I am currently Associate Professor of Justice Studies at San José State University. I received my Ph.D. in Sociology from New York University (2017), my BA in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley (2008), and my AA is Sociology from El Camino College (2006).
My areas of specialization are in the sociology of punishment and social control; race, gender, and class inequality; and qualitative research methods. My research broadly examines how mass incarceration shapes patterns of poverty and racial inequality in the United States. As an ethnographer, I utilize the tools of participant observation and in-depth interviewing to understand the lived experiences of formerly incarcerated people.
My book, Getting the Runaround: Formerly Incarcerated Men and the Bureaucratic Barriers to Reentry (University of California Press, 2023), examines how returning citizens navigate the “institutional circuit” of parole offices, public assistance programs, rehabilitation facilities, shelters, and family courts. I argue that the very institutions charged with facilitating the transition from incarceration to community life perversely undermine reintegration by imposing a litany of bureaucratic obstacles. This “runaround” is not merely a series of inconveniences but rather an extension of state punishment that exacerbates material poverty and diminishes citizenship rights.
My work has also appeared in Ethnography, Punishment and Society, and Social Problems.
John M. Halushka, Ph.D. 