Trans and gender diverse people and criminal legal systems

A growing body of research reveals that trans and gender diverse people are disproportionately in contact with the criminal legal system, wherein they experience considerable discrimination, violence and other harms, as well as violations of human rights.

This talk identifies and examines the transgender-criminal legal system nexus within the context of the United States, by focusing on the historical and contemporary criminalisation of trans and gender diverse people; differential system contact and attendant experiences associated with police contact, judicial decision-making, and incarceration; and pathways to system involvement for trans and gender diverse people.

The analytic focus is on cultural logics related to institutionalised conceptualisations of gender, discriminatory people-processing in various domains of the criminal legal system; and institutionally produced disparities for trans and gender diverse people involved in the criminal legal system (especially trans women of colour). The event will conclude with calls for reform, an agenda for future research and theorising, and policy implications.

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Valerie Jenness is a Distinguished Professor of Criminology, Law and Society at the University of California, Irvine. Her research has focused on sex work, hate crime, prison violence, incarcerated people’s grievance systems and LGBTQ issues in criminal justice as well as law, policy, criminal justice reform, and gender and sexuality more generally. She is the author of four books, including most recently Appealing to Justice: Prisoner, Grievances, Rights, and Carceral Logic (with Kitty Calavita, University of California Press). Her work has been presented to the US Congress, the National Academy of Sciences, judges and staff attorneys for the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement. Her studies have been funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Justice and have informed public policy. She is past presidents of the American Society of Criminology, the Society for the Study of Social Problems, and the Pacific Sociological Association. She is currently on the editorial committee of the Annual Review of Criminology.