DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY
new brunswick / piscataway
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Sociology Department |
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Paul Hirschfield
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Ph.D. Northwestern University, 2003 Mailing Address: |
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| Professor Hirschfield has focused on a broad range of topics pertaining to crime and justice-with an emphasis on their relationship to youth, education and social policy. His doctoral work investigated the impact of juvenile justice involvement on educational attainment among inner-city youth. Supplementary interviews with young ex-offenders explored the social and institutional interactions that help mediate the impact of juvenile justice contact on developmental outcomes and recidivism. This work is part of a larger research agenda that aims to uncover the causes and social implications of the widespread criminalization of adolescent deviance and school misconduct in the inner-city. In that connection, his most recent research examines how neighborhood
rates of juvenile arrests, especially for minor or "victimless"
offenses, influences children's perceptions of the strength of prosocial
norms in their neighborhoods, as well as their own attitudes toward and
compliance with the law. Another ongoing project assesses various explanations of the crackdown on youthful marijuana use in the 1990’s. Dr. Hirschfield has applied qualitative and quantitative methods to various other theory- and policy-driven research projects. He has participated in separate experimental evaluations of the impact of the Moving to Opportunity program and the Comer School Development Program on rates of juvenile court involvement.With support from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (U.S. Department of Justice) and the Spencer Foundation, Hirschfield recently began a study of the impact of mainstream and alternative school re-enrollment on the reentry success of young ex-offenders in New York City. His work has appeared or will appear in Criminology, Theoretical Criminology, American Educational Research Journal, Sociological Methods and Research, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and elsewhere. |
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