Research

My research is grounded in critical sociology, critical drug studies, and law & society scholarship. I focus on how systems of power classify, punish, and manage marginalized populations. Reaching across disciplines, I examine how carceral and medical institutions govern the lives of those labeled as risky, deviant, or in need of reform. Guided by a commitment to scholar-activism and liberatory harm reduction, my work centers the voices, knowledge, and resistance strategies of those most impacted by criminalization and surveillance.

1. Carceral Logics, Risk, and Rehabilitation

My research explores how institutions classify people as dangerous, deviant, or unworthy—and how those labels are used to justify social control. I study the legal, affective, and bureaucratic frameworks that govern interactions within the criminal legal system. Prior and ongoing research looks explicitly at thousands of pages of parole hearing transcripts for marginalized or aging populations and asks why so few people are granted parole. This includes analyzing how concepts like “rehabilitation” and “dangerousness” are socially constructed and unevenly applied based on gender, age, and race.

2. Drug Policy, Medicalization, and Harm Reduction

I study how addiction is governed at the intersection of healthcare and punishment. Current research projects examine methadone treatment systems, harm reduction initiatives, and drug-induced homicide laws. Past research in this area has investigated the medical-legal regulation of drug use and pregnancy. I am generally interested in how public health and criminal legal system policies reproduce stigma, racialized punishment, and structural violence—while claiming to provide care. At the same time, I collaborate with harm reductionists and people who use drugs to document alternative forms of expertise, mutual aid, and resistance. This work aims to unsettle dominant narratives about addiction and to support liberatory models of health rooted in dignity, autonomy, and collective care.