Our Students
Chrysanthi Leon
Year: Doctorate in JSP
Biography:After filing her dissertation in May 2007, Santhi moved to the University of Delaware, as an assistant professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice. Her teaching will include Intro to Criminal Justice and Sex Crime and Punishment.
An interdisciplinary scholar, Leon focuses primarily on penology and the sociology of law. Her current research centers on sex crime and punishment; her other interests include theoretical criminology, alternatives to imprisonment, specialized courts, and the relationship between law and social change.
In addition to revising her dissertation into a book manuscript, future projects include a study of the experience of solitary confinement in California (with Kellie Bryant), an examination of the contemporary use of the polygraph in criminal justice, and a comparison of community corrections for sex offenders in three jurisdictions.
Ph.D.--JSP, anticipated 2007
J.D.--Boalt Hall, 2006
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, 2004 (Bureau of Justice Statistics course in Quantitative Methods in Crime and Criminal Justice)
B.A.--Yale University, American Studies, 1999
Sex Crime and Punishment: How do the various institutions and professionals involved in responses to sex crime shape policy and practice?
Law, Society and Criminology: Themes and topics which run through current and future work include the application of sociological theory to contemporary punishment, alternatives to imprisonment, specialized courts, and the legal consciousness of cj actors.
Dean�s Normative Time Grant, Spring 2006-Fall 2007
Departmental Fellowships, Summer 2006, Fall 2005, Fall 2001-Spring 2002
University Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor, 2004
University Fellowship, Academic Progress Award, Fall 2004
University Fellowship, Mentored Research Grant, Fall 2003-Spring 2004
P.E.O. Scholar Award, Fall 2006-Spring 2007
Dorothy L. Weller Scholarship,
Research & Teaching in Higher Education: Course Design and Implementation (Fall 2004, 2005 and 2006)
Research Assistant (Jonathan Simon) (Spring 2004-Fall 2005); (Franklin Zimring (Summer 2002); (Elisabeth Semel) (Fall 2001)
Teaching Assistant, Punishment, Culture and Society; Crime & Criminal Justice; Juvenile Justice & Juvenile Delinquency;Theories of Law & Society
Friends Committee on National Legislation, Washington, DC, 1999-2001
Legislative Intern, Legislative Assistant: public education, voter mobilization and congressional lobbying on crime and justice issues.
"Compulsion or Desire?: Sex crime and criminal justice policy in California"
Contemporary penological theory often refers to the punishment of sexual offending as emblematic of the key features of the present era. But this theorizing lacks historical comparative perspective. I examine sex offender punishment in California from 1930 to the present in order to empirically ground contemporary theories of penality. I find that trends in the punishment of sex offenders both lead and follow general punishment trends, often in unexpected ways. My arguments include:
1) The construction of the sex offender in the media and in academic disciplines has been largely irrelevant to the punishment of sex offenders, except as it served a mediating function early in the century.
2) Legislative innovation does not significantly impact sex offender imprisonment trends-- despite the explosive legal change particular to sex offenders, the dramatic increases in imprisonment after 1980 are independent of those changes, and are better understood as a tailwind effect of general imprisonment. In at least this respect, sex offender punishment is not unique.
3) Faith in the ability to treat sexual offending declined well before the general decline in rehabilitative zeal, showing that sex offender punishment can also act as a harbinger of trends in general punishment.
4) Throughout the century we've said we were addressing "danger" when we punish sex crime, but looking at the offenses leading to imprisonment and other kinds of punishment, it is clear that we have something different in mind, which in turn sheds light on the larger punishment project of the 20th century.
