Professor Sykes is currently collaborating on four projects. The first project assesses how mass incarceration has affected measures of social inequality and demographic processes (fertility, mortality, nuptiality, enumeration, and morbidity) among subpopulations with the highest risk of criminal justice contact in America, which has led to the development of new demographic methods for multiple-partner fertility; new statistical methods for estimating mortality in differential population environments; and new sampling weights for national surveys that exclude marginal populations. The second project — how national, regional, and global patterns of mortality, morbidity, and injuries have changed over time — is in collaboration with an international consortium of researchers through the Institute of Health Metrics & Evaluation's Global Burden of Disease research agenda. Third, he is leading a $1.61M research study — a randomized control trial (RCT) or field experiment — in six California counties, exploring the effects of economic, socioeconomic, and informational inequality on court-order compliance in rehabilitation program completion, as a study of monetary sanctions and hidden financial punishments in the criminal legal system (see Shadow Costs for more details). The last project explores the limits of mixed-methods, or dual design studies, in social science research. Learn more about his research agenda below.
Research Agenda
Mass Incarceration & Social Inequality
How has mass incarceration affected national measurements of social inequality over time?
How is mass incarceration associated with demographic processes (fertility, mortality, and morbidity) among subpopulations with the highest risk of criminal justice contact in America?
What are the consequences of having a family member incarcerated?
How have jails, as hidden institutions, affected people’s ability to comply with court-ordered rehabilitation?
Global, Regional, and National Population Health
How have national, regional, and global patterns of fertility, mortality, morbidity, and injuries changed over time?
How are disparities in these population processes spatially and demographically concentrated?
Monetary Sanctions, Statutory Law, and Legal Institutions
How do monetary sanctions (fines, fees, court costs, penalties, and other financial punishments) affect people ensnared in the criminal legal system?
What do judges, public defenders, district attorneys, and policymakers think about these financial punishments?
What are the hidden (or shadow) costs imposed on criminal defendants and probationers at the time of their sentencing or criminal plea deals, and what do we know about these hidden forms of financial punishment? (Please see the Shadow Costs research project website for more information.)
What are the effects of economic, socioeconomic, and information inequality on compliance with court-ordered rehabilitation? (Please see the Shadow Costs research project website for more information.)
What are the statutory forms of legal hybridity (criminal-civil and civil-criminal financial punishments) embedded in law, and how do their inscription in legal corpora affect observed levels of social inequality?
Theoretical & Empirical Inquiries into Mixed-Methods Research
What are the epistemological tenants and ontological foundations of hybridizing distinct quantitative and qualitative methods into a research alloy, metallurgically known as mixed-methods?
Do some forms of mixed-methods outperform others — and how would researchers know?
What are the alchemic promises and synergistic perils of mixing distinct methods?
Research Reflections
My research focuses on institutions and social inequality. The four research areas above (and the projects described therein) detail the many ways institutions create, maintain, and reproduce socioeconomic inequality, and the methods social scientists use to document these inequities and disparities. Individually, these bodies of work demonstrate the many facets of institutional inequality in the lives of disadvantaged men, women, and children. Collectively, my research agenda seeks to uncover new insights into the changing and persistent nature of poverty and social inequality in America and abroad.