Garrick Percival

Professor

Department of Political Science

Current Research Activities

My research is primarily interested the nexus between crime policy, racial politics, and inequality at state and local levels of government.  How do state and local actors and institutions shape the decision impose criminal sanctions?  How do public attitudes about race and ethnicity shape our capacity to reform our broken American criminal justice system?

Research Connections to Current Events

Broadly speaking,  work provides insight into how politics and political institutions shape policy decisions  made at the state and local levels of government.  In California, my work investigates how political forces and institutions shape the state's capacity to shrink the size of the our prison population.  Finding ways to reduce imprisonment will contribute to greater racial and ethnic equality in California.

Keywords

state and local government, crime policy and politics, public policy, American politics