Table of contents

• President’s welcome

  Mary Bernstein vii

• Editorial introduction

  Kristen M. Budd, PhD viii

• About the Society for the Study of Social Problems x

• Notes on contributors xi

• Acknowledgments xviii

1. PART ICrime, law, and policy
   1. oneFrom blame to criminalization: Black motherhood and intimate partner violence

      Sarah Jane Brubaker 3

   2. twoCurbing pretextual traffic stops to reduce racial profiling

      Lance Hannon, Lindsay Redditt, and Brooke Cordes 10

   3. threePay to talk: the financial barriers, consequences, and solutions to prison and jail communication

      Sydney Ingel and Hayley Carlisle 19

   4. fourImmigration enforcement: the impact of crimmigration on mixed-immigration-status families in the US and the need for reform

      Gabriela Gonzalez 26

   5. fiveNews media and the crime coverage problem

      Kristen M. Budd and Nazgol Ghandnoosh 35

2. PART IIEducation
   1. sixCaught in the crossfire: K-12 education and anti-CRT measures

      Ashley N. Gwathney and Charity Anderson 47

   2. sevenInequality in the experiential core: using pathways to understand and improve college students’ journeys

      Blake R. Silver and Monique H. Harrison 55

3. PART IIIFood insecurity
   1. eightAddressing food insecurity through community-informed food retailer implementation

      Drew Bonner and Katie Kerstetter 67

   2. nineHow inflation and food deserts made a bad poverty measure worse—and what we can do about it

      Teresa A. Sullivan 76

4. PART IVHealth and healthcare
   1. tenReproductive health in crisis: access to abortion and contraception in the US

      Kristen Lagasse Burke and Dana M. Johnson 87

   2. elevenA bold policy agenda for improving immigrant healthcare access in the US

      Tiffany D. Joseph and Meredith Van Natta 97

   3. twelveGender-affirming healthcare for transgender and gender minority youth

      Ashley C. Rondini 106

   4. thirteenAt the nexus of reproductive and juvenile (in)justice: the (re)production of sexual and reproductive health disparities for system-impacted Black girls

      Raquel E. Rose and McKenzie Berezin 116

   5. fourteenCentering racial justice in the US emergency response framework

      Sophie Webb 124

5. PART VHousing insecurity
   1. fifteenAffordable housing in America: a matter of availability, access, and accountability

      Jeanne Kimpel 135

   2. sixteenShelter from the storm: a framework for housing and climate justice

      Tony R. Samara 142

6. PART VILooking forward
   1. seventeenSocial problems in the age of culture wars

      David C. Lane 153

7. Afterword

   Elroi J. Windsor 164

President’s welcome

Mary Bernstein

This volume exemplifies the mission of the Society for the Study of Social Problems to create rigorous empirical research that can be marshaled to solve the most pressing social problems facing society today. This volume focuses on a variety of institutions and issues including the criminal justice system and mass incarceration, health care, along with reproductive and transgender justice, education, immigration, housing and climate. The chapters examine how ideological and structural systems of racism, xenophobia, and transphobia shape these institutions, policies, and practices. By understanding the cultural and structural underpinnings of systems of inequality and domination, this research can be used to understand and ultimately reduce inequality, violence, and poverty. As social scientists, we can provide the building blocks for understanding complex systems of power and domination. Thus, this book exemplifies the best that emancipatory social science has to offer, not only identifying and understanding social problems but using empirical research to advance progressive social change.

Editorial introduction

Kristen M. Budd, PhD

The Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP) and its members work toward alleviating the most pressing social problems in the United States and globally—enduring work to improve our human and social conditions. Through research, teaching, activism, and public education, we pursue various avenues of public sociology to remedy society’s social ills. As part of the SSSP’s mission to create a more just world, this project—the Agenda for Social Justice—was born from Professor Robert Perruci’s 2000 Presidential Address.

As the 48th President of the SSSP, Dr Perrucci challenged us to infuse our sociological work into the public sphere. He called upon all of us to advance an agenda for social justice using the sociological perspective grounded in rigorous research methodology and theory. The knowledge created by the SSSP members should be and must reach beyond our professional organization and academic institutions. Within the SSSP, the Justice 21 Committee, composed of a team of SSSP members, self-published the first Agenda for Social Justice volume in 2004. Since 2016, the volumes have been published by Policy Press, our academic publisher based at the University of Bristol (UK), whose values closely align with those of the Justice 21 Committee and the SSSP.

