Vera Institute of Justice

Dr. Shedd will present primary findings from her study of several NYC juvenile delinquency courtrooms that use standardized court observation instruments, ethnography, interviews, and court file data to capture myriad social factors that impact young people’s legal outcomes. This work addresses several limitations in the extant literature by moving beyond micro-level analyses of juvenile justice system contact to better understand the larger nexus of state-based interventions in the lives of urban youth.

Carla Shedd is assistant professor of sociology and African American studies at Columbia University. Shedd received her PhD in sociology from Northwestern University. Her research and teaching interests focus on crime and criminal justice race and ethnicity, law and society, social inequality, and urban sociology. Shedd has been published in the American Sociological Review, Sociological Methods & Research and she has also received fellowships from the Russell Sage Foundation and the Ford Foundation. Shedd’s first book, Adolescent Geographies: Race, Urban Schools, & Perceptions of Injustice (anticipated Fall 2015), examines Chicago public school students’ perceptions of injustice and their contact with the criminal justice system. Shedd’s current research focuses on New York City investigating how young people’s linked institutional experiences influence their placement on and movement along the carceral continuum. This new research captures myriad social factors that shape young people’s legal outcomes in one of the most important legal jurisdictions in our nation.