Nikki Jones, a professor of African American studies at the University of California, Berkeley, has won the 2020 Michael J. Hindelang Award from the American Society of Criminology. The award recognizes a book published within the past three years that makes the most outstanding contribution to research in criminology.
Professor Jones was honored for her book The Chosen Ones: Black Men and the Politics of Redemption (University of California Press, 2018). According to the American Journal of Sociology, “The Chosen Ones is theoretically astute, methodologically sound and empirically rich, and a model of what ethical, ethnographic research should look like in urban sociology.”
“It’s an honor to receive the award and to be recognized by a community of my peers for my scholarly contribution to the discipline,” said Professor Jones
Professor Jones is currently working on analyzing videotaped “routine” encounters between police and civilians, most notably the frequent encounters between police and young Black men. Her next book will examine how men with criminal histories from neighborhoods in San Francisco affect their lives and neighborhoods.
Dr. Jones joined the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley in 2013. Earlier, she served in the department of sociology faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara from 2004 to 2013. She earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in sociology and criminology from the University of Pennsylvania.