The Agenda for Social Justice: Solutions for 2024 continues to embody Dr Perrucci’s call to disseminate actionable and science-based solutions using the sociological tools at our disposal. This volume coincides with the United States’s presidential election and includes 16 topical chapters on social problems facing the US today. Readers will learn about social issues related to the criminal legal system, education, precarious social conditions (such as food and housing insecurities), and health/healthcare. An additional “think piece” asks readers to attune themselves to these social challenges unfolding in a constant state of culture wars. Given the expansiveness of social problems in the US, this volume is far from complete. Indeed, there is more work to be done.

A wide array of experts contributed to this edited volume, including those from higher education—graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and faculty at all ranks—as well as researchers and advocates working in academic centers, think tanks, and non-profit organizations. Their work and expertise help us understand these pressing social problems—their definition and scope, the evidence documenting the extent of each social problem, and, notably, the actionable solutions for reducing, mitigating, solving, or abolishing them.

The SSSP’s Justice 21 Committee, who work together to bring these volumes to fruition, invites readers to learn more about what we can do to create social change to improve our communities and, more globally, the social conditions for all humankind.¹

About the Society for the Study of Social Problems

The Society for the Study of Social Problems (the SSSP), is an academic and action-oriented professional association, whose purpose is to promote and protect social science research and teaching about significant social problems in society. Members of the SSSP include students, faculty members at educational institutions, researchers, practitioners, and advocates.

Some of the SSSP’s core activities include encouraging rigorous research, nurturing young sociologists, focusing on solutions to the problems of society, fostering cooperative relations between the academic and the policy and/or social action spheres.

If you would like to learn more about joining the SSSP, reading our publications, or attending our annual conference, please visit the SSSP website: www.sssp1.org.

Finally, please consider supporting the SSSP, a non-profit 501(c)3 organization which accepts tax deductible contributions both in support of its general operations and for specific purposes. It is possible to donate to the SSSP in general, but it is also possible to donate in support of specific efforts. If you would like to encourage the kind of public sociology represented in this book, please consider supporting the efforts of the Justice 21 Committee. For information on contributing, please visit www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/584/.

Notes on contributors

• Charity Anderson is Academic Director of the Clemente Veterans’ Initiative Newark, a humanities course focused on themes of war and reconciliation for military-connected civilians. Her research interests include urban education, poverty and inequality, and transformative education for disenfranchised adults and youth. She holds a PhD in social work from the University of Chicago.

• McKenzie Berezin is a sixth-year counseling psychology doctoral fellow at New York University. Her research seeks to reduce the multi-level impact of systemic inequity on youth through collaborative systems change efforts. Specifically, her research supports local and national initiatives to disrupt youth pathways across child serving systems in partnership with court- and community-based organizations through the implementation of gender- and trauma-responsive practices and policies. Her work also supports the efforts of local and international programming that investigates the structural drivers of health disparities among adolescents and how they can be bolstered through community-based programming and policy change.

• Drew Bonner’s research engagements focus on the policies and practices of community health, education, and food access. He supports uplifting equitable initiatives for underserved communities through his research on racial equity in food access, collaboration with organizations, and evaluation collaboratives focused on community-based food access and nutrition education. In addition to this work, Drew Bonner is a sociology PhD student at George Mason University (GMU) and a graduate researcher within the Center for Social Science Research at GMU. His academic engagements interrogate how food insecurity and health disparities become reproduced and institutionalized, being motivated and inspired through his engagement with social justice, food justice, and research seeking to promote community wellness.

• Sarah Jane Brubaker is a sociologist and Professor of Criminal Justice and Public Policy at the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University. She studies and teaches about gender violence and juvenile justice from feminist, social justice, and intersectional lenses. She has received federal grants to reduce violence against women on college campuses and to provide programming and support to girls involved in the juvenile justice system, working with community activists, and publishing her work in scholarly venues.

