Erin Eife is an Assistant Professor of Criminology, Law, and Society at George Mason University. She is also a member of the Jail Justice Initiative. Before her time at George Mason, she was an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellow. She has a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).
She is primarily interested in the criminal legal system and how it acts as a stratifying mechanism for citizenship rights in the United States. She has explored this topic through two major threads: the experience of pretrial release and the relationship between race, class, and the criminal legal system. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, ACLS/Mellon Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council. Some of her work can be found in Punishment & Society, Law & Social Inquiry, Social Currents, and the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment, and Trauma.
Erin’s current book project (under contract with NYU Press) investigates pretrial release, surveillance, and the citizenship rights of people awaiting trial in Cook County. Drawing on courtroom observations and 58 in-depth interviews, she illustrates how people on pretrial release experience liminal punishment while they await adjudication. Her findings call into question the idea that all people are truly innocent until proven guilty.
Other projects also interrogate the connections between inequality and pretrial surveillance. First, she recently completed data collection on pretrial decision-making in two rural counties in the Midwest to better understand the impact of race, space, and type of criminalized behavior in the courtroom. Second, she is currently examining the health effects of being charged with a crime to examine whether surveillance functions as a social determinant of health, with an eye towards promoting health equity.
Outside of the academy, Erin enjoys cheering on the Philadelphia Phillies, taking her dogs on walks, reading contemporary fiction, and watching reality TV.
More information about Erin’s experience can be found in her C.V. here.