FOCUS
The U.S. carceral system devastates the health and well-being of our most vulnerable communities, disproportionately placing them on a tortuous path toward premature death. Restorative justice, which addresses harm and conflict through community dialogue and other nonpunitive, care-based means, offers a promising alternative to the U.S. carceral system. Monica’s research seeks to examine—and, ultimately, strengthen—the promise and potential of restorative justice programming. Through ethnographic research and semistructured interviews of California restorative justice programs, Monica will assess which factors optimize or constrain program efficacy for marginalized communities. In conducting this research, Monica’s ultimate goals are deeply interdisciplinary and justice-oriented: She aims to channel her background in legal and policy advocacy to bring this sociolegal research to bear on improving the implementation of restorative justice programs in California, the U.S., and beyond.
MORE ABOUT MONICA
As a sociolegal scholar committed to a “scholarship at the margins” praxis, Monica dreams of co-architecting a healthier, more equitable world—a world where the structures and systems in which we live and love are resplendently life-affirming for all. Monica carries the matrilineage of movers, shakers, and makers from which she hails in this work.
