Pretrial Detention Project

PI: Kimberly M. Rhoten (Esq.) (they/them/theirs), PhD Candidate, Department of Sociology, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
Co-PI: Jessica T. Simes (she/her/hers), Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, College of Arts & Sciences

The in-holding pre-trial population is largely under-represented, under-resourced, and understudied within academic penal studies (Anderson, Cochran, & Montes, 2021). Though pretrial detention is common (nearly half a million people are currently in pretrial detention today in the United States) and becoming increasingly more so over the last several decades, little is qualitatively understood about how pretrial detainees experience this detention and their removal from their family, friends, communities, and their lives.

Kimberly M. Rhoten will conduct a qualitative study of pretrial detainees’ and sentenced inmates’ experiences of incarceration at two local correctional facilities, comparing the differences and similarities in their experiences within incarceration as well as their planning efforts for release and reentry. Further, this research is invested in understanding the meaning-making work undergone by detainees, who make tangible and intangible efforts towards understanding their unconvicted detention, life within the carceral system, and their futures. For example, why do detainees believe they are being detained? How much do they know or not know about the system that is holding them, the general processes of detention and conviction, and the acute trajectory of their own cases? Do they believe their personal pretrial detention is justified? What about the general use of the practice? And lastly, what do they imagine would occur if they were suddenly released or, in the alternative, never detained at all? Lastly, this project is invested in meaningful problem-solving sociology with a focus on policy implications at the local level and beyond.

See more of our 2022 Early Stage Urban Research award recipients here!