Vera Institute of Justice

In this talk, Professor Laura Abrams, PhD, will present select findings from her latest book Everyday Desistance: The Transition to Adulthood Among Formerly Incarcerated Youth. This work, based on the stories of 25 formerly incarcerated young adults (ages 18-24), is set in Los Angeles County, where severe race and class disparities contextualize the experience of confrontations with law enforcement, incarceration, and reentry. Dr. Abrams will hone in on formerly incarcerated young men and women’s stories of navigating jobs, schooling, and housing on the pathway toward adulthood and independence. She will share the ordinary triumphs and hurdles that these young people navigate simply to make ends meet. Policies and practices to better address the needs of formerly incarcerated youth will be discussed.

Dr. Laura S. Abrams is a professor of social welfare at UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Her ethnographic scholarship has focused on the experiences of youth in the juvenile justice system and in the transition to adulthood. Currently she is also pursuing policy research in the area of juvenile justice reform, which incorporates cross-national comparative studies. Dr. Abrams has served as an expert witness for capital cases and has provided expert testimony regarding solitary confinement, standards of care in correctional facilities, and community reintegration. She is the author of Compassionate Confinement: A Year in the Life of Unit C (2013, Rutgers University Press) and Everyday Desistance: The Transition to Adulthood Among Formerly Incarcerated Youth (2017, Rutgers University Press) and is the lead editor of the volume: The Voluntary Sector in Prisons: Encouraging Personal and Institutional Change (2016, Palgrave).