• Kristen M. Budd, PhD, is Research Analyst at The Sentencing Project. She is the lead researcher on their voting rights campaign and contributes research to their campaign to end extreme sentences. She has spent the majority of her career researching crimes of a sexual nature, including law and policy responses, public opinion, as well as patterns and predictors related to incidents of sexual assault. Her work at The Sentencing Project has been featured on Yahoo News and other regional news media outlets. Dr Budd earned an undergraduate degree from Indiana University South Bend and a master’s and doctorate in sociology from Purdue University.

• Kristen Lagasse Burke, MA, is a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research focuses on inequality in childbearing patterns, addressing access to contraception and abortion as well as trends in the birth rate in the United States. In Texas, her research has involved collaborations with community organizations that provide reproductive health services and has resulted in op-eds, policy briefs, and academic publications. Before graduate school, Kristen worked as a research assistant at the Guttmacher Institute and served as an AmeriCorps VISTA in Spartanburg, South Carolina where she helped open a free health clinic.

• Hayley Carlisle is a Criminology, Law and Society doctoral student at George Mason University and a graduate research assistant at the Early Justice Strategies (EJS) Lab. She received her Master of Science from American University in Justice, Law & Criminology, specializing in justice and public policy. Before starting her doctoral journey at George Mason University, Hayley worked for the DC Department of Corrections. During that time, she designed and supported programs for returning citizens and incarcerated residents in the DC Jail.

• Brooke Cordes is a rising senior at Villanova University with majors in political science and criminology and a minor in business. She has participated in a variety of social justice groups, including the Philadelphia Justice Project. Following graduation, she intends to continue her passion for justice reform in law school.

• Heather Dillaway is Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Sociology at Illinois State University, US. Previously, she completed a BA in sociology and history at Cornell University, an MA in sociology at the University of Delaware, and a PhD in sociology at Michigan State University. Her research focuses on women’s menopause experiences and reproductive health experiences of women with physical disabilities. She participates in many editorial projects, including coediting an issue of Gender & Society on intersectionality and disability (in 2019), a book titled Musings on Perimenopause and Menopause: Identity, Experience, and Transition (Demeter Press, 2021), and volume 14 of Research in Social Science and Disability (Emerald, 2023).

• Nazgol Ghandnoosh, PhD, is Co-Director of Research at The Sentencing Project. She conducts and synthesizes research on criminal justice policies, with a focus on racial disparities, lengthy sentences, and the scope of reform efforts. She regularly presents to academic, practitioner, and general audiences and her work has also appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and WNYC’s On the Media. Dr Ghandnoosh earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a doctorate in sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles.

• Gabriela Gonzalez is Assistant Professor in the department of Justice Studies at San José State University. Her research examines the nature and impact of punishment, law, and inequality in the United States. Specifically, Gabriela’s work analyzes experiences of confinement, both physical forms such as incarceration, solitary confinement, and immigration detention, and non-physical forms including checkpoints and legal barriers that block access to services, in order to understand the consequences of punishment for not only the individual, but the entire family.

• Ashley N. Gwathney is a Doctor of Social Work and a licensed School Social Worker in New Jersey. She has worked with Cornwall Center of Metropolitan Studies, Rutgers Mountainview Communities, and the NJ-STEP (Scholarship and Transformative Education in Prisons) programs. Her research interests include restorative justice, urban education, and punitive school discipline.

• Lance Hannon is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at Villanova University. He has published dozens of articles in scholarly journals about the intersection of race, crime, and justice. These include works in the American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, Social Problems, Criminology, and Justice Quarterly.

• Monique H. Harrison is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Pennsylvania and an education research scientist at Harvard University, where she leads a research/practice partnership with Harvard’s Math Department. She is a sociologist of education who focuses on choice and decision-making. Her work examines how different factors, including gender, race, and socio-economic status, influence academic predilections, course choices, and undergraduate pathways. She received her PhD in Sociology of Education from Stanford University in 2022. Her dissertation focused on first year choices and stratification.

• Sydney Ingel is a Criminology, Law, and Society doctoral student at George Mason University and a graduate research assistant at the Early Justice Strategies (EJS) Lab and the Center for Correctional Excellence (ACE!). She previously attended Quinnipiac University for her BS in criminal justice and psychology and then attended George Mason University for her MA in Criminology, Law, and Society.

