Bio

Andres F. Rengifo, Ph.D is a Professor in the School of Criminal Justice, Rutgers University – Newark. His research explores how crime and crime control are shaped by social factors and institutions, and how the “practice” of justice, social control, and punishment amplify some forms of inequality and create new systems of stratification. His collaborative work on race, neighborhood crime, and corrections/policing reform has appeared in leading journals such as Criminology, Justice Quarterly, and Evaluation Review, among others. Andres has also helped leverage policy change  domestically and abroad as affiliated researcher on topics such police stops, prisoner reentry, and drug treatment at the Vera Institute of Justice and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. His current research focuses on the operation of first-appearance/arraignment courts in ten jurisdictions in the United States and Latin America (Colombia, Mexico and Argentina). More specifically, he draws on the direct observation of 1,600+ cases to document how justifications of punishment and rehabilitation by courtroom actors vary across cases and contexts, and how these discourses and debates relate to key dimensions of procedural justice and decisions about charging and bail/pre-trial detention.

Recent & Key Publications

Rengifo, A. F., & Slocum, L.  (2020).   The identity prism: How racial identification frames perceptions of police contact, legitimacy and effectiveness. Law & Social Inquiry.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/law-and-social-inquiry/article/identity-prism-how-racial-identification-frames-perceptions-of-police-contact-legitimacy-and-effectiveness/B9EC8816028004BB7167CF51B8584605

Rengifo, A. F., & Marmolejo, L. (2020). From action to representation: Indicators of defense performance in a sample of pretrial hearings in Colombia. [in Spanish]. Latin American Law Review, No. 04, 1-23.

Rengifo, A. F., Rouzbahani, D., & Peirce, J. (2020). Court interpreters and the political economy of punishment in three arraignment courts. Law & Policy.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/lapo.12151

Rengifo, A. F.,  & DeWitt, S. (2019).  Incarceration and personal networks. Unpacking meanings and measures of tie strength. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 35, 393-431.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10940-018-9391-z

Rengifo, A.F., Slocum, L.A., & Chillar, V.(2019). From impressions to intentions.  Direct and indirect effects of police contact on willingness to report crimes to law enforcement.  Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 56, 412-450.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022427818817338

Rengifo, A.F., Avila, L. (*), Juan D. Gélvez, J.D.,  Ramírez, L., and Mora, P. (2019). Judicial treatment and pre-trial detention in a sample of arraignment hearings in Bogotá and Cali.  Cuadernos de Economia, 38, 581-608.

Rengifo, A.F., Stemen, D., & Amindon, E. (2017).  When policy comes to town.  Discourses and dilemmas of implementation of a statewide reentry program in Kansas.  Criminology, 55, 603-630.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1745-9125.12146

Rengifo, A.F., & Pater, M.  (2017).  Close call: Race and gender in encounters with the Police by Black and Latino/a youth in New York City. Sociological Inquiry, 87, 337-361.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/soin.12166

Rengifo, A.F. (2017).  Local agendas meet global dilemmas: Publicly-engaged criminology in a testing world. The Criminologist, 42, 1-6.
https://www.asc41.com/Criminologist/2017/ASC-Criminologist-2017-11.pdf

Rengifo, A.F., & McCallin, M. (2017) “You don’t get respect if you give no respect.”  How Black and Latino youth make sense of encounters with police. Sociological Focus, 50, 66-80.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00380237.2016.1218218

Rengifo, A.F., & Slocum, L. (2016). Community responses to “stop-and-frisk” in New York City: Conceptualizing local conditions and correlates. Criminal Justice Policy Review, 27, 723-746.
http://bit.ly/1CUA3F3

Rengifo, A.F., Von Lampe, K., Kurti, M., & Johnson, J. (2016). “I wouldn’t take my chances on the street”: Navigating illegal cigarette purchases in the South Bronx.  Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 53, 654-680.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022427816637888

Rengifo, A.F., & Fowler, K.  (2016)  Stop, question and complain: An analysis of the quality of police interaction and public perception over time & across space. Journal of Urban Health, 93, 32-41.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4824691/