Kitty Calavita
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Kitty C. Calavita is an American criminologist, focusing on sociology of law, criminology, immigration, criminal justice and inequality. Her research has spanned five books, many articles focusing on national and international social reform and police reform for the city of Berkeley, California.[1][2]
Calavita is a Chancellor's Professor Emerita at University of California, Irvine, an Elected Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, former Police Reform Commission chair and former board member of Berkeley's Police Accountability Board. [1][2][3]
Her first book, "Inside the State: The Bracero Program, Immigration and the INS." (1992) analyzed Mexican labor in the United States after World War II. The book explores the Bracero Program where Calavita identifies why it did not succeed.[1]
Calavita's second book in 1997 was co-authored by Henry Pontell and Robert Tillman called "Big Money Crime: Fraud and Politics in Savings and Loan Crisis." This book examines the financial crisis of the 1980s and went on to win the Albert Reiss Jr. Award for Distinguished Scholarship from the American Sociological Association's Crime, Law and Deviance section.[1]
"Immigrants at the Margins: Law, Race and Exclusion in Southern Europe" published in 2005 and is Calavita's third book. The book investigates how laws in Spain and Italy exploit immigrant workers while trying to stress integration. Calavita concludes that these laws oppose each other and that is reflected in the political economy of the countries. [1]
The fourth and Calavita's second solo book, "Invitation to Law and Society: An Introduction to the Study of Real Law" published in 2010.[4] This book helped simplify what it means to be a criminologist and how law interacts with more than the judicial system and into the institutional structure of people's lives. It also dives into law's role in making social change in the United States.[1]
Calavita's fifth book, "Appealing to Justice: Prisoner Grievances, Rights and Carceral Logic" published in 2015 studies the daily life inside California prisons.[1]
