Valli Rajah

A native New Yorker, I joined the faculty at John Jay College after earning my Ph.D. in Sociology at Columbia University. I primarily use qualitative approaches and a feminist standpoint to investigate 1) intimate partner violence, 2) the unintended consequences of crime control policies and punishment, and 3) perspectives on community-engaged and anti-racist criminology. To discover new knowledge, I unpack data by applying, extending, and improvising with concepts like resistance, intersectionality, and embodiment.

Over the past several years, I have worked to contribute to criminal justice education and practice. I served as an Executive Officer of the Criminal Justice Ph.D. program at John Jay College/ The Graduate Center for several years. I have also engaged in various forms of professional service to promote diversity and inclusion in the discipline. I co-chaired the Diversity and Inclusion Committee of the American Society of Criminology's Division of Women and Crime (DWC) as part of this work. I am honored to have received the 2021 Sarah Hall Award, which recognizes outstanding service contributions to the DWC and professional interests regarding feminist criminology and women and crime. Finally, I have also worked on several applied research projects, including evaluation studies in New York City.

My research has appeared in The British Journal of Criminology, Punishment & Society, The Journal of Trauma, Violence & Abuse, Violence Against Women, The Journal of Interpersonal Violence, and other scholarly outlets. I am grateful for the financial support of The National Institute on Drug Abuse, The National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, The RISM Landes Foundation, and the American Association of University Women.