I grew up in a small town as a part of a tightly-knit, conservative Christian community.  Early on, I remember asking questions about why particular practices and belief systems existed.  For example, I wanted to know why women were forbidden from taking leadership positions in the church.  And I wanted to know why our tradition believed that every other tradition (including other conservative protestant groups) was wrong. For much of my life, I sought to answer these questions within a Christian framework, and I eventually went to Divinity School in search of answers.  But even with a graduate degree in theology, I still did not have the answers I was seeking.  Instead, I finally began to make sense of the world around me when I turned to sociology.

I was attracted to the field of sociology because this perspective enabled me to see the world as socially constructed through interaction.  I could finally see that the rules I had grown up with were created by a group of people who sought to preserve an old way of life (when men and women had very specific roles) and to create clear boundaries between who belonged in the group and who did not.  I think it is no accident that I focused my training in sociology on understanding how social rules are created, maintained and challenged. 

I bring these themes to my courses in the area of crime, law and deviance.  I regularly teach Definitions of Normality, Sociology of Crime, Drugs & Society, Law & Society, and Critical Criminology.