Kate K. O'Neill, PhD
Kate is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington as part of the Collective to Study the Broad Reach and Burden of Monetary Sanctions. Her award-winning work has appeared in publications representative of her interdisciplinary focus, including Feminist Criminology, the Sociology of Race & Ethnicity, Deviant Behavior, and social psychology textbooks. Her recent work on the community-level consequences of monetary sanctions has been published by the Russell Sage Foundation and featured in the Seattle Times.
Kate is a quantiative researcher whose body of work covers crime, criminal justice, pathways to crime, and the reproduction of inequalities. Specific areas of interest include behavioral and cognitive development in adolescence, group processes and delinquency, race, sex, and gender inequalities in crime and criminal legal contact, and monetary sanctions.
RESEARCH
ONGOING PROJECTS AND PAPERS
The Consequences of Mixed-Sex Peer Groups
PhD Dissertation (Dr. Ross L. Matsueda, chair)
A three chapter dissertation on long-term continuities in behavior and preference as predicted by the sex composition of childhood and adolescent peer groups. Using longitudinal data, this project examines how timing of entrance and time spent in same- versus mixed-sex peer groups throughout the life course influences delinquency; offending; and early-career choices among young adults.
Space, Race, Gender, and Legal Debt
Ongoing Research Project (Dr. Alexes Harris, PI)
This work-in-progress examines how race and gender dynamics intersect to produce spatial patterns in the disbursement of monetary sanctions and the incarceration, surveillance, and policing of women. I combine insight from my work on how and why county dependence on monetary sanctions as a source of revenue is especially injurious for women and how legal debt reproduces poverty in race-class subjugated neighborhoods to better understand the scope of women's legal financial burden.
Girls in Gangs Online
Working Paper (Dr. John Leverso, co-author)
This research uses restricted Facebook data from gang-affiliated groups and accounts to examine how girls and women reproduce and challenge gang culture and dynamics. We examine the role of women and girls as both passive instruments used by male gang members to reinforce masculine gang identities, and as self-aware actors who police the boundaries of gang womanhood.
MEDIA
Recent features on my public-facing research
Counties That Rely on the Courts for Revenue Sentence More Women to Incarceration
by Kim Eckart
Op-ed: Lift the Burden of Legal Fines and Fees
by Kate K. O'Neill, Alexes Harris, & Ian Kennedy
Crime, Empathy, and the Adolescent Experience
by Gwendolyn Price
TEACHING
Whether it's teaching anger management to men convicted of domestic violence, a new business process to Pentagon staffers, or sociological theory to undergraduates, I have always felt at home in the classroom. I believe everyone benefits when we create inclusive, challenging spaces for teaching and learning, and I proudly adhere to that philosophy in developing every lecture, training, discussion, and activity that makes it into my classroom.
Check out some of my sample materials, below, or contact me with requests for a full teaching résumé, teaching statements, or additional course materials.
Sample Syllabi
Click these links to download recent syllabi
CONTACT
Follow me on Twitter or send me an email
