
Michelle Phelps
she/her
Sociology
1035 Social Sciences Building
267 19th Ave S
Minneapolis,
MN
55455
Collegiate Affiliation
Professor,
Links
Prof. Phelps’ research is in the sociology of punishment, focusing in particular on the punitive turn in the U.S. She is the co-author of Breaking the Pendulum: The Long Struggle Over Criminal Justice (Oxford, 2017) and the author of The Minneapolis Reckoning: Race, Violence, and the Politics of Policing in America (Princeton, 2024), winner of the 2025 Minnesota Book Prize for Minnesota Non-Fiction.
For more detailed and up-to-date information, please find her personal website at: www.michellesphelps.com.
Educational Background & Specialties
Educational Background
- Ph.D.: Sociology and Social Policy, Princeton University, 2013
- M.A: Sociology, Princeton University, 2010
- B.A: Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, 2005
Specialties
- Punishment, Policing, Prisons
- Inequality, Race and Racism
- Social Movements
- Mixed Methods Research, Qualitative Research
Publications
Awards
Courses