Katherine Beckett

Katherine Beckett is Professor in the Department of Law, Societies, and Justice and S. Frank Miyamoto Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington. She is also a faculty associate and steering committee member of the University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights and West Coast Poverty Center faculty affiliate.

Her research analyzes the causes and consequences of mass incarceration and associated policies, including the role of race in drug law enforcement and the administration of the death penalty in Washington State and the proliferation of long and life sentences. She is the author of numerous articles and books on these topics, with her most recent book, Ending Mass Incarceration, published by Oxford University Press in 2022. 

She has worked closely with a wide array of civic organizations and non-profits, including the Public Defender Association, Collective Justice, the Concerned Lifer's Organization, the Black Prisoner’s Caucus, the ACLU of Washington, Look2Justice, and the Seattle Clemency Project. Her collaborations with these groups have led to notable changes in policy and practice, including the adoption of pre-booking diversion for drug and other charges in Seattle and the abolition of the death penalty in Washington in 2018.

Her work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, Allen Family Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Washington State Minority & Justice Commission, the Open Society Foundations, and others. She has received numerous awards for her research, teaching, and service work, including the University of Washington’s Public Service Award and the Consortium of Social Science’s Public Service Award. In 2019, she was honored to win the ACLU’s Dorsen Presidential Prize for lifetime contributions to civil liberties and civil rights for her work on capital punishment in Washington State.