RESEARCHING COMPLEX AND UNEQUAL RESPONSES TO STRESS
criminal legal system - families - health - inequality
Kristin Turney is a researcher and educator who investigates the role of stressors in creating, maintaining, and exacerbating social inequalities in health and wellbeing. Her current research uses quantitative and qualitative methods to understand the repercussions of stressors (particularly, but not exclusively, those stemming from the criminal legal system) on families and children. She is also working to bring greater transparency to the conditions inside jails and prisons through the creation of a digital archive, PrisonPandemic. She is a professor in the Department of Sociology (and, by courtesy, Criminology, Law and Society) at the University of California, Irvine. Her research has been funded by many organizations including Arnold Ventures, the Council on Library and Information Resources, the Foundation for Child Development, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Science Foundation, and the William T. Grant Foundation.
Ongoing Projects
PrisonPandemic
Digital archive preserving the stories of people incarcerated (in jails, state and federal prisons, and immigration detention facilities), their families, and prison employees
Funded by ACLS-NEH, Arnold Ventures, California Humanities, CLIR, and NEH
Jail and Family Life Study
Longitudinal qualitative study of 123 fathers experiencing jail incarceration and their family members (including their children, current and former romantic partners, and mothers)
Funded by the National Science Foundation and William T. Grant Foundation
Consequences of Criminal Legal Contact
Quantitative analysis of how contact with the criminal legal system—via police stops, arrests, and incarceration—challenge the adapting functioning of individuals and families
Funded by AERA, Foundation for Child Development, NAEd/Spencer Foundation, NICHD, and William T. Grant Foundation
Pandemic-Related Mortality
Demographic analysis of racial/ethnic disparities in pandemic-related mortality among incarcerated populations and those recently released from jail
Funded by ARCH Network and the National Science Foundation