Research.
Research.
My research examines how people take collective action to resist or to reify structural inequities across race, place, class, and gender, with a particular focus on the criminal legal system and gentrifying urban neighborhoods. I use mixed methods to examine how legal actors, advocates, and residents debate ways to advance – and define – safety and justice. My academic research has been published in Mobilization and Crime and Justice, and my policy reports have been cited by policymakers, advocates, and the New York Times. Further details on my past and ongoing research projects are available at the links below as well as on my Google Scholar page.
Prosecutors are locally-elected officials with significant discretion at the front-end of the criminal legal system, including over charges, bail recommendations, and plea deals. My dissertation examines the dueling movements over the power of "progressive" prosecutors who campaign on platforms to advance criminal justice reform. The first paper of this project is currently under review, and I have presented this work at several academic conferences and to policy experts. Further info available here.
Goldberg, Allison. Race, Reform, and Recalls: The Movement Against "Progressive" Prosecutors. Available on SocArXiv.
As states reckon with the racialized harms of mass incarceration, several are implementing "second look" reforms, through which people serving long and life sentences can have their sentences reviewed and amended. Through analysis of Washington State Corrections population data, court rulings, and thousands of pages of prosecutor documents, Professor Katherine Beckett and I analyzed the promises and shortcomings of these reforms. Further info available here.
Beckett, Katherine and Allison Goldberg. 2024. Sentencing Reform in Washington State: Progress and Pitfalls. Report to the Seattle Clemency Project.
In each of the above projects, I see the criminal legal system as a lens into broader dynamics of the United States’s systems of social stratification across race, place, and wealth. My research agenda seeks to understand efforts that resist these inequities and prefigure alternative possibilities for a more just society. Thus, in addition to social movements and policy campaigns specifically focused on the criminal legal system, I also conduct research on collective actions that seek to build a safer, more equitable society more broadly. Further info available here.
Goldberg, Allison. 2024. Reciprocity or Redistribution: Mutual Aid as a Moralized Market in Gentrifying Brooklyn. Mobilization.