• Dana M. Johnson, MPAff, PhD, is Senior Associate Research Scientist at Ibis Reproductive Health. Her research focuses on changing public policy to make abortion care more accessible, affordable, and acceptable. Her research has been cited in amicus briefs to the US Supreme Court, and her writing on abortion and contraception has been published by The New York Times, Teen Vogue, and other outlets. Prior to graduate school, she was a grassroots organizer for a reproductive rights organization in the upper Midwest. She now lives in Texas and serves on the Board of Jane’s Due Process, an organization that ensures legal representation for pregnant and parenting minors in Texas.

• Tiffany D. Joseph is Associate Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Northeastern University. Her research explores: race, ethnicity, and migration in the Americas; immigrants’ health and healthcare access; the impacts of public policy on individuals; and the experiences of faculty of color in academia. She is author of Race on the Move: Brazilian Migrants and the Global Reconstruction of Race (Stanford University Press, 2015), and her work has been published in various peer reviewed journals and national media outlets.

• Katie Kerstetter’s research focuses on the intersections of food, education, social policy, and maternal and child health. She is particularly interested in amplifying marginalized voices and identifying and addressing structural barriers to more equitable food, education, and healthcare access. She takes a collaborative and participatory approach to research. She enjoys partnering with organizations working to distribute resources more equitably and involve those most directly affected by inequities in programming and policy decisions. She has expertise and experience in qualitative and mixed methods research, needs assessments, and program evaluations. Katie holds a PhD in sociology from George Mason University and a master’s in public policy from the University of Maryland College Park. She is the author of How Schools Meet Students’ Needs: Inequality, School Reform, and Caring Labor (Rutgers University Press, 2022).

• Jeanne Kimpel, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Molloy University. She is also Director of the Dr Joan Reidy Merlo Community Research Institute where her recent work has included evaluating a grant to serve the needs of at-risk youth in a local Long Island community. Dr Kimpel has been teaching courses on racial disparities and inequality for 17 years with the intent of providing students with critical thinking and research skills needed to examine racial, ethnic, and gender inequalities. Her scholarly work has included research in the area of residential segregation, housing, social networks, and violence towards nurses in acute care psychiatric facilities.

• David C. Lane is Associate Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice Sciences at Illinois State University. He holds a PhD in sociology from the University of Delaware. He is the author of The Other End of the Needle: Continuity and Change among Tattoo Workers. He has previously published research on art theft, tattooing and tattoo work, and natural hazards, along with numerous legal reports and exhibits about issues in tattoo work. His current research focuses on social control in disaster response phases and the relationship between tattooing and bodily autonomy.

• Glenn W. Muschert is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Public Health and Epidemiology at Khalifa University (جامعة خليفة), Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. He previously served on the faculty at Miami University and Purdue University (US), and as a visiting scholar at Erzincan University and Atatürk University (Turkey). His research focuses on the metaverse, digital inequalities, sustainable development, and the resolution of social problems. He has published numerous scholarly volumes, peer-reviewed articles, and chapters in academic volumes in sociology, media studies, social justice studies, and sustainable development. He serves as Secretary of the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP).

• Manjusha Nair is Associate Professor of Sociology at George Mason University, US. Before this, Dr Nair taught at the National University of Singapore. Dr Nair completed a PhD in sociology from Rutgers University and a master of philosophy in economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University in India. Dr Nair’s research and teaching interests are in globalization, political sociology, comparative and historical sociology, development, labor movements, India, China, Ethiopia, and South Africa. Dr Nair’s publications include an award-winning book, Undervalued Dissent: Informal Workers’ Politics in India (SUNY Press, 2016), and articles in Development and Change, Critical Sociology, and International Labor and Working-Class History.

• Lindsay Redditt is a rising senior at Villanova University with majors in political science and criminology and a minor in Spanish. She is active in the Student Government Association, Black Student Union, Black Law Student Association, and Academic Reform Committee.

