Popular notions of U.S. criminal justice invoke prison gates and razor wire. Yet over half of the total correctional population—3.7 million Americans—live under community supervision on probation. 73 percent of all justice-involved women are serving a probation sentence. Despite being the single most common form of punishment, we know little about the lived experiences of women on probation. Often dismissed as a slap on the wrist, the limited scholarship tells us that probation is deeply punitive and hinders opportunities for mobility, especially among poor women and women of color.

Extant research has shown that employment cannot always protect low-income households from uncertainty and volatility, and in some ways may exacerbate it.  This body of work has developed to help us understand the increasing precarity work overall, its underlying causes, and the consequences precarity and work hour insecurity for the well-being of workers and their families. Yet one particular, extreme form of work hour insecurity remains severely understudied—involuntary zero or near-zero work hours.

Blacks are more likely than whites to experience deaths of multiple family members and experience them at earlier ages. While a great deal of alarm has been raised about recent declines in life expectancy among whites, blacks still live on average 4 years less than whites. Yet, little work has analyzed how network deaths contribute to racial inequities in SES. This project seeks to quantify Black-white disparities in familial and household exposure to death, and their relationship to SES. 

This study investigates a segment of the undocumented youth population often ignored by immigration and social inequality scholars: long-settled undocumented Latinx minors who migrate to the U.S. to work. Canizales will examine the extent to which unaccompanied minor migration is a family survival and mobility strategy. To what extent do unaccompanied, undocumented youth workers in the U.S. remain tied to their home communities via familial obligations? When are social and economic obligations activated, how do youths respond, and how do these obligations shape life in the U.S.

One in twelve Americans (and nearly 1/4 of black adults) have been convicted of a felony. Due to felony conviction, individuals can be denied housing, employment, and the right to vote for years after they complete their sentences. Researchers have extensively examined the consequences of incarceration for subsequent life chances, but 2/3 of felons have never been imprisoned. The fate of this much larger class of individuals has been largely overlooked.

Cofunded with the JPB Foundation

The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting recession have disrupted many aspects of social life, including everyday interactions family, friends, co-workers, neighbors. Societal fault lines have exacerbated these impacts, disproportionately affecting the most disadvantaged groups. Under such conditions, social ties and social networks can help people to cope with stressful situations and can improve wellbeing. But the pandemic, by increasing poverty, precarity, and marginality, may negatively affect social networks and network-mediated outcomes.