Regents Professor and Martindale Chair in Sociology and Law at the University of Minnesota Dr. Christopher Uggen will provide this year’s Talarico Lecture.

Contemporary criminology offers compelling evidence that the distinction between “criminal” and “non-criminal” is largely a matter of time. Yet crime discourse and policy remain rooted in the notion of criminality as an immutable individual characteristic. This talk contrasts the fluidity in criminal behavior with the growing stickiness of public labels, drawing from experimental studies of criminal records on work and school outcomes, demographic analysis of changes in the population bearing such records, and their spillover effects on health care and other institutions.

Chris Uggen studies crime, law, and justice, and is firm in the belief that sound research can help build a more just and peaceful world. With Jeff Manza, he wrote Locked Out: Felon Disenfranchisement and American Democracy, and his writing on felon voting, work and crime, and harassment and discrimination is frequently cited in media such as the New York Times, The Economist, and NPR. Current projects include a comparative study of reentry from different types of institutions, sexual harassment and employment discrimination, crime and justice after genocide, monetary sanctions, and the health effects of incarceration.