• Ashley C. Rondini is Associate Professor of Sociology at Franklin & Marshall College, where she is an affiliate faculty member in public health, Africana studies, and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies. She is a former ASA Spivack post-doctoral congressional fellow, and past recipient of the ASA’s Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline Grant, and Carla B. Howery Teaching Enhancement Grant. Her work has been published in Social Problems, JAMA Pediatrics, The American Journal of Bioethics, Sociological Forum, Social Science and Medicine, The DuBois Review: Social Science Research on Race, Humanity & Society, Teaching Sociology, Sociology Compass, and Contexts.

• Raquel E. Rose is a doctoral candidate in Counseling Psychology at New York University. Her research seeks to understand the impact of systemic trauma, resource precarity, and deficit-based narratives around ethnic minority youth on psychosocial outcomes particularly in the mental health, education, and legal fields. Raquel focuses on the effective implementation, evaluation, and scalability of interventions and participatory programs with youth who are legal system-impacted to inform multi-disciplinary efforts to change systems/policy and promote equitable youth-centered service delivery and innovation.

• Tony R. Samara is Senior Policy Organizer at the Right to the City Alliance and previously worked with the movement for tenants’ rights in the San Francisco Bay Area. He holds a PhD in sociology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and was an associate professor of sociology at George Mason University between 2011 and 2014.

• Blake R. Silver is Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of Educational Pathways and Faculty Development at George Mason University. He is the author of The Cost of Inclusion: How Student Conformity Leads to Inequality on College Campuses (2020), which won an American Educational Studies Association Critics’ Choice Book Award and the NASPA Faculty Council Outstanding Publication Award. His second book, Degrees of Risk: Navigating Insecurity and Inequality in Public Higher Education is forthcoming with the University of Chicago Press.

• Jason A. Smith is Research Affiliate at the Center for Social Science Research at George Mason University, US. Dr Smith’s research focuses on race and media exclusion, with overarching themes including issues related to access and representation for communities of color in various institutional and organizational spaces. Previous research has been published in Ethnic & Racial Studies, Sociology of Race & Ethnicity, and Studies in Media and Communication.

• Teresa A. Sullivan is University Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia. She previously taught at the University of Michigan, the University of Texas-Austin, and the University of Chicago. She is a demographer who does research on labor force demography and on the US census. The author or co-author of seven books and more than one hundred articles and chapters, she teaches undergraduate courses in demography, social problems, and the politics of data. She earned her PhD from the University of Chicago and her bachelor’s degree from James Madison College at Michigan State University.

• Meredith Van Natta is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Merced. Her research explores immigration and social welfare policies in the United States, as well as the intersection of citizenship and science, medicine, and technology policy. She is the author of Medical Legal Violence: Health Care and Immigration Enforcement Against Latinx Noncitizens (NYU Press, 2023), and her work has been published in a variety of interdisciplinary peer reviewed journals.

• Sophie Webb is a PhD candidate at the University of California, San Diego. Her research examines the pathway from ethics to implementation in public health, and she is interested in understanding how decisions made in allocating and prioritizing limited health resources can impact health inequities.

• Elroi J. Windsor, PhD, is Professor of Sociology at the University of West Georgia. Windsor’s research and teaching interests focus on gender, sexuality, and the body. In 2023, Windsor co-edited Male Femininities (NYU Press, 2023), and previously co-edited multiple editions of Sex Matters: The Sexuality and Society Reader (W. W. Norton). Since 2023, Windsor has served as the Executive Officer for the Society for the Study of Social Problems. They earned an undergraduate degree from Chatham College and a master’s and doctorate in sociology at Georgia State University.

Acknowledgments

We, the editors, have the privilege to work with an exceptional group of people. Our team effort to cultivate this volume includes our authors, whom we thank for sharing their expertise. We offer our gratitude to Michele Koontz and Elroi Windsor, the SSSP administrative and executive offices, respectively, and the SSSP Editorial and Publications Committee. They assist us in executing crucial components throughout the year as well as support the work of the Justice 21 Committee in general. We value their expertise and continuous support. We give additional thanks to Policy Press, our long-standing publishing partner. We collaborate to disseminate publicly accessible research to alleviate social problems and promote social change. Finally, to our SSSP members: We look forward to our continued collaboration with you to improve this world.