Collegiate Affiliation

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
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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