Valerie Jenness

About

Valerie Jenness is a professor affiliated with the School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine, specializing in Criminology, Law, and Society. Her research extensively explores issues related to prisons, transgender inmates, and the legal and social dynamics within carceral institutions. Jenness has contributed significant scholarship on the experiences of transgender women in men's prisons, focusing on how prison as a total institution shapes gender and the challenges of gender-affirming health care for transgender women in prison. Her work also addresses sexual victimization against transwomen in prison, examining consent and coercion in these contexts. In addition to her focus on transgender issues in the prison system, Jenness has conducted research on prisoners' perceptions of justice, grievance systems, and the culture of control within prisons. She has analyzed the implementation and effects of hate crime laws and policies, particularly in California, and has studied the transformation of symbolic law into organizational action in law enforcement practice. Jenness employs a variety of methodological approaches, including ethnography and mixed methods, to study complex social and legal phenomena related to criminal justice and incarceration. Her scholarship includes contributions to understanding the intersection of race, grievance systems, and justice perceptions in prisons, as well as the broader implications of criminal justice policies on…

Research topics

• Sociology
• Psychology
• Criminology
• Gender studies
• Medicine
• Psychoanalysis

Selected publications

• Sexual victimization against transgender women in prison: Consent and coercion in context

  Criminology · 2019-08-22 · 81 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract In this article, we conjoin two long‐standing lines of inquiry in criminology—the study of prison life and the study of sexual assault—by using original qualitative and quantitative data from 315 transgender women incarcerated in 27 California men's prisons. In so doing, we advance an analysis of the factors and processes that shape their experience of sexual victimization in prison. The results of qualitative analysis of 198 reported incidents of sexual victimization exhibit a range of…

  PublisherDOI

• LGBT People in Prison: Management Strategies, Human Rights Violations, and Political Mobilization

  Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice · 2020-06-30 · 39 citations

  reference-entrySenior author

  In the 21st century, an unprecedented rise in the visibility of and social acceptance for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people has been accompanied by exponential growth in scholarship on LGBT people generally and their experiences in diverse communities and institutional contexts in the United States and around the globe. A growing body of literature draws on first-person accounts, qualitative analyses, and statistical assessments to understand how and why LGBT people end up in…

  PublisherDOI

• The Feminization of Transgender Women in Prisons for Men: How Prison as a Total Institution Shapes Gender

  Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice · 2020 · 32 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  In this article, we investigate the degree to which prison shapes transgender women’s perceptions of themselves as gendered people in prisons for men. Drawing on original data collected from 315 transgender women in 27 prisons for men in California, a mixed-methods analysis reveals that transgender women in prisons for men report higher levels of self-perceptions of femininity while incarcerated, especially for those who report sexual victimization by other prisoners. The implications of these a…

  PublisherDOI

• The social ecology of sexual victimization against transgender women who are incarcerated: A call for (more) research on modalities of housing and prison violence

  Criminology & Public Policy · 2021 · 24 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract President Biden has called for reform of the criminal justice system to ensure fair treatment of people who are transgender who come into contact with the criminal justice system. He has done so in a context in which criminologists, public health researchers, and others, including journalists and advocates, have produced a growing body of research that documents the over criminalization and differential incarceration of people who are transgender as well as the high rates of victimizati…

  PublisherDOI

• The Structure and Operation of the Transgender Criminal Legal System Nexus in the United States: Inequalities, Administrative Violence, and Injustice at Every Turn

  Annual Review of Criminology · 2023-07-14 · 19 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  A growing body of research reveals that transgender people are disproportionately in contact with the criminal legal system, wherein they experience considerable discrimination, violence, and other harms. To better understand transgender people's involvement in this system, this article synthesizes research from criminology, transgender studies, and related fields as well as empirical findings produced outside of academe, to conceptualize a “transgender criminal legal system nexus.” This article…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Kitty Calavita

  University of California System

  26 shared

• David A. Smith

  19 shared

• Judith Stepan‐Norris

  University of California, Irvine

  19 shared

• Ryken Grattet

  University of California, Davis

  13 shared

• Kendal Broad

  University of Florida

  11 shared

• Jennifer Sumner

  8 shared

• Lori Sexton

  University of Missouri–Kansas City

  7 shared

• Cheryl L. Maxson

  University of California, Irvine

  6 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Criminology, Law and Society

  University of California, Irvine

• M.A., Sociology

  University of California, Santa Barbara

• B.A., Sociology

  University of California, Santa Barbara

Awards & honors

• American Sociological Association Distinguished Faculty Awar…
• President's Award (for mentoring) from the Western Society o…
• Faculty of the Year from the Master of Advanced Study in Cri…
• Most Inspirational Instructor in the Department of Sociology…
• Excellence in Undergraduate Education Award at the Universit…

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