Dr. John Brent Awarded Graduate Research Funding

Dr. John Brent was recently selected by the EKU Graduate Council’s Student Affairs Committee to receive up to $500.00 in graduate research assistance funding based on his current research. Dr. Brent is conducting research on the punitive shift in juvenile justice that leads to the increased criminalization of young people. 

As argued by Dr. Brent, "The last forty years have born witness to large-scale shifts in how the United States defines, responds to, and sanctions criminal activity. In place of dismantled welfare politics, the criminal justice system has undergone a penal turn, ushering in more punitive forms of crime control in the form of exclusionary and carceral initiatives. These trends, however, are not limited to the adult justice system. Juvenile justice has also experienced a punitive shift with many noting the “criminalization of juvenile justice.” Though garnering initial support, these practices negatively impact youths’ educational outcomes, employment prospects, financial success, social mobility, and familial stability – all factors that increase future criminal involvement. Few studies have examined how the administration of juvenile justice varies by geographical setting, or what some term “justice by geography”". 

Dr. Brent's research considers how the social structure of places impact youth outcomes and governance by examining “at-risk” youths’ interactions and experiences with mechanisms of control. Overall, his research takes a multilevel approach to better understand how varying factors impact young people’s “risk and responsivity” that are so often abstracted in quantitative “risk” and “needs” assessments.