• Hirschfield, Paul
  • Paul Hirschfield
  • ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR AND DIRECTOR OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE PROGRAM
  • Ph.D. Northwestern University, 2003
  • Office: Davison Hall, 038
  • Curriculum Vitae
  • Associate Professor of Sociology and faculty affiliate of the Criminal Justice Program, teaches criminology, punishment and social control, and juvenile justice. His theoretical and empirical work focuses on social control and criminalization in relation to schools and policing. His current research centers on the expansion of positive and restorative alternatives to exclusionary discipline and school-based arrests and the organizational and legal control of deadly force by police.

    Professor Hirschfield has focused on the causes and consequences of intensified surveillance and criminalization, especially of youth. His past research focused on the impact of juvenile arrests on educational attainment and educational inequality, as well policies and programs that facilitate the transition from correctional to community educational settings. In recent years, he has shifted his focus from criminalization to de-criminalization and non-criminalization. With respect to de-criminalization, he has written on the expansion of positive and restorative alternatives to exclusionary discipline and school-based arrests. With respect to non-criminalization, he is currently studying the social, political, and legal dynamics that explain why on-duty police violence rarely leads to criminal charges.

    Dr. Hirschfield has applied qualitative and quantitative methods to various other theory- and policy-driven research projects. He 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 conducted 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 in Criminology, Sociology of Education, Theoretical Criminology, American Educational Research Journal, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, and elsewhere.

  • In the Public Eye:
  • Faculty Article(s):
  • Another Way Out: The Impact of Juvenile Arrests on High School Dropout
  • Schools and Crime
  • Program Areas:
  • Crime and Social Control