toner, Fordham University
ADJUNCT PROFESSOR, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY
Email: ctoner@fordham.edu
Website: https://www.fordham.edu/info/25437/gss_adjunct_faculty_profiles/10352/christine_toner
Durrell Malik Washington Sr., University of Chicago
MSW, Doctoral Candidate, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Email: dwashington5@uchicago.edu
About: Durrell Malik Washington Sr. is a doctoral candidate at the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy and Practice. He takes an interdisciplinary approach towards scholarship drawing from social work, sociological, criminological, life course, and family system theories and perspectives. Durrell’s research interest lies at the intersections in P.I.C. Abolition, Juvenile legal practice and policy, Social Networks, Families and Other Social Context. Specifically, Durrell is a Mixed Method Researcher whose research agenda is geared at understanding the impact of juvenile incarceration on family life and youths transition to adulthood. Durrell has methodological training across several different qualitative and quantitative methods. have served as both a Research Assistant and Project Manager during his time at the Crown Family School and prior to his doctoral training, at Columbia University. To date, he has published a combination of several co- and solo-authored peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters and currently has a number of other peer-reviewed articles under review. Because our work as social workers do not just reach academics but also community and policy audiences as well, he has also published several other public-facing products, including research reports, op-eds, editorials, and news articles.