Katherine Beckett

About

Katherine Beckett is a Professor in the Department of Law, Societies, and Justice and the S. Frank Miyamoto Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington. She is also a faculty associate and steering committee member of the University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights. Her research analyzes the causes and consequences of criminal legal changes and penal practices, exploring topics such as the impact of criminal justice expansion on social inequality, the role of race in drug law enforcement and the administration of the death penalty in Washington State, the assessment of fees and fines, urban social control practices, the proliferation of long and life sentences, and the politics of urban disorder. She has authored numerous articles and four books on these topics, with her most recent book titled 'Ending Mass Incarceration' published by Oxford University Press in 2021. Beckett has worked closely with civic organizations including the Public Defender Association, the Concerned Lifer's Organization, the Racial Disparity Project, and Columbia Legal Services. Her work has been supported by various foundations and agencies, and she has received multiple awards for her research, teaching, and service, including the University of Washington’s Public Service Award. She was elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences in 2016.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Criminology
• Law
• Social psychology
• Psychology
• Geography
• Computer Science
• Social Science
• Biology

Selected publications

• The Origins of Mass Incarceration: The Racial Politics of Crime and Punishment in the Post–Civil Rights Era

  Annual Review of Law and Social Science · 2020 · 76 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  This article examines the origins of US mass incarceration. Although it is clear that changes in policy and practice are the proximate drivers of the prison boom, researchers continue to explore—and disagree about—why crime control policy and practice changed in ways that fueled the growth of incarceration in all 50 states. One well-known account emphasizes the centrality of racial and electoral politics. This article more fully explicates the racial politics perspective, describes several frien…

  PublisherDOI

• A kinder, gentler drug war? Race, drugs, and punishment in 21st century America

  Punishment & Society · 2020 · 63 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  This article assesses whether the kinder, gentler rhetoric through which the disproportionately white opiate crisis has been framed has been accompanied by changes in drug sentencing policy and drug law enforcement that mirror this sympathetic discourse. Toward these ends, state-level drug sentencing policies enacted from 2010 to 2016 as well as recent trends in drug law enforcement and drug-related imprisonment are analyzed. The legislative findings show that policymakers are not singling out o…

  DOI

• Welfare, Punishment, and Social Marginality: Understanding the Connections

  Research in political sociology · 2021 · 36 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Abstract A growing body of work suggests that welfare and punishment should be understood as alternative, yet interconnected ways of governing poor and marginalized populations. While there is considerable evidence of a punitive turn in welfare and penal institutions over the past half century, recent studies show that welfare and carceral institutions increasingly comanage millions of people caught at the intersection of the welfare and penal sectors. The growth of “mass supervision” and the ex…

  PublisherDOI

• The Effects of Imprisonment in a Time of Mass Incarceration

  Crime and Justice · 2022-01-01 · 25 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Imprisonment has deleterious effects on prisoners’ mental, physical, social, and economic well-being. These harms are long lasting and affect prisoners’ partners and children. In the United States and elsewhere, imprisonment disproportionately inflicts these harms on people of color and people living in poverty. Although imprisonment is regarded as a reasonable and effective means of protecting the public, it is not, when compared with nonconfinement alternatives, an effective way to achieve pub…

  PublisherDOI

• Ending Mass Incarceration

  2022-02-16 · 22 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Critics on both the left and the right increasingly use the term “mass incarceration” to call attention to the unprecedented scale of, and racial inequities in, the U.S. criminal legal system—and the havoc they wreak. This book shows that the criminal legal response to lawbreaking has continued to intensify even as lawmakers increasingly embrace criminal justice reform. It also identifies three dynamics that help explain why mass incarceration persists despite plummeting crime rates and…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• The End of Mass Incarceration? Exploring the Contradictions of Criminal Justice Reform

  NSF · $230k · 2015–2018

Frequent coauthors

• Steve Herbert

  17 shared

• Bruce Western

  Columbia University

  10 shared

• Theodore Sasson

  9 shared

• Alexes Harris

  University of Washington

  6 shared

• Heather Evans

  University of Washington

  5 shared

• Forrest Stuart

  Stanford University

  4 shared

• Angelina Snodgrass Godoy

  4 shared

• Naomi Murakawa

  Princeton University

  3 shared

Labs

• Katherine BeckettPI

Awards & honors

• University of Washington’s Public Service Award
• Elected to membership in the Washington State Academy of Sci…
• Galaxy Leadership Fellow (2026-2028)

Similar researchers at University of Washington

• Angelina Godoyh-14
• Jamie Mayerfeldh-9